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Quantum Physics

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Quantum Physics

Uploaded by

adityadubey62339
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
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Download as PPTX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Quantum

Physics
Quantum mechanics is a
fundamental theory in
physics that describes
the behavior of nature at
and below the scale of
atoms
It is the foundation of all quantum
It is thewhich
physics, foundation of all
includes quantum
quantum
physics, which
chemistry, includes
quantum fieldquantum
theory,
chemistry,
quantum quantum field
technology, theory,
and quantum
quantum technology,
information science. and quantum
information science.
Quantum mechanics can describe many systems that classical physics cannot.
Classical physics can describe many aspects of nature at an ordinary (macroscopic
and (optical) microscopic) scale, but is not sufficient for describing them at very small
submicroscopic (atomic and subatomic) scales.

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Quantum systems have bound states that are
quantized to discrete values of energy, momentum,
angular momentum, and other quantities, in contrast
to classical systems where these quantities can be
measured continuously
Quantum mechanics arose gradually from theories to explain observations that could not be reconciled with
classical physics, such as Max Planck's solution in 1900 to the black-body radiation problem, and the
between energy and frequency in Albert Einstein's
correspondence
1905 paper, which explained the photoelectric effect.
These early attempts to understand microscopic
phenomena, now known as the "old quantum theory", led to
the full development of quantum mechanics in the mid-
1920s by Niels Bohr, Erwin Schrödinger, Werner Heisenberg,
Max Born, Paul Dirac and others.
The modern theory is formulated in various
specially developed mathematical formalisms. In
one of them, a mathematical entity called the wave
function provides information, in the form of
probability amplitudes, about what measurements
of a particle's energy, momentum, and other
physical properties may yield
Quantum mechanics allows the calculation of
properties and behaviour of physical systems. It is
typically applied to microscopic systems: molecules,
atoms and sub-atomic particles .
It has been demonstrated to hold for complex molecules
with thousands of atoms,[4] but its application to human
beings raises philosophical problems, such as Wigner's
friend, and its application to the universe as a whole
remains speculative
Predictions of quantum mechanics have been
verified experimentally to an extremely high
degree of accuracy. For example, the refinement of
quantum mechanics for the interaction of light and
matter, known as quantum electrodynamics (QED),
has been shown to agree with experiment to within
1 part in 1012 when predicting the magnetic
properties of an electron.[
A fundamental feature of the theory is that it usually cannot
predict with certainty what will happen, but only give
probabilities. Mathematically, a probability is found by taking
the square of the absolute value of a complex number, known
as a probability amplitude .
This is known as the Born rule, named after physicist Max
Born. For example, a quantum particle like an electron
can be described by a wave function, which associates to
each point in space a probability amplitude .
Applying the Born rule to these amplitudes gives a probability
density function for the position that the electron will be found
to have when an experiment is performed to measure it. This is
the best the theory can do; it cannot say for certain where the
electron will be found.
The Schrödinger equation relates the collection of probability
amplitudes that pertain to one moment of time to the
collection of probability amplitudes that pertain to another
One consequence of the mathematical rules of quantum mechanics is a
tradeoff in predictability between different measurable quantities. The most
famous form of this uncertainty principle says that no matter how a
quantum particle is prepared or how carefully experiments upon it are
arranged, it is impossible to have a precise prediction for a measurement of
its position and also at the same time for a measurement of its momentum

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