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The Wonderful World of Science
In cosmology and quantum physics many new concepts are being discussed. String theory is now in vogue. Could particles or quanta be vibrating strings and could different rates of vibration create different qualities of matter? Are there invisible coexisting dimensions of space? Is reality an image or construct created through imbedded wave patterns? One theory describes the universe as a giant hologram: the whole contained in all of the parts.
Computers are increasing human knowledge at an exponential rate. Images from the Hubble Space Telescope have been invaluable to our understanding of space and they are breathtakingly beautiful. Systems theory investigates how the universe organizes itself. Looking holistically, interconnected patterns are revealed. This is in contrast to traditional scientific methods which gathered information by breaking things down into their separate parts.
Books, magazines, television shows, organizations, conferences, art shows, on-line discussions groups, and symposiums are bringing this knowledge to us. No longer are the new ideas of science only known to a few. Now we can share in the excitement of discovery and let it feed our imaginations and fuel our creative thinking.
A few basic highlights of quantum theory:
Quanta are energy packets: bits of energy that are
both a particle and a wave.
Waves and particles
Everything is made of these little bits of energy. The famous experiment that proved the dual nature of quanta is called the double slit experiment. This experiment was set up so that particles were emitted from one source and projected toward a partition with two slits. The particles were expected to go through one of the slits and hit a screen behind the partition. After the experiment, they found that the particles had gone through both slits at the same time! Surprisingly an interference pattern appeared on the back screen, indicating that the particles must have gone through the slits as waves.
In a second experiment, the researchers closely observed the process from beginning to end to determine exactly how the particles moved. It produced an entirely different and unexpected result. This time the particles moved through a single slit, without changing to waves. The resulting pattern appeared like tiny bullets penetrating a single slit. Simply by watching, they had changed the result.
Interference patterns show the way waves affect each other when they interact. When two wave crests coincide, they reinforce each other and become stronger. When a crest and a trough interact, they cancel each other out.
In the book Quantum Evolution, author J. McFadden writes: "The experiment with two holes(slits) reveals the wave-particle duality of both matter and radiation. Photons may be emitted as particles, they may be detected as particles, but when unwatched, they travel through space as waves."
Quantum superposition
When the quanta is in a particle state, it exists as a point in space with a specific location - what we normally think of as an object in space. When the quanta is in a wave state, it spreads out over a large area like a wave in a pond or ocean. But the wave, incredibly, contains all possible states that the particle could become. This does not make sense to our rational minds but it is what is actually happening. This wave state in quantum mechanics is known as quantum superposition.
Entanglement
Entanglement is a term used in quantum theory to describe how particles correlate with other particles. They affect each other. This happens no matter how far apart they are. This means that particles, separated by incredible distances, interact with each other immediately in a communication that is not limited to the speed of light. This has been demonstrated through repeated experiments. Non-local correspondence shows us that everything is literally connected to everything else. At the moment of the Big Bang, all particle/waves interacted with each other. Much current research is focusing on how to harness the potential of entanglement in developing systems for quantum computing.
Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle
Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle is a primary component of quantum mechanics. It postulates that simultaneous measurements of the position and velocity of particles cannot be measured with perfect accuracy. This means that no one can predict precisely the future behavior of a particle since it is impossible to measure a particle's exact current state. This principle does not simply state that scientists lack the proper equipment to measure positions and velocities. Instead, the very process of performing the measurement changes those qualities.
David Bohm, a renowned quantum physicist said,
"......the world cannot be analyzed correctly into distinct parts; instead, it must be regarded as an indivisible unit in which separate parts appear as valid approximations only in the classical (ie Newtonian) limit...Thus, at the quantum level of accuracy, an object does not have intrinsic properties (for instance, wave or particle) belonging to itself alone; instead, it shares all its properties mutually and indivisibly with the systems with which it interacts. Moreover, because a given object, such as an electron, interacts at different times with different systems that bring out different potentialities, it undergoes....continual transformation between the various forms (for instance, wave and particle form) in which it can manifest itself."
David Bohm
in Quantum Theory,
(Prentice-Hall, New Jersey, 1958).
For more info:
Below are listed some sources. Many more exist. If you would like to suggest any book or website to me, please email me through the correspondence page.
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