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> This makes it possible to combine two areas of physics that previously had little to do with each other: classical quantum physics and nuclear physics. Is qu
by danans 3y ago
> This makes it possible to combine two areas of physics that previously had little to do with each other: classical quantum physics and nuclear physics.
Is quantum physics now considered part of classical physics? If so then man, time flies!
- dxuh 3y agoThere is a big difference between "classical" quantum mechanics (about 100 years old now!) and quantum field theory (~50 years old). Maybe that's what they mean?
- snthpy 3y agoWhen I was at university about 25 years ago, QM was about electron transition energies, with QED being a refinement of that for things like fine structure. In experimental HEP you had QCD and quark gluon plasma which informs things like the LHC experiments at CERN. IIRC nuclear physics was largely phenomenological with a lot of observations that had simple models fit to them without being able to reduce those to the particle physics models. This might be about establishing a link between the phenomenological nuclear models and the fundamental QM models.
- scotty79 3y agoI think they want to convey that nucleus is a really weird place so quantum physics of everything else is classical by comparison.
- emblaegh 3y agoClassical there is used in the sense of “non relativistic”.
- denton-scratch 3y agoI thought relativistic quantum physics was not a thing (yet).
- itishappy 3y agoNope, it's a thing! The Dirac Equation is one example. It explains the Pauli exclusion principle and predicts anti-matter. > It is consistent with both the principles of quantum mechanics and the theory of special relativity, and was the first theory to account fully for special relativity in the context of quantum mechanics. What we don't have is a grand unified theory (a single set of rules that generates both theories), but we can consider relativistic effects in QM theories, and (I assume) vice versa. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dirac_equation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dirac_equation
- omnicognate 3y agoSpecial vs general. Quantum field theory is special relativistic and quantum mechanical. The grand unified theory stuff is about uniting general relativity and quantum mechanics.
- nathan_compton 3y agoThe body of work called quantum field theory is a theory of relativistic quantum mechanics although many aspects of its foundations are difficult to pin down, its a very powerful and useful apparatus.
- JanisErdmanis 3y agoWe currently don’t know how to calculate the nucleus’s bound state despite a thorough understanding of individual pieces that make it together, as explored in colliders like CERN and others. The problem is similar to telling at what temperature water is boiling, freezing, and its density from knowing the properties of a single water molecule. We understand quantum mechanics and Columb forces govern the properties; it is incredibly hard to renormalise the system from an energy scale of a gas to a liquid or solid. Similarly, it is for a quark-gluon plasma; thus, phenomenological models are used, like how the nuclear potential could look and the masses for different combinations of nuclei.