Could someone explain the gist of Quantum Physics for me?

Any good Youtube vids on the subject, movies, books? I assume there are loads, but could you recommend any?

The basics. Lest my head explode.

Thank you

The articles on quantum physics in the SEP:

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/qm

http://plato.stanford.edu/contents.html#q

Thank you for that.

There's a lovely little book called The Quantum World by John Polkinghorne. It gives you a feel for the basics without any maths.

If someone asked me to summarize in a couple of not-too-technical entences what I thought was unique about quantum mechanics I'd probably say:

1 Wave-particle duality. "Stuff" is not particles, "stuff" is not waves. "Stuff" is something that behaves a bit like a particle sometimes, a bit like a wave sometimes

2 Probability -
a) there are some aspects of the way systems behave that you cannot, even in priniciple, predict with certainty.
b) there are some pairs of properties that things have which can't even in principle, be known with perfect accuracy at the same time

I think that maybe the best primer on quantum mechanics is this tiny little lecture transcript by Richard Feynman:



It's 164 pages of pure explanation of what quantum physicists do. I'd recommmend it to anyone.

Or get the lecture on youtube:



He's such a fucking cool character!

Thanks for this

I just realised I had this book: Self Aware Universe

I haven't read it yet, is it any good?

Passer wrote:Thanks for this

I just realised I had this book: Self Aware Universe

I haven't read it yet, is it any good?

reading the blurb suggests it's just woo, maybe with tidbits of science thrown in to disguise the woo as though it weren't.

Passer wrote:Thanks for this

I just realised I had this book: Self Aware Universe

I haven't read it yet, is it any good?

Looks like Deepak Chopra-ish woo to me. I'd be very wary of that one.

Bribase is right, Feynman's QED Strange Theory..... is brilliant, but I don't think it's the best first exposure book. I think you need to see where all this quantum behaviour comes from historically before looking at the approach Feynman introduces. I think you need to know about blackbody radiation, photoelectric effect etc before thinking about Feynman's sum-over-paths. But then I'm old fashioned.

twistor59 wrote:

Passer wrote:Thanks for this

I just realised I had this book: Self Aware Universe

I haven't read it yet, is it any good?

Looks like Deepak Chopra-ish woo to me. I'd be very wary of that one.

Bribase is right, Feynman's QED Strange Theory..... is brilliant, but I don't think it's the best first exposure book. I think you need to see where all this quantum behaviour comes from historically before looking at the approach Feynman introduces. I think you need to know about blackbody radiation, photoelectric effect etc before thinking about Feynman's sum-over-paths. But then I'm old fashioned.

I'm really just interested in this multi-verse concept. With all the different possibilities, and the tenth dimension.

Or am I totally barking up the wrong tree here?

Or perhaps just totally barking mad.

Talking of barking...
The best quantum book I've read is How to Teach Quantum Physics to Your Dog. I felt challenged that if a dog could understand quantum physics then so could I!

I found QED nice and easy at the beginning (Feynman has a great way of explaining complicated physics to anybody) but towards the end I found it got a bit too heavy for me and unfortunately I gave up.

I'm currently reading The Quantum Universe by Brian Cox and Jeff Forshaw, which is pretty good and very detailed.

Quantum physics is a bit of a wall for me, I just can't seem to get it, when I think I do I read on to find I was way off the mark. One day I'll have a eureka moment and be in two places at once...Or something

Passer wrote:

twistor59 wrote:

Passer wrote:Thanks for this

I just realised I had this book: Self Aware Universe

I haven't read it yet, is it any good?

Looks like Deepak Chopra-ish woo to me. I'd be very wary of that one.

Bribase is right, Feynman's QED Strange Theory..... is brilliant, but I don't think it's the best first exposure book. I think you need to see where all this quantum behaviour comes from historically before looking at the approach Feynman introduces. I think you need to know about blackbody radiation, photoelectric effect etc before thinking about Feynman's sum-over-paths. But then I'm old fashioned.

I'm really just interested in this multi-verse concept. With all the different possibilities, and the tenth dimension.

Or am I totally barking up the wrong tree here?

Or perhaps just totally barking mad.

Ah right. the many worlds stuff is an interpretation of quantum mechanics. I would say that, for it to make sense, it's important to see what quantum mechanics itself is in the first place. So if you're looking for a book, check through the contents to make sure it covers: experimental problems with the Bohr atom (the one where the electron is like a little pea whizzing around the nucleus), wave particle duality, two slit experiment, uncertainty principle, quantum measurements. It must cover at least this stuff before going into interpretations like the many worlds stuff...

10th dimension is usually talked about in the context of string theory, so look for popular books with string theory in the title for that.

Many sources that talk of more than three dimensions barely grasp the mathsy concept of dimension in the first place, so ... (of course, scientific sources usually get it right, but ...)

So the 10th dimension/omniverse is just woo, a stretching of the known evidence we have?

Introduction to Quantum Mechanics
.

Passer wrote:So the 10th dimension/omniverse is just woo, a stretching of the known evidence we have?

No, the extra dimensions of string theory constitute a tentative model for the universe which will eventually either be confirmed or falsified by experimental results.

The woo was in that "consciousness causes stuff" in The Self Aware Universe book you were talking about.

twistor59 wrote:

Passer wrote:So the 10th dimension/omniverse is just woo, a stretching of the known evidence we have?

No, the extra dimensions of string theory constitute a tentative model for the universe which will eventually either be confirmed or falsified by experimental results.

The woo was in that "consciousness causes stuff" in The Self Aware Universe book you were talking about.

But wasn't there an experiment, which showed that atoms/waves/particles or whatever they were, begin to act differently when we observe them?

Passer wrote:

twistor59 wrote:

Passer wrote:So the 10th dimension/omniverse is just woo, a stretching of the known evidence we have?

No, the extra dimensions of string theory constitute a tentative model for the universe which will eventually either be confirmed or falsified by experimental results.

The woo was in that "consciousness causes stuff" in The Self Aware Universe book you were talking about.

But wasn't there an experiment, which showed that atoms/waves/particles or whatever they were, begin to act differently when we observe them?

no, they begin to act differently when they are measured. Which kind of is the same as 'they act different when they interact with other particles'. (Ultimately, taht bunch of particles also act differently, until you are in the same bunch of particles, to simplify the matter a lot)

Zwaarddijk wrote:

Passer wrote:

twistor59 wrote:

Passer wrote:So the 10th dimension/omniverse is just woo, a stretching of the known evidence we have?

No, the extra dimensions of string theory constitute a tentative model for the universe which will eventually either be confirmed or falsified by experimental results.

The woo was in that "consciousness causes stuff" in The Self Aware Universe book you were talking about.

But wasn't there an experiment, which showed that atoms/waves/particles or whatever they were, begin to act differently when we observe them?

no, they begin to act differently when they are measured. Which kind of is the same as 'they act different when they interact with other particles'. (Ultimately, taht bunch of particles also act differently, until you are in the same bunch of particles, to simplify the matter a lot)

"they begin to act differently when they are measured" That's still very amazing, not sure what it entails, but I find that fascinating. When you say 'measured', how would they do that exactly?