• Question: what is quantum physics

    Asked by mollieskye to Katharine, Mark, Ben, Jony on 24 Nov 2011. This question was also asked by lararoots, meganolley.
    • Photo: Katharine Schofield

      Katharine Schofield answered on 21 Nov 2011:

      Quantum physics is the science of very very tiny things, on the scale of atoms (and smaller). Quantum physics tries to explain how matter and energy interact, and the word quantum refers to the way that some some physical quantities like energy come in discrete packets (quanta), rather than varying continuously. It was pretty revolutionary when it was first proposed. I find this area of physics absolutely fascinating.

    • Photo: Mark Basham

      Mark Basham answered on 24 Nov 2011:

      hi lararoots and mollieskye,

      Quantum Physics is all about how really small things like atoms interact with other atoms or light for example. The really strange thing as Katherine said was that all of these interactions happen in little packets, which is completly unlike most things we understand from the large scale.

      However the fact that this is the case is used all the time by us at diamond as well as other places in a field of science called Spectroscopy.

      So because of these specific packets of energy each atom can only interact with light at specific wavelengths, think of this like strings on a musical instrument, they only vibrate at particular speeds, and cant vibrate at other speeds. So for Hydrogen for example the light which it can interact with looks like this.

      whereas for a different type of element, it looks different, sodium for example looks like this

      Now, we can use this information like a fingerprint, and actually this is exactly how we can tell what type of material something is at Diamond, and how astrophysicists can tell what stars are made of.

      Hope this helps

    • Photo: Ben Still

      Ben Still answered on 24 Nov 2011:

      Awesome. Pure awesome.

    • Photo: Jony Hudson

      Jony Hudson answered on 24 Nov 2011:

      Great answers from the other scientists!

      Quantum physics was great because it really surprised scientists. Nobody would have guessed that very small things would behave so differently than the bigger things that we see every day. This is the best thing in science, when something so surprising comes up.

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