Quantum mechanics is the study of the very tiny; the nature of reality at the smallest scale. It’s a science that defies common sense, and delivers no helpful analogies. And yet it delivers the goods, making scientific predictions with incredible accuracy. Let’s look into the history of quantum theory, and then struggle to comprehend its connection to the Universe.
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Quantum Mechanics- Transcript and show notes.
It’s interesting that a photo of Albert Einstein was chosen to accompany this podcast when it was he who famously said that God does not throw dice in rebuttal to the probabilistic nature of quantum mechanics.
I assume the pod cast covers this, but anyway: the reason to show Einstein is that he was the one who AFAIU founded it as an empirical science by showing that Planck’s “mathematical manipulation” was based in actual physics of photons in the photoelectric effect.
Similarly he showed important “quantization” of sorts by empirically founding atomic theory in explanations of Brownian motion.
He founded several other quantum theories of lasers and solids (in electronics, Einstein is a household name), as well as of gases. (I believe that is why it is called Bose-Einstein condensation.)
All in all, quantum mechanics (and atomic theory) is very much “Einstein’s”, perhaps more so than other’s.