How to teach Quantum physics to your dog by Chad Orzel

Libro sobre mecánica cuántica donde el autor explica de una manera simple, recurriendo a conversaciones con su perra que permiten introducir los distintos temas y plantear las distintas cuestiones que aborda en el libro.

Muy ameno, incluso humorístico en algunos pasajes, y de fácil lectura ya que los temas se explican desde un punto de vista conceptual sin la ayuda de ningún tipo de aparato matemático.

Si te gusta la física y estás interesado en aprender nociones básicas de mecánica cuántica, o quieres refrescar conceptos es un libro que recomiendo. 

Cada capítulo se centra en un tema concreto:

1 - Particle-Wave duality. Dualidad onda-partícula
2 - The Heisenberg uncertainty principle. Principio de incertidumbre de Heisenberg
3- The Copenhagen interpretation. La interpretación de Copenhage.
4- The many-worlds interpretation. La interpretación de los muchos mundos.
5- The quantum Zeno effect. El efecto Zeno.
6- Quantum tunneling. Tunelamiento cuántico.
7- Quantum entanglement. Entrelazamiento cuántico.
8- Quantum teleportation. Teleportación cuántica.
9- Virtual particles and quantum Electrodynamics. Electrodinámica cuántica.
10 - Misuses of quantum physics. Malos usos de la física cuántica.

Aquí un vídeo sobre el tema.


Destaco:

"[About Heisenberg uncertainty principle] It's not just that measurement changes the state of the system, it's that what we can measure is limited by the fact that the position and momentum are undefined until we measure them.

[...]

That's not what happens, though - in quantum theory, there are no definite values for those quantities. They're not uncertain because of limits on your measurement, they're uncertain because they are not defined, and they can't be defined, due to the quantum nature of reality". (P. 44)

"Uncertain is not a statement about the limits of measurements, it's a statement about the limits of reality. Asking for the precise position and momentum of a particle doesn't even make sense, because those quantities do not exist". (P. 49)

"When we have a two-part wavefunction (a "superposition state"), it doesn't mean that the object is in one of the two states, it means that the object is in both states at the same time". (P. 78)

"Interpretations of quantum mechanics are sort of "metatheories", each giving a different gloss of the results of an experiment, but not changing the results. Every now and then, you will run across somebody claiming to have experimentally "proved" some interpretation or another, but they're inevitably confused". (P.124)

"While the summing of infinite series is accepted as the resolution of Zeno's paradox by physicists and engineers and most mathematicians, some philosophers do not accept this as a sufficient resolution of Zeno's paradox (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy). This just proves that philosophers are madder than mathematicians". (P. 131)

"[Alain] Aspect's experiments represent a resounding defeat for the view of the world favored by Einstein and presented in the Einstein, Podolsky, and Rosen paper in 1935. But while the EPR paper is wrong, it's brilliantly wrong, forcing physicists to grapple with the philosophical implications of nonlocality. Exploring the ideas raised in the paper has deepened our understanding of the bizarre nature of our quantum universe. The idea of quantum entanglement exploited in the EPR paper also turns out to allow us to do some amazing things using the nonlocal nature of quantum reality". (P.193)

"And in science, you have to rule out all possible explanations, even the ones that seem really unlikely, if you want to convince anybody of an extraordinary claim". (P. 194)

"This is a common misconception regarding quantum mechanics, and you'll find it repeated in lots of places. A little time with Google will turn up dozens of sites offering "quantum" methods to produce energy for nothing, improve your health and well-being, or even amass wealth and power: lots of people out there are making money by peddling quantum mechanics as magic". (P.248)

No hay comentarios:

Publicar un comentario