This word, Quantum Physics, I do not think it means what you think it means.
I mean, c’mon people, if you haven’t sat down with pen and paper to think about “quantum theory” then please just stop using these words. This isn’t some “crystal shit” or “new-agey hocus pocus”, it’s a real science with real people working out real problems with it.
Sorry, had to get that out. JoDee and I just watched “What the *bleep* do we know”, and while I admire the actual scientists who understand what this “Quantum Physics” is, I think the producers of the film used it as a synonym for another word that has lost all meaning in the mainstream parlance: “probability”.
My favorite one-liner about quantum is this:
The dark adapted eye can detect a single photon (which is a quark).
So, while quantum physics is counter intuitive, and outside your normal, every day experience, it’s also something that you can see, as part of every day life.
You’d expect that light is really simple. But the greatest minds of our time have added something to the study of it.
Aristotle investigated color mixtures, by passing daylight through blue colored glass and yellow colored glass to produce a green patch on a white marble wall.
Newton investigated this further with prisms, showing that sun light can be split into the full rainbow, then recombined into white light.
Einstein’s photo electric effect paper showed that light striking a semiconductor can produce electricity. This won him the Nobel prize, and launched quantum mechanics.
Additionally, there is polarization, the speed of light, the monoton pulse, coherence, lasing, refraction, the wave/particle duality, Cherenkov Radiation, entangled photon pairs, and probably a dozen other aspects of light i’ve omitted. Quantum is like that, only more so.
If you’re interested, it’s waiting for you. Check out:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electromagnetic_radiation