QUANTUM PHYSICS

WAVE PARTICLE DUALITY

• l. "God does not roll the dice with the universe!", this was Albert Einstein famous quote. He was referring to quantum physics. Einstein spent the last part of his life working on quantum physics and concluded it was all nonsense. He was wrong. But today we still know little of the physics of quantum mechanics.
• 2. Quantum physics deals with the behavior of sub atomic particles(particles smaller than atoms). But they are very difficult to view or study. The simple act of viewing them changes their state. Imagine you wanted to study catalog the exact position of every molecule in a pool of water. You would have to put some sort of sensor into the water to view the molecule positions. Once you would disturbed the molecules and they would move. Even if you let the water come back to a state of rest, the original positions of the molecules would be lost to you forever. This is the same for quantum particles. This is way we know so little about them.
• 3. If this were the only problem we might stand a chance of solving its mysteries in the near future. But sadly it is but one of many. In one famous experiment a physicist split a photon (a particle of light) into two parts. Both of these particles had a positive charge. He sent one particle on a path we will call path A and the other on a path we will call path B. He then changed to charge of the particle on path A to a negative charge. The particle on path B changed its charge to match the particle's charge on path A all by it's self! How do quantum particle do this, no one knows. The distant between the particles has on effect on this phenomenon. He change is near instantaneous no matter how far apart they are! Yes, this means the quantum particles enjoy faster then light communication! This discovery knocks the quantum physics community "on its ass". They have been tiring to get up every since.
• 4. One theory suggests that the charge of particle B, mentioned above, will not change until someone tries to view it. In fact it goes so far as to say, if you changed the charge of particle A, particle B would not change until you looked at it. Even if you didn’t look at it for 10 years! Ten years or 10000 years, it would not matter. The act of viewing the particle changes it.
• 5. I am sure most of you have heard the term "quantum leap". Quantum particle don’t always move from place to place or state-to-state, they sometimes jump. That is to say they move from point A to point B without traveling across the distances between them! In the same experiment mentioned above, a barrier was placed in the path of a quantum particle moving along a path we will is call X. The start point we will call Y and the finish point we will call Z. The speed of the particle was measured without the barrier in its path. It moved from point Y to point Z along path X at the speed of light. Next the speed was measured with a lead brick along path X and then it was measured to has moved from point Y to point Z along point X at 1 1/2 times the speed of light and was never detected moving though the lead brick! It just "jumped" to the point Z because it knew the barrier was in the way! How does it know, we may never know.
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