Part I: The Edge of Knowledge Chapter 1: Tied Up with Strings This is the introductory section, where the author, Brian Greene, examines the fundamentals of what is currently proven to be true by experimentation in the realm of modern physics. Green goes on to talk more about "The Basic Idea" of string theory. He describes how physicists are aspiring to reach the Theory of Everything, or T.O.E. Some suspect when string theory is completely understood that it might turn out to become the T.O.E.Part II: The Dilemma of Space, Time, and Quanta Chapter 2: Space, Time, and the Eye of the Beholder In the chapter, Greene describes how Albert Einstein solved the paradox about light. In the mid-1800's James Maxwell succeeded in showing that light was actually an electromagnetic wave.
From this he concluded that light always travels at the speed of light. It never slows down. Einstein asked the question: "What happens if we chase after a beam of light, at light speed?" From reasoning based on Newton's laws of motion, one can assume that the light would appear stationary. But according to Maxwell's theory, light cannot be stationary. Einstein solved this problem through his special theory of relativity.
Greene continues with his explanations of the special theory of relativity.Chapter 3: Of Warps and Ripples Green begins the chapter by describing "Newton's View of Gravity" and continues by discussing the incompatibility of Newtonian Gravity and Special Relativity. The author also talks about how Einstein discovered the link between acceleration and the warping of space and time. Greene also discuses the basic aspects of General Relativity. He later points out how the two theories of relativity effect black holes, the big bang, and the expansion of space.Chapter 4: Microscopic Weirdness This chapter describes, in detail, the workings of quantum mechanics.
The author tells of how waves are effected by quantum mechanic. He also discusses the fact that electromagnetic radiation, or photons, are actually particles and waves. He continues to discuss how matter particles are also matter, but because of their h bar, is so small, the effects are not seen. Green concludes the quantum mechanics discussion by talking about the uncertainty principle.Chapter 5: The need for a New Theory: General Relativity vs.
Quantum Mechanics This chapter compares the theory of general relativity and quantum mechanics. It shows that relativity mainly concerns that microscopic world, while quantum mechanics deals with the microscopic world.
2. Kirkpatrick, Larry D. and Gerald F. Wheeler. Physics: A World View. ed. 4. Harcourt College Publishers. Fort Worth. 2001.
The amazing transformation the study of physics underwent in the two decades following the turn of the 20th century is a well-known story. Physicists, on the verge of declaring the physical world “understood”, discovered that existing theories failed to describe the behavior of the atom. In a very short time, a more fundamental theory of the ...
It is well-known that a central issue in the famous debate between Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz and Samuel Clarke is the nature of space. Leibniz and Clarke, who did not only take a Newtonian standpoint, but was even assisted in designing his answers to Leibniz by Sir Isaac Newton himself, (2) disagree on the ontological status of space rather than on its (geometrical or physical) structure. Closely related to the disagreement on the ontological status of space is a further disagreement on the existence of vacuums in nature: While Leibniz denies it, Clarke asserts it.
The novel, Alice and Quantum Land, by Robert Gilmore is an adventure in the Quantum universe. Alice, a normal teenage girl, goes through quantum land and understands what quantum is and how it works. The quantum world is a difficult one to understand, as its nature is one of complex states of being, natures, principles, notions, and the like. When these principles or concepts are compared with the macro world, one can find great similarities and even greater dissimilarities between the world wherein electrons rule, and the world wherein human beings live. In Alice in Quantumland, author Robert Gilmore converts the original tale of Alice in Wonderland from a world of anthropomorphic creatures into the minute world of quantum mechanics, and attempts to ease the reader into this confusing world through a series of analogies (which comprise an allegory) about the principles of quantum mechanics. Through Alice’s adventure she comes across some ideas or features that contradict real world ideas. These ideas are the following: Electrons have no distinguishing spin, the Pauli Exclusion Principle, Superposition, Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle, and Interference and Wave Particle Duality.
In the 1920s the new quantum and relativity theories were engaging the attentions of science. That mass was equivalent to energy and that matter could be both wavelike and corpuscular carried implications seen only dimly at that time. Oppenheimer's early research was devoted in particular to energy processes of subatomic particles, including electrons, positrons, and cosmic rays. Since quantum theory had been proposed only a few years before, the university post provided him an excellent opportunity to devote his entire career to the exploration and development of its full significance. In addition, he trained a whole generation of U.S. physicists, who were greatly affected by his qualities of leadership and intellectual independence.
In 1864, James Clerk Maxwell revolutionized physics by publishing A Treatise On Electricity And Magnetism (James C. Maxwell, Bio.com), in which his equations described, for the first time, the unified force of electromagnetism (Stewart, Maxwell’s Equations), and how the force would influence objects in the area around it (Dine, Quantum Field Theory). Along with other laws such as Newton’s Law Of Gravitation, it formed the area of physics called classical field theory (Classical Field Theory, Wikipedia). However, over the next century, quantum mechanics were developed, leading to the realization that classical field theory, though thoroughly accurate on a macroscopic scale, simply would not work at a quantum, or subatomic scale, due to the extremely different behaviour of elementary particles. Scientists began developing a new ideas that would describe the behaviour of subatomic particles when subjected to the fundamental forces (QFT, Columbia Electronic Dictionary)(QFT, Britannica School). Einstein’s theory of special relativity, which states that the speed of light is always constant and as a result, both space and time are, in contrary, relative, was combined into this new theory, allowing for accurate descriptions of elementary
2.Physics A World View. Larry D. Kirkpatrick, Gerald F. Wheeler. Harcourt College Publishers. 2001. P174.
