An Introductory to Quantum Physics

what does it mean to see something

for us on a larger scale it’s the light

bouncing from the object to our eyes

and our brain produces a visualization

of the object

however when we want to see something

that’s

say small say smaller than an atom

say maybe a cork this is not the case

you see the particle of light that we

use to see

usually is quite literally too big

it just passes straight through them so

nothing bounces back

and you don’t see anything how do we fix

this so we can you know see something

we do it by firing particles of higher

energy they’re smaller

they go faster they hit it except

there’s a problem in it

when it hits it it changes it

so we don’t know what it actually looks

this is incredibly important and it’s

part of the heisenberg uncertainty

principle

and is one of the fundamental reasons in

quantum physics why nearly everything is

theoretical however with the

accumulation of many theory scientists

have put them together

to form one most generally accepted

models of quantum physics the standard

model

the standard model has many important

parts in it

however there are flaws in it that have

to still be addressed

to this day and one of these flaws is

inside one of the most important parts

of it

fundamental forces when we think of

fundamental forces

we think of gravity maybe some

electricity but

simply in their simplest form

fundamental forces are

information and in order to affect

something

they have to transfer that information

and they need something to carry that

information

so every force has something that’s

called a force carrier

and every force is theorized to have one

for example

we’re going to use the strong nuclear

force

the strong nuclear force affects the

attraction between quarks

and other things so for example

we have quark number one and quark

number two

they both affect each other through the

strong nuclear force

however in order to do that

they have the gluon which goes between

them

and transfers the information of the

force and basically tells them hey

you’re supposed to be doing this

and every force has this there are

different names

for example the weak nuclear force it’s

the boson the electromagnetic force

the photon and theoretically the

gravitational force

the graviton each of these forces have

calculations inside the standard model

to simulate

to allow scientists to simulate

different things that could happen

inside our universe

except for one gravity

gravity is a force much unlike the

others

einstein theorized inside general

relativity that it was a force

intertwined within

space and time the problem with gravity

although it has multiple problems one of

them

is the medium that uses the transfer its

information

the medium that it uses to transfer its

information is quite literally the

fabric of space

and that’s a problem because the

graviton has to travel through that in

order to

transfer this information so scientists

said hey we’re going to look for it and

well you know they didn’t find it

they didn’t find a single particle with

the properties needed for a graviton

and that’s a problem because if they

don’t know if it exists

they don’t know if there’s properties

that need to be fixed

and that means it has no calculations

inside the standard model to simulate

things

so how do we fix this

we could spend a lot of time it’s like

searching

a needle in a haystack the size of a

continent for the graviton

however that would take a long time

so we try to fix this by doing a

different thing

by creating an entirely different model

of quantum physics this model was called

string theory string theory was first

proposed in 1974 by to these two lovely

scientists

named joel shirk and john schwabatz and

yes that’s how you say it

they theorized that as a low particles

in space

not as little one-dimensional points but

rather as a length of string

with no thickness this string was said

to exist

in two forms open in which both ends of

the string don’t

touch and close in which the ends of the

string do touch

forming a ring what’s important about

the ring however

is that they theorize that the ring

would have the exact particle properties

of the graviton

so they could find it

however now scientists need to decide

hey how long

are these strings and let’s just say

they’re small

how small are they there’s actually a

length associated

with quantum gravity it’s called the

planck length and since it’s associative

gravity side hey

let’s make that the string length and

the calculations worked out

how long is the plank length you might

be asking here

is the diameter of a single hydrogen

atom

pretty small one meter times 10 to the

negative tenth

a single neutron is even smaller one

meter

times 1.7 meters times ten to the

negative fifteenth

however the planck length is even

smaller

one point six meters times ten to the

negative thirty-fifth

that’s quite literally trillions of

trillions of times smaller than a

neutron

and even with these particles of higher

energy we’ll

never be able to find it or look at it

now there’s a problem with this though

might be saying hey these strings

represent

forces that affect areas larger than the

string

length how do they work and

i believe that this is adequately

explained by a quote from paul ho

which states it follows that for

distances much longer than the string

length

although still very small we can

approximate

string theory by a particle theory only

involving particles of the lowest mass

in the string spectrum

it is with this batch contact that

root is made with theories we know

for example the effective theory of a

closed string is a version of general

relativity

modified by the presence of some extra

fields

one more thing the closed string

represents the graviton

however there are still three other

forces that the open string

has to represent the strings are all the

same

so how do they represent free entirely

different forces

this is described in string theory as

different vibrations on the string so

say the weak nuclear force

will have a lower vibration than say a

strong nuclear force

now why hasn’t this been accepted yet

there is a problem string theory

requires

more dimensions than we currently know

the version of string theory

that was created by those two scientists

it’s called super string theory because

it uses super symmetry

this version of string theory there are

requires ten different dimensions

and if we can count one two three

oh no we’re missing seven other versions

of string theory

require even more so

scientists can’t simulate things in our

universe using string theory because

we don’t have those 10 dimensions

so if string theory didn’t solve the

problem of

gravity and part in quantum physics

how do we use it then because

quantum gravity isn’t entirely unknown

concept in

quantum physics

before einstein created general

relativity

scientists were still using the

newtonian model

of gravity however people realized that

when they applied this model

to very small or very large levels there

were

lots of holes inside of it like a lot of

holes

so they decided hey we need something

new

that’s where einstein created general

relativity general relativity if you

don’t know

is a geometrical model of gravity that

is still in use by physicists today

which is quite amazing seeing as it was

made nearly

100 years ago before even world war ii

started

there were many important things inside

of general relativity

for example i was able to describe the

interaction of

gravity at very small levels something

that the newtonian model was never able

to do

however one of the things inside of it

as i mentioned previously was that it

was intertwined within space and time

part of this has been actually

experimentally proven

through the separation of clocks on the

surface of earth

and in space now

why does any of this matter the thing is

the reason why the standard model still

works even without gravity inside of it

is because the force of gravity that the

particles produce at those

small tiny levels is so small

it barely makes a dent if you just

remove the effect of gravity completely

however that’s a problem because if you

want to simulate

strong forces of gravity upon those

small

particles you will be unable to do that

using the standard model

so what physicists have done is they

first apply the stair model

to all the small interactions and then

they use general relativity’s gravity

and to apply it to the huge forces of

gravity

for example the core of our star our

star is very heavy

and the force of gravity it produces

allows atoms inside of it to fuse

together

creating heavier elements while

releasing massive amounts of energy

research and understanding this could

lead to fantastical inventions like a

fusion reactor

and this leads me on to my final point

of today

how this affects us in our daily lives

when we think of quantum physics we

often think of its

bizarre mathematical theories

but we rarely ever think of the physical

inventions and the technological

advancements that it has further

for example take your phone the entirety

of the computing inside of it

fully relies on the wave-like nature of

the electron

in order to transfer power and

information throughout the phone

lasers which are used in things like cd

readers to laser cutters

reply rely on the unique interaction

between the photon and atoms

gps which is used by people around the

world

to navigate fully depends on the fact

that the speed of light is constant

and by timing it we can triangulate

someone’s position

exactly quantum physics

isn’t a entirely theoretical concept

that will only help us understand things

at a small level that will never affect

quantum physics also isn’t something

that can only be understood by say the

smartest people

in the world quantum physics is the

future

of mankind thank you

you