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I watched the whole video. My current physics acumen is probably in the lower half of the average HN reader. I enjoyed AP physics in high school. Took the tes
by travisgriggs 5y ago
I watched the whole video.
My current physics acumen is probably in the lower half of the average HN reader.
I enjoyed AP physics in high school. Took the test, got a 4. I’ve been helping my wife back in school with half life decay (as much chemistry as physics) and relished that. As a Mechanical Engineering student, I got A’s in my three required physics class. In short, I really liked physics. It helped me make sense of the world.
I’m old enough, that quantum mechanics was not the public fascination it is now. Cold fusion was the big topic those days.
Despite all of this early formative appreciation for physics, I have yet to really appreciate QM.
It just has never helped me explain the world around me. And unlike many of the transcendental changes that occurred in the industrialized world as we got better and better at physics, whatever QM is supposed to do for me (it’s supposed to have bigger application than the double slit thing, right?), isn’t apparently obvious to me.
The brief parts where Sabine is referring to QM particulars in the video, and when I skim the other articles and such I see on QM, always include a lot of phunky math, amusing names and symbols, and a sort of talk that sounds like convoluted philosophy, or an attempt to explain transubstantiation or the “mystery of the trinity.”
I was amused at the end of the video. There’s a “keep your cake and eat it too” thrust. She clearly states a sort of collegiate/professional “you do you” support. At the same time she tells the viewer they don’t need to pay attention or care about it. But if we the lay masses don’t care, the PR that exists for the sake of securing funding to go on with these papers dries up. So in a round about way, she’s saying “I support my colleagues wishes to continue to pursue these studies, but you my reader shouldn’t bother to support them in any way, direct or indirect.”
- marcosdumay 5y ago> It just has never helped me explain the world around me. Hum... All of electronics, the entire modern chemistry, solid properties, gaseous state changes, how do you make sense of any of that without QM? (Of course, it's perfectly ok to not understand those if you don't want to. But then you can't claim that it's missing, just that you don't want to learn it.)
- paulpauper 5y agoI don't think his statement is that unreasonable. the world is perceived and interfaced as macro yet the quantum is is what makes the macro. So you have to figure out where the macro becomes the quantum.
- bollu 5y agoThe math of QM underpins so much of modern technology, like transistors, MRIs, high precision clocks.. I feel like there's been a humongous failure of science communication if the applications of QM aren't obvious to you :( I don't mean that in a mean spirited fashion, I really do feel despair that someone on HN who enjoyed physics wasn't shown how quantum physics has been the bedrock for so much technology! EDIT: quick list of places QM/quantum physics is used in the real world: https://scienceexchange.caltech.edu/topics/quantum-science-explained/quantum-technology https://scienceexchange.caltech.edu/topics/quantum-science-e...
- kungito 5y agoOf course if QM is a current ly valid theory that it can be found in many of these examples but we don't really need to know about QM or the way it works to have a microwave oven or semiconductors. You don't use QM when modelling relevant things to get a semiconductor working, at least not the ones we were taught at college. My point being is I understand QM apparently underlies everything but do we ever really care? I did hear though that for current cutting edge semiconductors they have to take into account QM
- CamperBob2 5y agoHow can you do anything with semiconductors without band gap theory? To move beyond the cat's-whisker stage, QM and its practical implications are both absolutely essential.