Get to the bottom of it
10 posts
The following post was motivated by this exchange (on X.com), which prompted me to write out my understanding of the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics and the part the Heisenberg cut play…
If you drop a pebble into a pond, ripples spread outward in gentle circles. We all know this sight, and it feels natural to call them waves. Now imagine being told that everything — from an electron t…
Rarely does a 'problem' come along that makes you think more than casually about the question of mathematics's reality, and problems in mathematical physics are full of them. I came across…
According to the principles of quantum mechanics, you're a wave – just like light is both a particle and a wave. It's just that your wavelength is so small that your wave nature doesn't ma…
Every moment of a science fiction story must represent the triumph of writing over world-building. World-building is dull. World-building literalises the urge to invent. World-building gives an unnece…
A research group in Germany has captured images of what a rotating molecule looks like. This is a significant feat because it is very difficult to observe individual atoms and molecules, which are ver…
One hundred years ago, Niels Bohr developed the Bohr model of the atom, where electrons go around a nucleus at the center like planets in the Solar System. The model and its implications brought a lot…
One hundred years ago, Niels Bohr developed the Bohr model of the atom, where electrons go around a nucleus at the centre like planets in the Solar System. The model and its implications brought a lot…
In quantum physics, every metric is conceived as a vector. But that's where its relation with classical physics ends, makes teaching a pain. Teaching classical mechanics is easy because we engage…
As a big week for physics comes up–a July 4 update by CERN on the search for the Higgs boson followed by ICHEP '12 at Melbourne–I feel really anxious as a small-time proto-journalist and particle-…