Quantum Reality

For our amateur scientists who are curious...
Event Horizon
Theory of Everything
The God Particle
Gravitational Lensing

---

---

The meaning of reality, in our day to day life, is so vague. Talking scientifically, Reality can be understood at two levels: Macro and Micro.

When we talk about reality at the macro level we generally mean the reality of the bodies/objects we see around us and also the bodies/objects we see at the grand scale i.e, planets, star, galaxies, etc. up to the Event Horizon.
This reality, on the macro scale, has Newtonian Mechanics and General Relativity as its DNA and at this level we can define past, explain present and predict future of any given body provided with some essential data like velocity, space-time coordinate, momentum, etc. with 100% certainty. Here we use words like certainty, spatial coordinates, etc.

Apropos reality at the micro level we generally mean the Quantum level. Here we use words like uncertainty, quantization, superposition, probability space, etc. At the Quantum level reality has its own meaning.

Let's consider the Double Slit Experiment as an example. In the exp. first a beam of electron was passed through one slit and its impact on the detector screen was observed. The beam made impression on the screen just behind the slit. Now here's the chase, when the exp. was continued with two slits the result was fascinating. This time there was not two wide dark bands on the screen(as expected) but was multiple bands with decreasing intensity i.e, the interference pattern was observed.


Now the twist. When electrons was beamed one at a time through any of the slit, each electron took some random position on the screen(makes sense) but when continued for many electrons a pattern was observed which was same as the pattern observed earlier. Remember electrons was sent one at a time through only one slit but somehow each electron knew what positions to take on the screen to have that pattern and that makes no sense. Also the interference pattern can only be observed if a single wave crosses both the slits at the same time. This concludes that single electron was present at both the slits at the same time no matter that it was targeted towards only one slit. This is a classical example of Quantum Superposition.

Also it was observed that when a particle detector was placed at either of the two slit or at both the slits the interference pattern vanishes and we get a desired dark band behind the slit on the screen. The reason was when we put the detector at the slit we knew the position of the electron only to have its momentum(in this case direction) uncertain. And this my friend is a classical example of how reality at the quantum level can be altered just by the measurements you make for the particle only to have all the other properties of that particular particle uncertain.

This sole exp. was sufficient enough to have some glimpse of the quantum realm and the uncertainty it consists of. There are many more examples to support these facts and others too. At quantum level one can't know both the position and momentum data for a given particle at the same point of time. That's the Uncertainty Principle. Also the particles have spin in all the directions at the given point of time and particles can be present at more than one place at the same time. That's the Quantum Superposition. Also there are specific positions particle takes in the 3-D space(no in-between positions) thus, giving birth to the term Quantization.

This world of uncertainty is nothing like what we see at the macro scale. It is not wrong to say that particles at this level have their own Quantum Miniverse powered by quantized reality. So, in layman's term every probable event is a 100% possible event which further depends on the act of measurement, yes it can change the outcome of an event.


"Reality doesn't exist until we measure it", quantum experiments has confirmed.

***I've left Quantum Entanglement  for my future post***

Please post your valuable comments.

---

---

For our amateur scientists who are curious...
Event Horizon
Theory of Everything
The God Particle
Gravitational Lensing