It seems that Individ has one of my own "bad habits:" he occasionally posts on a purely scientific topic with no political, economic, or social overtones (well, not obvious ones), just for the fun of it.
This time, he shows us how he can take a subject so complex and "weird" that even one of its brightest, most recent stars, Richard Feynman, famously claimed that no one understands it—namely, quantum mechanics—simplify it, remove all the math (not easy to do), and explain a few basics in a well-written, easy-to-read manner. At least I thought he certainly did.
This time it's More Atoms, and he begins with the standard "planetary" model of atomic structure taught to most of us in grade school, complete with electrons whizzing around a nucleus (or should I say "noo-kyoo-lus"? sigh...sorry) like planets orbiting the sun. Remember all those atomic mobiles we made out of wire coat hangers (that we plied from our mothers) and painted styrofoam balls, proudly displayed dangling atomically from the ceilings in our classrooms? But of course in grade school—heck, even in high school—they don't tell you the whole story, expecially the good stuff.
But now the story gets weird. See how I put "orbiting" in quotes? That's because the electron does not quite 'orbit'. You see, when STUFF is that small, the "pieces" are not exactly particles: peas and poppy seeds are particles; electrons, protons and even atoms are not quite like little seeds or peas - they are somewhat like particles, and somewhat not.
Stay with me now.
When you throw a rock into a pond, you make ripples. Those ripples represent the propagation of energy through the water by way of a WAVE. Well, physicists like to say that electrons, protons, and even individual atoms are kind of particle-like AND kind of wave like, all at the same time. The distinction is that a particle is localized in space at a particular SPOT, but a wave is kinda spread out, kind of like motion itself.
"Like motion itself." I don't think I've ever heard it put quite like that.
Further these two characteristics are on a type of sliding scale: the more you want to try to describe an electron as a particle, that is, the more certainty you want about exactly where an electron is, the less you will know about its wave like, or motion-like properties. This is the basis of the mysterious-sounding Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle.
(WARNING—MATH ALERT—Do not panic. Do not abandon ship. Stand down from red alert and lower shields. Wesley, go to your room quarters. It's only a division problem, and barely even qualifies as algebra.)
In fact, in 1924 de Broglie claimed that all matter, not just atomic particles, exhibits wave-like properties and obeys the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle, but this equation shows the reason why no one, such as Isaac Newton, had ever noticed this before. Wavelength = Planck's constant (6.626 x 10-34 Joule-seconds) divided by momentum.
The issue of just what Planck's constant is should be saved for another post. For now, just understand that it is really really really tiny, even in the world of atomic particles. This makes the wavelength of, say, a baseball, so short as to be smaller even than atomic particles themselves. We therefore never notice the baseball's wave-like properties, and their effects are almost unmeasurably tiny and inconsequential. On the other hand, the wavelengths of atomic particles are relatively large compared to the sizes of the particles themselves, and are therefore much more than merely noticeable—they cause some really bizarre things to happen.
Individ also links to a short but excellent Quantum Primer that will take you a bit further, if you like, which in turn links to an equally excellent primer on Special Relativity. There's math there, but, never fear, as there are also lots of drawings, diagrams and plain-English explanations.
Gosh, I love this stuff. And we sure as everything need a break from political madness once in a while lest we go mad ourselves.
document.getElementById('clustrMapsLink').href='http://clustrmaps.com/'">
What am I doing on a Geek Blog? hahahahaha.... OH, I know! So happens the Geeksters on this blog are really nice and go out of their way to explain stuff - 'specially when it's stuff they don't agree with. Sigh... that doesn't help me. The quarks that wiggle and spin in my math brain are wiggling and spinning their counter-quarks in some retarded person's brain who lives somewhere on the other side of the world.
I will go with you, though, Obi, on the tiresome political stuff. It's nice to take a break from that every now and then. Not that this site is not notoriously famous for being hijacked by our Trusty Tooter of Trumpets and Trombones, Mr. Sir. Rob Stinkpot. I swear, do you believe how he hijacks a post just for the fun of it. I swannnn..... that man is sumthin else!
Posted by: Phoenix | Sunday, 20 November 2005 at 08:05 PM