PHYS 1061 Lecture Notes - Lecture 31: Barcode, Uncertainty Principle, Arbitrary-Precision Arithmetic
Document Summary
Lecture - 31: quantum mechanics, small things are weird, the quantum mechanics view, all matter (particles) has wave-like properties. So-called particle-wave duality: particle-waves are described in a probabilistic manner. Electron doesn"t whiz around the nucleus, it has a probability distribution describing where it might be found. Allows for seemingly impossible quantum tunneling : some properties come in dual packages: can"t know both simultaneously to arbitrary precision. Not simply a matter of measurement precision. Position/momentum and energy/time are example pairs: the act of measurement fundamentally alters the system. If electron is orbiting , it"s accelerating (wiggling) Loss of energy would cause prompt decay of orbit: pre-quantum problems, cont, why was red light incapable of knocking electrons out of certain materials, no matter how bright. Yet blue light could readily do so even at modest intensities. Einstein explained in terms of photons, and won nobel prize: problems, cont, what caused spectra of atoms to contain discrete lines .