A hundred years ago, a young married couple sat at a kitchen table talking over the items of the day while their young boy sat listening earnestly. He had heard the debate every night, and while there were no raised voices, their discussion was intense. It was a subject about which his parents were most passionate - the electrodynamics of moving bodies in the universe. The couple were of equal intelligence and fortitude, working together on a theory that few people can comprehend even to this day. Mileva Maric Einstein was considered to be the intellectual equal of her husband Albert, but somehow went unrecognized for her contributions to the 1905 Papers, which included the Special Theory of Relativity. The stronger force of these two bodies would be propelled into the archives of scientific history, while the other would be left to die alone, virtually unknown. Mrs. Einstein was robbed. She deserved to be recognized for at least a collaborative effort, but it was not to be. The role which society had accorded her and plain, bad luck would prove to be responsible for the life of this great mathematician and scientist, gone unnoticed.
Bohm began his theory with the troubling concern that the two pillars of modern physics, quantum mechanics and relativity theory, actually contradict each other. This contradiction is not just in minor details but is very fundamental, because quantum mechanics requires reality to be discontinuous, non-causal, and non-local, whereas relativity theory requires reality to be continuous, causal, and local. This discrepancy can be patched up in a few cases using mathematical "re-normalization" techniques, but this approach introduces an infinite number of arbitrary features into the theory that, Bohm points out, are reminiscent of the epicycles used to patch up the crumbling theory of Ptolmaic astronomy. Hence, contrary to widespread understanding even among scientists, the "new physics" is self-contradictory at its foundation and is far from being a finished new model of reality. Bohm was further troubled by the fact that many leading physicists did not pay sufficient attention to this discrepancy. Seeking a resolution of this dilemma, Bohm inquired into what the two contradictory theories of modern physics have in common. What he found was undivided wholeness. Bohm was therefore led to take wholeness very ...
Physicists have studied light for centuries and they have always been mystified in deciphering whether it is a particle or a wave. The ancient world believed light was an extremely light and small particle that moved at incredible speeds. More recently, physicists have conducted experiments that proved that light has wave-like properties. In the early 19th century, Thomas Young, a British scientist, conducted a famous experiment in which he proved that light would interfere and diffract. A broad discussion about the nature of light emerged in the scientific world. The theories that light reflected of a surface just like a ball would, was revised because the explanation that it was a reflecting wave was a more convincing one. The fact that light would bend with a large amount of gravity cannot be revoked and this attributed light a certain amount of mass. Since waves are not supposed to have a mass, in the same way that particles are not supposed to diffract, reflect, and refract. The contemporary scientists are intended to abide in the “wave-particle theory” which combines all the facts of light and place it in a category that does not follow the duality reasoning behind the wave or particle division.
Throughout Albert Einstein’s lifetime he accomplished many amazing things that have an effect on people today. For example, in 1905, “often called as Einstein’s “miracle year”, he published four papers in the Annalen der Physik, each of which would alter the course of modern physics” (Michio,Kaku 13). Throughout Einstein’s four books, he “applied the quantum theory to light in order to explain the photoelectric effect, offered the first experimental proof of the existence of atoms, laid out the mathematical theory of special relativity, and proved the first mechanism to explain the energy source of the Sun and other stars”(13). Throughout 1905-1915 Einstein began to realize that his theory for relativity was flawed, because “it made no mention of gravitation or acceleration” (19). “In November of 1915, Einstein finally completed the general theory of reality” (20); “in 1921 he won the Nobel Prize in Physics” (Belanger, Craig. 1).
Stemming from the first years of the 20th century, quantum mechanics has had a monumental influence on modern science. First explored by Max Planck in the 1900s, Einstein modified and applied much of the research in this field. This begs the question, “how did Einstein contribute to the development and research of quantum mechanics?” Before studying how Einstein’s research contributed to the development of quantum mechanics, it is important to examine the origins of the science itself. Einstein took much of Planck’s experimental “quantum theory” research and applied it in usable ways to existing science. He also greatly contributed to the establishment of the base for quantum mechanics research today. Along with establishing base research in the field, Einstein’s discoveries have been modified and updated to apply to our more advanced understanding of this science today. Einstein greatly contributed to the foundation of quantum mechanics through his research, and his theories and discoveries remain relevant to science even today.
Quantum mechanics has profoundly changed the way we think about science and how we learn account the world. Since the time of the scientific revolution, we have viewed science as a very precise endeavor. If only we can collect enough relevant information about the parameters involved, we can predict exactly how the natural world will behave. Quantum mechanics has taught us that not only is that very not correct, but that the very act of observing the changes the nature of what we are looking at.
At the beginning of the 20th century Quantum Mechanics theory was established. It starts with the discovery of electromagnetic [EM] energy quantization by Max Plank (1900) [1] needed to explain black body radiation distribution as a function of frequency and temperature. He explained it by a model where resonators (latter identified as harmonic oscillators) can emit radiation only by quanta of energy. Later Bohr [2] found the Quantum Mechanical model for the Hydrogen atom, using Planck’s constant as a measure for angular momentum quantization. An important concept in his work was the correspondence principle. According to this principle the quantum mechanical results should coincide with classical calculation at large quantum numbers.
In The Quantum Enigma, Rosenblum and Kuttner address the impact of the “Newtonian worldview” on our ability to understand and explain the phenomena of the physical world. Science has been able to greatly advance our knowledge of the natural world over the last several centuries largely due to this worldview. In this paper, five tenets of the Newtonian worldview will be summarized; two of these points—those found to be the most and least defensible—will be discussed in greater detail. As a final point, a discussion will be laid out regarding which of the five precepts, if rejected by modern physics, would be the most disturbing to give up.