Tag: quantum mechanics
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The search for magnetic monopoles, the truest north
[ This blog is dedicated to tracking my most recent publications. Subscribe to the feed to keep up with all the science stories I write! ] The hunt for the truest north Many theories predict the existence of magnetic monopoles, but experiments have yet to see them For Symmetry Magazine: If you chop a magnet…
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Everything is a particle, but what does that mean?!
[ This blog is dedicated to tracking my most recent publications. Subscribe to the feed to keep up with all the science stories I write! ] What is a “particle”? Quantum physics says everything is made of particles, but what does that actually mean? For Symmetry Magazine: “Is he a dot or is he a…
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Quantum droplets in an ocean of light
If you shine light on a barrier with two openings, it produces a distinct pattern of light on a distant screen. Measuring that pattern is standard in introductory physics laboratories. (You could even do it at home, but I recommend a very dark room and a bright laser pointer if you hope to see anything…
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O, what entangled photons we weave!
(OK, it doesn’t scan. So sue me.) Quantum entanglement is a challenging topic, and one which has tripped up a lot of people (including many physicists!) over the decades. In brief, entanglement involves two (or more) particles constituting a single system: measurement on one particle instantly determines the result of similar measurements on the second,…
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Studying electron motion in space and time
I really love how many experiments are beginning to probe to the limits of quantum measurement. I wrote about a pair of cool studies in December that revealed the quantum wavefunction — the mathematical structure governing the behavior of particles. Today, my latest article in Ars Technica examined a proposed experiment using X-ray lasers to…
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A century of the Bohr atom
Many of us are familiar with the Bohr atom: a simple model with a nucleus and planet-like electrons orbiting in circular paths. It’s a useful picture, even though it’s not complete. Bohr proposed it in 1913, but it took about ten more years for physicists to work out why it worked — and to refine…
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Straight outta Compton…
(This was my original title for my article, but my editors evidently didn’t like it. I guess I’m too old school. Ahem. Moving right along.) As you may know, quantum physics shows that matter has both a wavelike and particle-like character. When you combine quantum physics and special relativity, you find that a particle at…
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Schrödinger’s gardenia: Does biology need quantum mechanics?
Erwin Schrödinger is best known to non-scientists for his thought experiment involving a cat (or maybe his unconventional living arrangement), but he also wrote What is Life?, a book that attempted to bring the fields of physics and biology closer to each other. Today, experiment is beginning to reach the point where we can see…
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Quantum entanglement, locality, and a cute kitten
(Admittedly, the cute kitten was added by my editor.) Albert Einstein described quantum entanglement in 1935, along with colleagues Boris Podolsky and Nathan Rosen, and used it as an argument against quantum mechanics. Entanglement is the phenomenon by which two widely separated systems act as a single system, due to interactions in the past; a…
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Trapping particles leads to 2012 Nobel Prize in physics
The the winners of the 2012 Nobel Prize in physics were announced this morning: Serge Haroche and David J. Wineland. Their work involves trapping and measuring the quantum states of photons and ions, respectively: A major challenge is measuring the state of a quantum system without modifying it. On the macroscopic scale, we can generally…
Bowler Hat Science 