This is a summary of the book Quantum Physics for Beginners by Carl Pratt. I decided to learn about quantum physics due to the variety of books I've read that refer to it, particularly about electromagnetic waves. One day I asked myself the question, how does heat from the sun make it through subzero temperatures to make it to Earth and through research realized it was through quantum physics. Valerie Hunt in the book Infinite Mind also studies the impact of modulating electromagnetic waves on the human mind and body and the results from her studies are surprising. Quantum physics is trying to understand particle interactions on the smallest scale possible and is described as the science to try and understand everything, kind of like Ayurveda which is an ancient art still practiced in India that is described as the study of life but from a different paradigm. Quantum physics and physics are apparently nothing alike and quantum physics is full of paradoxes and probabilities. Quantum physics is responsible for computers, lasers, transistors, and other forms of modern technology.
Here is how quantum physics differs from classical physics:
Classical physics says that objects have a definite position and momentum at all times. Quantum physics states that "we cannot know both the position and speed of a particle, such as a photon or electron, with perfect accuracy; the more we nail down the particle's position, the less we know about its speed and vice versa.
Classical physics believes that all objects have a definite mass, quantum physics says electrons don't have a well-defined mass.
Classical physics says that and object has a definite velocity. Quantum physics believes that "electrons do not have a well-defined velocity; they have a probability of being at various locations in space."
Quantum physics states that particles engage in wave patterns where the "position and momentum of an object are not determined until it is observed (so an observer becomes part of the system)."
Light is both a particle and wave. Changing a magnetic field creates voltage resulting in an electric field and changes in an electric field can generate a magnetic field. This is the building block of the concept of electromagnetic waves. These waves typically generate more energy the higher frequency at which they occur (shorter wavelengths) but they all have a peak point when more frequency does not result in more energy which means they can't act solely as a wave. This was rectified by assuming that all electromagnetic energy comes in small, indivisible packets of energy called quanta. The shift from waves to quanta allowed for the formula Plank's constant which measures "how much energy high-frequency vibrations [can] hold." This is where light behaves as a particle, not a wave. Light operates as both a wave and a particle simultaneously as wave packets.
Side note, this kind of reminds me of the seed of life, a popular symbol found in many religions and artwork believed to be the foundation of life or the universe's blueprint (the smallest unit of matter), if you imagine it in 3D. The overlapping circles could represent the particle aspect of quanta and the circle around it representing the wave aspect. Not to say it has any relation but it is possible and is consequently interesting.
Due to the current impossibility of determining where an electron is at any given time, and the fact that electrons operate as a fuzzy cloud of outcomes until observed at which point they "'collapse' into a single definite state," different theories have arisen to help make sense of things. One such theory is called the Many-Worlds Interpretation which theorizes that instead of choosing one position, all of the positions play out with each diverging off into separate and parallel realities kind of like an "ever-branching tree of infinite possibilities" (kind of like the universal symbol of the tree of life interestingly). It's kind of like a choose your own adventure book where all outcomes happen simultaneously. These branches never interact once they split off which is why we don't experience simultaneous realities, a concept called decoherence.
Particles are categorized into matter (fermions) and force carrier particles which influence reactions with other particles. There are three force carrier particles:
Photons - "Massless, neutrally charged particles that mediate the electromagnetic field. This interaction (force) occurs between electrically charged particles."
Gluons - "Massless particles that mediate the strong nuclear force or strong interaction." Holds matter together by confining quarks into particles. "Binds neutrons and protons to create atomic nuclei."
Intermediate Vector Bosons - Mediate the weak interaction "which is the interaction that makes particles transform into each other." Responsible for radioactive decay of atoms.
When particles transform into another, they are separated while conserving total energy following the principle that energy can't be created or destroyed.
Gravity also plays a role in all of this but it's 1x10(41) (meaning 41 zeroes before .1) less strong than strong nuclear force. Quantum physics theorizes that there may be a gravity particle that accounts for gravitational forces called the graviton but thus far there is no evidence of such a particle existing although it mathematically and theoretically makes sense. The search for a gravity particle has led to theories that include it including superstring theory and M-theory which takes into account different dimensions.
Electrons have simultaneous spinning states of both up and down while on their own but when in a pair their spin states get entangled and they develop opposite spins. The two electrons come to act as one unit known as quantum entanglement. Using quantum entanglement information can be instantaneously communicated even across potentially infinite distances.
Nuclear fusion works by the laws of probability. In order to fusion to occur a particle must make it past a threshold of energy that acts like a barrier, a barrier that should technically be impermeable. This is due to something called an evanescent wave as shown in the picture below. If a particle needs to meet a certain energy threshold in order to overcome the energetic barrier, a particle acting as a wave, unlike matter, may pass through it like an improbable game of winning the game Hopper with your eyes closed, a process called quantum tunneling also shown below. In other words, quantum particles can move through things they shouldn't be able to.
Reality is much more confusing than we believe it to be. "In a nutshell, there is no defined and describable reality but an objectively indistinct reality composed of superimposed states." Quite a rabbit hole and very different from how we are used to thinking about reality. So different, in fact, that Einstein said this: "Quantum radiation theories interest me very much, but I wouldn't want to be forced to abandon narrow causality without trying to defend it to the limit. I find the idea quite intolerable that an electron exposed to radiation should choose its own free will, not only its moment to jump off but its direction. In that case, I would rather be a cobbler, or even an employee in a gaming house, than a physicist." In other words, Einstein admitted to the possibility that everything, even an atom, has freedom of choice and if that's true, how do we even begin to make sense of that?
"In the quantum world, observation isn't just a passive act of recording reality - it's an active process that shapes reality itself." "If observation determines reality, does that mean the universe itself is shaped by consciousness? And if so, whose consciousness?"
This brings up really cool questions to think about!