Chapter 7
Brushing Up on Quantum Theory Basics
IN THIS CHAPTER
Exploring the early days of quantum physics
Riding a wave of new ideas about light and particles
Realizing that some quantities can’t be measured precisely
Considering different models of quantum physics
Scaling Planck units down (or up) to size
As strange as relativity may have seemed to you (see Chapter 6), it’s a cakewalk compared to understanding quantum physics. In this strange realm of physics — the realm of the extremely small — particles don’t have definite positions or energies. They can exist not only as particles but also as waves, but only when you don’t look at them. One hope scientists have is that string theory will account for the many unusual results in quantum physics and reconcile them with general relativity. Particle physics, on the other hand, is at the heart of string theory’s origins and is a direct consequence of this early work in quantum physics (see Chapter 8). Without quantum physics, string ...
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