Quantum Physics Basics 1

    Quantum physics (sometimes called quantum mechanics), is the branch of physics that explains how the invisible particles that make up matter behave and the forces with which they interact.

   Accordingly, its venue is in the realm of sub-atomic particles that cannot be seen with the naked eye. Quantum physics is the modern explanation for how atoms work, and why chemistry and biology function as they do. From quantum mechanics, we learn how electrons move through a computer chip, how photons of light get turned into electrical current in a solar panel or amplify themselves in a laser, or how the sun keeps burning.

   Although modern scientists can learn a great deal from quantum physics, it can also—and often does—give them huge headaches. For instance, there is no single quantum theory, which means scientists have had to innovate and adapt in order to alleviate their headaches.

   In the 1920s, Niels Bohr, Werner Heisenberg, Erwin Schrödinger, and others developed quantum mechanics, the basic mathematical framework that underpins (theoretical) quantum physics. It characterizes simple things such as how the position or momentum of a single particle or group of few particles changes over time. But to understand how things actually work in what I prefer to call the “apparent world”—in opposition to what others might call the “real world”—quantum mechanics must be combined with Albert Einstein’s special theory of relativity.

   Einstein’s theory explains what happens when things move very rapidly, and it is his special theory of relatively, combined with quantum physics, that gives quantum physicists the ability to create quantum field theories that alleviate at least some of their headaches.

   There are actually five fundamental forces that govern everything in the universe: 1) Spirit; 2) gravity; 3) the weak force; 4) electromagnetism; and 5) the strong force. Physical sciences are concerned with the last four of these, while three quantum field theories have been able to grapple only with three of these.

   Three different quantum field theories have carved out three of the five fundamental forces by which matter interacts: electro-magnetism (which explains how atoms hold together); the strong nuclear force (which explains the stability of the nucleus at the heart of the atom); and the weak nuclear force (which explains why some atoms undergo radioactive decay).