A short (and hopefully amusing) look at Quantum physics, and people’s understanding of it.
Quantum theory is a remarkably simple science, but it seems to me that scientists are going out of their way to try to keep its power from normal people. In this article, I intend to sort out some of the confusion.
Quantum theory replaces, or supplements, Einstein’s theory of relativity. Einstein said that while Newton had gone a long way to explain physics by inventing gravity, he had failed to take into account the force of the Earth’s magnetic pull. It is this that keeps the Sun in orbit, as well as making compasses work. The Theory of Relativity states that if a body (or atom, another word for element) is magnetic, it can hold other things close to it as long as they are moving in a circle or very heavy.
This was certainly an improvement, but it failed to explain phenomena such as helicopters, or those spinny seeds. Stephen Hawking recognised the need for something new, so he began his paper on quantum mechanics – The Origin of the Specieseses. In this, he says that the universe is like a rubber sheet with weights on it, and holes through it. But things can only emerge from the holes in a ‘mangled form’. This explains the difficulty in designing vehicles for space travel – one has to consider three dimensions: left and right as well as up and down.
Of course, the most notorious man of quantum was John Schrödinger (who was awarded a diaeresis for his services to the advancement of silly science), and his cat Monster. He stated that if he poisoned Monster with gas, and then made him look through a mirror off which half of the shiny had been rubbed, that he would be immortal until someone looked at him. You can imagine how that experiment went down.
So next time a scientist baffles you with complicated words and numbers, harangue him or her about Monster, the cat that sneaks around out of sight with his eyes closed, in the hope that if he can’t see us, we can’t see him.
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