Quantum mechanics: an overview


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Why is quantum mechanics important? We are so accustomed to seeing the world on a macroscopic level, our eyes don’t perceive what is really there at their microscopic level, and (maybe) it’s better this way. We need a microscope or other technology to detect the behavior of the smallest part of matter, the atom. The best description we have of the nature of the particles that make up matter is described by quantum mechanics. Subatomic particles such as electrons, neutrons, protons, quarks, etc. We are made of matter, and therefore particles. Every day, we humans dance the same quantum dance described in physical laws that scientists such as Heisenberg, Bohr, Pauli, Einstein, Schrödinger, de Broglie have tried to explain through their research and experiments. Heisenberg laid the foundations while living on the island of Heligoland, Germany, where he was able to calculate the matrix of numbers. At first, he didn’t even know what this meant. Neverland where seagulls shriek in the distance and where the glimpse from the waves is the only Gaussian noise you can hear. In the mid-1920s, quantum mechanics began with the Heisenberg uncertainty and the Born wave function. Quantum theory was the brainchild of many people, as we have seen, but Bohr was the godfather, the man everyone admired. Bohr was the first to apply the idea of ​​discontinuity within the atom. It was Bohr who explained the behavior of the simplest atom, hydrogen. More so, it was Bohr who had a diabolical obsession with the facts of quantum theory and spread its basic principles to young scientists. He was the one who said to Einstein, “Hey, Albert, look, God really plays dice!” In any case, Einstein remained convinced that sooner or later, quantum weirdness would be compensated for by something else. He argued that there is a deterministic world that falls under quantum theory; On the other hand, Bohr supported the idea that quantum theory is complete and that the quantum world is undoubtedly probabilistic. Yes, you read that correctly. We are governed by “possibility”. The basic laws of modern physics provide statistical information. Heisenberg stated that accurate information about the state of an object in the universe at a particular time is not only impossible to determine, but if it were possible, we would not have accurate knowledge of both the future and the past, but only statistical information. If you want to explain how electrons move through a computer chip, how photons of light convert into an electric current in a solar panel or amplify themselves into a laser in an optical fiber, or even how the sun keeps burning, you’ll use a quantum. Physics. Electronics is a branch of physics that studies the movement of electrons. Engineers and scientists have developed a whole series of large models such as the BJT and FET to determine the behavior of electrons traveling in certain states. Quantum mechanics tells us that an electron can only occupy certain levels of energy. When looking at a large group of electrons, such as those in a semiconductor, these levels are “bands” or ranges of permissible energy values. When a semiconductor is connected to a voltage located within the power band, it conducts electricity. When connected to a voltage outside the permissible power range, the device does not conduct electricity. It acts as an insulator. This is how transistors are turned on or off and the computer reads them as 1 or 0 bits. Quantum physics distinguishes simple things such as the way the position or momentum of a single particle or group of some particles changes over time. In the case of high speeds, close to light, support such as Albert Einstein’s theory of relativity is needed, which we will return to later. Many quantum field theories deal with the fundamental forces through which matter interacts: electromagnetism, which explains how atoms hold together; The strong nuclear force explains the stability of the nucleus in the core of an atom. And the weak nuclear force, which explains why some atoms are subjected to radioactive decay. Radioactive decay is a set of processes by which atoms change their state after a certain period of time, thus reaching lower energy but with greater stability, and emit particles of different types. The process continues (called the decay chain) until the maximum state of stability is reached. In recent years, there have been theoretical and empirical studies to combine all these forces to arrive at the God equation, which is one simple equation that can describe nature as it is. I’m talking about the standard model. One example is the discovery of the Higgs boson, the particle that explains why other particles have mass. The first quants we know well are the photons (particles of the Sun), the elementary components of quantum mechanics, the simple, massless particles that bombard and heat us every day, and with which we can also produce an electric current by exploiting the photoelectric effect. With photovoltaic panels. The photoelectric effect explains the property of ejecting electrons from the metal surface after being immersed in a stream of photons. The energy of the photons is transferred to the electrons that gain kinetic energy to change the orbit, become photoelectrons, preparing for a circuit to transmit electrical energy. The word “quantum” comes from the Latin “quanto” and reflects the fact that quantum models always mean something that arrives in discrete quantities. So it’s not just a possibility, it’s a separate one as well. The energy in a quantum field comes in the form of integer multiples of a given fundamental energy. For light, this is related to frequency and wavelength. Planck devised a mathematical equation for the frequencies of light energy emitted by a heated object. Show that hot objects will emit “red” frequencies. The hottest objects emit frequencies of all visible colors, making them appear white. Planck’s formula worked, all thanks to a basic idea. Before Planck, scientists believed that energy was on a continuous scale. They believed that it was possible for an object to have an energy value on this scale. Planck’s radical hypothesis was that at the subatomic level, hot objects could only emit energy in small units, or “packets”. He called these quantum packets. Planck said that the amount of energy in a quantum increases with its frequency. Lower frequencies, such as red light, have lower energy than higher frequencies, such as those in white light. However, Planck could not find a reason to explain why energy is quantized in this way. In a letter to a friend, he wrote that this mathematical assumption in his formula was an “act of desperation.” Niels Bohr formulated the answer two years later. Bohr revolutionized the orbital model. He said that the electrons must be on a series of specific paths. These paths were like the orbits of the planets around the sun. He called them electron orbitals. Each orbit has an associated energy level. When an electron absorbs enough energy, it “jumps” from one orbit to another larger. When an electron “falls” from one orbital to a smaller orbital, it releases energy. The amount of energy emitted is exactly the difference in energy between the two orbitals. This is why energy exists in discrete values, such as “quantum”, and not on a continuous scale. Visit our sister site EE Times Europe to read the rest of this article. .


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