Quantum mechanics is the mathematical theory and physical description of the structure and evolution in time and space of the physical phenomena at the atomic scale and below. It was discovered when physicists have attempted to describe the behavior of atoms and energy exchange between light and matter at this scale and details.
Several names associated with it, and first of all Planck and Einstein were the first to understand that the exchange of energy and the energy itself, could exist only in the form quantified. Bohr extended the postulates of quantum Planck and Einstein light to the matter by proposing a model reproducing the spectrum of the hydrogen atom.
Left to right Max Planck and Albert Einstein.
Step by step, rules were found to calculate the properties of atoms, molecules and their interaction with light when, from 1925 to 1927, a series of work of many physicists and mathematicians gave body to two general theories for these problems:
- Wave mechanics of de Broglie and Schrödinger above.
- The matrix mechanics of Heisenberg, Born and Jordan.
These two mechanisms were unified by the Schrödinger physically and Von Neumann's mathematical point of view. Finally Dirac formulated the synthesis or rather the complete generalization of these two mechanisms that we now call quantum mechanics.
From left to right Paul Dirac and Werner Heisenberg.
Quantum mechanics, applied to particles like the electron and the electromagnetic field at the origin of the light, shows that these two objects are neither waves nor really really particles.
As Einstein showed, the energy in a light wave is actually in the form of discrete packets indivisible photons. Similarly, electrons have wavelike aspects, such as De Broglie had predicted, and we can do experiments of diffraction and interference with them.
This is often summarized by the term "wave-particle duality" in the subject and light.
Niels Bohr tried to build a physical interpretation reflecting the strange duality is what is called the theory of complementarity. It is based on the Heisenberg inequality.
Niels Bohr
The heart of quantum mechanics based on the use of probability amplitudes to characterize all possible physical processes in quantum mechanics. It is these processes that can propagate as waves but the physical quantities associated with these processes are often quantified and thus discrete. This applies to the energy of electrons in an atom.
The fundamental equation of quantum mechanics is the Schrödinger equation.
The quantum world is strange, the dark prevails and probabilistic background, it indicates an underlying structure to the phenomena that is beyond space and time. The emergence of a classical world from a quantum world is still not well understood. It is an object of the theory of decoherence that explain this emergence.
Several names associated with it, and first of all Planck and Einstein were the first to understand that the exchange of energy and the energy itself, could exist only in the form quantified. Bohr extended the postulates of quantum Planck and Einstein light to the matter by proposing a model reproducing the spectrum of the hydrogen atom.
Left to right Max Planck and Albert Einstein.
Step by step, rules were found to calculate the properties of atoms, molecules and their interaction with light when, from 1925 to 1927, a series of work of many physicists and mathematicians gave body to two general theories for these problems:
- Wave mechanics of de Broglie and Schrödinger above.
- The matrix mechanics of Heisenberg, Born and Jordan.
These two mechanisms were unified by the Schrödinger physically and Von Neumann's mathematical point of view. Finally Dirac formulated the synthesis or rather the complete generalization of these two mechanisms that we now call quantum mechanics.
From left to right Paul Dirac and Werner Heisenberg.
Quantum mechanics, applied to particles like the electron and the electromagnetic field at the origin of the light, shows that these two objects are neither waves nor really really particles.
As Einstein showed, the energy in a light wave is actually in the form of discrete packets indivisible photons. Similarly, electrons have wavelike aspects, such as De Broglie had predicted, and we can do experiments of diffraction and interference with them.
This is often summarized by the term "wave-particle duality" in the subject and light.
Niels Bohr tried to build a physical interpretation reflecting the strange duality is what is called the theory of complementarity. It is based on the Heisenberg inequality.
Niels Bohr
The heart of quantum mechanics based on the use of probability amplitudes to characterize all possible physical processes in quantum mechanics. It is these processes that can propagate as waves but the physical quantities associated with these processes are often quantified and thus discrete. This applies to the energy of electrons in an atom.
The fundamental equation of quantum mechanics is the Schrödinger equation.
The quantum world is strange, the dark prevails and probabilistic background, it indicates an underlying structure to the phenomena that is beyond space and time. The emergence of a classical world from a quantum world is still not well understood. It is an object of the theory of decoherence that explain this emergence.
