The Quantum Theory: Quantum Probability

                     
                     By: Tsegazeab Beteselassie

Quantum Theory: One aspect of Quantum Theory, atom entanglement.
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    "What is Quantum theory anyway?" You might be wondering. In fact, you might be wondering "What is Quantum mechanics?" Well, let me explain what quantum mechanics is. Quantum mechanics is the studying of laws of the atomic and the sub-atomic world. And Quantum theory is the latest scientific breakthrough. Theoretical physicists are studying this marvelous discovery. It is called, Quantum probability.

    "Then what is Quantum Probability?", you might wonder. Well, Quantum Probability came from a very famous experiment. It is called the double slit experiment. A physicist called Young decided to see whether light will go through two slits and make an interference pattern. When he saw the results, he was shocked. The slits made and interference pattern that went through some of the material that made the double slit experiment  It looked something like this: 

Double slit experiment: The double slit experiment.

   As you can see, the waves behind the wall is the light shone at the wall. If you look closely, you can see that the middle wave goes directly through the chunk of wall! When physicists repeated this over and over again, they struggled with the laws of physics trying to explain this. Then, a physicist suggested a theory that an electron got squished out before you measure it, making the wave patterns. But that was wrong. Then, another theoretical physicist said that an electron was not a squished out particle, but a probability wave. He was saying that when you do the double slit experiment, the wave goes through both slits, but merges at the middle to make it look it went thought the wall. A high wave plus the high waves canceled each other out. A low wave plus a low wave also canceled each other out. But a high wave plus a low wave merged together and made and interference pattern. The place with the highest waves has the most probability of the electron landing there. That makes it look like the waves went through the wall. The double slit experiment was proof that a particle can act like a wave. 

    The double slit experiment also proves that it is impossible to tell were an electron is. It is possible to find the probability that the electron will land there. The idea that we have to rely on probability instead of certainty in the quantum world was mind blowing. But it was correct. Soon everyone knew that a particle can be a wave, and vice verca, and you have to use the equation of the probability wave to "guess" where the electron is. 

    

    A couple years ago, some physicists started to realize that whenever they heat gasses, and looked through a prism, instead of producing a smudge of colors, the prisms produced pencil-thick beams of colors. The physicists started to wonder why that happened, when one day, person saw that when you heat up atoms, the electrons get "exited" and started to flip orbits. The amazing thing is, that the electrons never crossed the distance in between. It's like is suddenly  Mars jumped to Jupiter's orbit without crossing the space between their orbits. The people started calling it, Teleportation. Physicists soon went to some islands and then they conducted an experiment of teleporting atoms across 89 miles of water to a nearby observatory. It worked. We are a long way from teleporting ourselves but were making progress. Soon, we will be able to teleport ourselves to the farthest stars.



Email me at tsegazeab12@gmail.com. Thank you.