Common Sense Quantum Physics
- From: Materion <materion@xxxxxxx>
- Date: Sun, 23 Dec 2007 08:16:55 -0800 (PST)
Quantum Physics is generally presented as a weird, non intuitive field
of Physics. The domain of application is however that of the simplest
systems: discrete particles evolving in a carefully controlled
environment. Such systems therefore obey the most fundamental laws of
physics. And who says "fundamental" says: simple, intuitive, common
sense, natural... My conviction is that quantum laws are the simplest
way to express how nature behaves. Or said otherwise: quantum physics
is intuitive, with respect to classical physics that is artificially
constructed. In order to see this, we must however approach Quantum
Physics in a perspective that remains unexplored. Rather than to try
to link it to classical and relativistic physics, we ought to take a
more direct way.
I love the way Feynman presents Quantum Physics. In his renowned
public lecture QED: The Stange Theory of Light and Matter (1985), he
says: You will have to brace yourselves for this - not because it is
difficult to understand, but because it is absolutely ridiculous: All
we do is draw little arrows on a piece of paper - that's all! That's
the essence of Quantum Physics: arrows. Mathematicians call arrows
vectors, and there are very advanced, abstract ways to describe
operations on such objects. But the mathematical artillery must not
hide the fact that physically, we are handling with very simple
objects: objects that are alike arrows, or rods, or needles, or
ballpens, or baseball bats.
A child knows intuitively how such objects behave. Tintin's cartoon
"Ottocar's scepter" shows a comic situation, in which the clue
consists of correctly inferring how such an object could pass through
a grid. In order to make sense of Quantum Physics, we'll have to brace
ourselves for this: all we do is draw little arrows. So how could
arrows help us to grasp the essence of Quantum Physics? The first
thing is maybe to re-read Feynman's QED, or just visioning its 4 QED
public lectures: http://vega.org.uk/video/subseries/8. Than just think
about it.
There is not simpler a particle than a photon (apart maybe of a
neutrino which is experimentally equivalent to a photon with zero
frequency):
-it has no inertia, its departing velocity with respect to the emitter
is always the same (provided it does not find obstacles on its way),
-it has a very simple polarization, when correctly oriented, it passes
through a wire grid,
-when constrained between two limits, its frequency may take only
discrete values,
-many photons with the same polarization may be beamed together,
-in the quantum ocean of other quantum particles (essentially other
photons or neutrinos), one photon creates and interacts (we say
interfers) with the wave it generates in that ocean (physicist speak
of a field).
Such a particle may be represented by a rotating arrow whose
rotational plane has a constant orientation between two obstacles.
This common sense way of interpreting Quantum Mechanics is explored at
Wikiversity/Making_Sense_of_Quantum_Mechanics.
Retrieved from http://commonsensequantum.blogspot.com.
Best greetings,
Arjen Dijksman
.
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