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
like
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
more
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
us
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