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What is Quantum Mechanics?
Live Science
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5/30/2025
Astrophysicist Paul Sutter explains Quantum Mechanics - the body of scientific laws that describe the wacky behavior of photons, electrons and the other particles that make up the universe.
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00:00
Quantum mechanics is our fundamental framework for understanding the physics,
00:06
the behavior of the very very small. I'm talking like atoms, molecules, and
00:12
subatomic particles. I'm Paul Sutter and this is Paul Explains, the show where I,
00:19
you know, explain. There's three big pieces to quantum mechanics. One of the
00:27
pieces is in the name itself, this idea of quantization, that certain properties
00:35
of subatomic systems like energy or angular momentum come in discrete levels
00:44
or packets or what we call quanta, hence the name quantization. For example, an
00:50
electron in an atom can't have any old energy that it feels like. No, it can
00:57
have only certain energy levels. That's because the energy levels in an atom are
01:03
quantized. This is a fundamental core tenant of quantum mechanics and it's very
01:08
different than the physics of the macroscopic world. Another key
01:13
component of quantum mechanics is something we call wave particle duality,
01:17
where tiny things sometimes act like particles, like tiny little bullets, tiny
01:25
little billiard balls, tiny little ping pong balls bouncing around doing
01:28
everything that particles do, and sometimes also act like waves, where they're more
01:35
sloshing around or they interfere with each other. Depending on what you're looking
01:41
for and how you're looking for it, sometimes, sometimes it might act like a
01:46
little bit of both. And the last bit is that quantum mechanics and subatomic systems
01:52
are ruled by probabilities and uncertainty. Up here in the macroscopic world, if you can
01:59
know exactly where something is and exactly how fast it's moving and you can predict,
02:05
using the laws of physics, exactly where it's going to be, exactly where it's going to go.
02:10
But you don't get that kind of precise knowledge in the subatomic world.
02:17
You don't always know exactly where something is, like an electron. You don't always know where an
02:21
electron is or how fast it's going. And once you do know where it is, or at least have some idea,
02:29
you don't know exactly where it's going to go. Instead, it's going to be a range of probabilities.
02:36
Our understanding of quantum mechanics underlies so many things. Atomic and nuclear power,
02:44
all of that is thanks to our understanding of quantum mechanics, microchips, semiconductors,
02:50
lasers and LED, and even biology. So, you know, a bunch of physicists playing around in the early 20th
02:57
century gave us this major cornerstone of many fields of science.
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