subject: Drops of Quantum Time 4 [print this page] Drops of Quantum Time 4 Drops of Quantum Time 4
Abstract
The quantum uncertainty has put questions about the validity of some concepts of classical physics in such a way that the common sense is not so valid.
Drops of Quantum Time 4
The Mysteries of Quantum Mechanics
Wave- Particle Duality
The light has two natures: sometimes manifests as a wave, sometimes as a particle. However when it propagates freely is not wave or particle but has a character intrinsically undefined until the moment of measurement. In the two-slit experiment both the nature of particle and wave are manifested depending on the direct interference of the experimenter to leave only one slit open or both at the same time. An electron that moves in free space is a wave, only when someone looks at it is that manifests as a particle.
Non-Local effects or Quantum Entanglement
There seems to be an instantaneous transmission of signals between two separate entities, that is, when does one measure in one, the same effect is felt immediately in the other, which violates the theory of relativity that says that nothing can move faster than light, in other words there is no action at a distance. But the experiments EPR (Einstein, Podolsky, Rosen) have shown evidence of quantum entanglement. To justify this, the American quantum physicist David Bohm (1917-1992) suggests an indivisible totality which underlies the entire Universe, invalidating the concept of locality or local effects, so the particles of the EPR experiment would form an indivisible totality, and no separate parts among them. This concept can be extended to the entire Universe in which any action born in a part of the Universe would be felt in another immediately. Bohm's theory suggests an inaccessible implicit reality and an explicit reality that would be our accessible Universe . This would appear as a hologram image underlying to which would be the implicit order as a holographic film from which everything emerges. That totality in steady transformation he called holomovement.
The paradox of Schrdinger's cat
In order not to offend people who like animals, John Bell, the theoretician of the EPR, has proposed a version of the experiment devised by Erwin Schrdinger (1887-1961) in 1935. In this version a cat is placed in a box containing a fragment of a radioactive substance which has a 50 percent chance of sending a particle within one hour period (it is the half-life). When the particle is emitted it triggers a Geiger counter, which makes a bottle of milk spilled into a bowl, feeding the cat.
Common sense says a cat can not have a stomach full and empty at the same time (mind you that the particle may or may not be issued at one hour, because the radioactive phenomenon is probabilistic, so the cat within that time period can or not take the milk). But quantum mechanics says that after an hour, if nobody opens the box to see what happened inside it, both the cat and the radioactive material exist in a superposition of indistinguishable states, so the cat can be fed or not at the same time, and equally to decay of radioactive material (in the original version, a hammer smashes a container of poisonous gas that kills the cat).
There are several solutions to this paradox. One, proposed by Wojciech Zurek, a theorist at Los Alamos National Laboratory, United States, says that when a quantum phenomenon propagates, its interaction with the environment inevitably causes its superposed states become indistinguishable and to collapse into a single state . The experiments performed by Leonard Mandel of the University of Rochester, seems to justify this hypothesis; it appeared that just use a transparent box to see if the cat drank the milk or not, without disturbing it. But despite all the theories and experiments nobody reached a consensus on the mysteries of quantum mechanics.
Tunnel Effect
This effect is related 'to the penetration of a potential barrier by a particle that has not enough energy to overcome it. In classical physics such penetration can not occur: the launch of a baseball against the Great Wall of China has, classically, a probability of 0 percent to surpass it. In quantum mechanics, this possibility is not much higher than zero percent, but is not identically equal to zero (Conceitos of Fsica Moderna , Arthur Beiser, translation of the original, Concepts of Modern Physics, New York University, editora Poligono SA, SP, 1969).
This means that the ball can penetrate the wall without causing a hole in the structure of it or around it on top. Sounds like magic, but the phenomenon is real and was the first successful application of quantum mechanics to explain the emission of alpha particles of heavy atomic nuclei such as uranium and radium. The energy of these particles is smaller than the energy of the atom and nuclear potential, however, they are found outside the nucleus by a Geiger counter. This effect can be explained by the uncertainty principle of Heisenberg. Another application is in electronics such as the tunnel diode, a component which is in our modern technology such as the radio, the television, the cellular phones, etc..
