How come the quantum? What is a quantum, anyway? -- Where do the laws of quantum physics hold sway? -- What is the correspondence principle? -- How big is an atom? -- What is inside an atom? -- Why is solid matter solid if it is mostly empty space? -- Digging deeper -- How big is a nucleus? What is inside it? -- How big are protons and neutrons? What is inside them? -- What is Planck's constant and what is its significance? -- What is a photon? -- What is the photoelectric effect? -- What particles are believed to be fundamental? -- What particles are composite? -- What is the standard model? -- The small and the swift -- What are some quantum scales of distance? -- How far can one particle "reach out" to influence another one? -- How fast do particles move? -- What are some quantum scales of time? -- What is the meaning of E=mc²? -- What is electric charge? -- What is spin? -- Quantum lumps and quantum jumps -- What are some things that are lumpy (and some that are not)? -- What is a "state of motion"? -- Is a hydrogen atom in an excited state of motion the same atom in a different state or is it a different atom? -- What are quantum numbers? What are the rules for combining them? -- What is a quantum jump? -- What is the role of probability in quantum physics? -- Is there any certainty in the quantum world? -- Atoms and nuclei -- What is a line spectrum? What does it reveal about atoms? -- Why is the chart of the elements periodic? -- Why are heavy atoms nearly the same size as lightweight atoms? -- How do protons and neutrons move within a nucleus? -- What are atomic number and atomic mass? -- And more about nuclei -- Why does the periodic table end? -- What is radioactivity? What are its forms? -- Why is the neutron stable within a nucleus but unstable when alone? -- What is nuclear fission? Why does it release energy? -- What about nuclear fusion? -- Particles -- What is a leptron? What are its flavors? -- How many distinct neutrinos are there? How do we know? -- Do neutrinos have mass? Why do they "oscillate"? -- Are there really only three generations of particles? -- How do we know that all electrons are identical? -- And more particles -- Names, names, names : What do they all mean? -- What are the properties of quarks? How do they combine? -- What are the composite particles? How many are there? -- Does every particle have to be a fermion or a boson? What sets these two classes apart? -- What is a Bose-Einstein condensate? -- How did bosons and fermions get their names? -- Interactions What is a Feynman diagram? What are the essential features of Feynman diagrams? -- How do Feynman diagrams illustrate the strong, weak, and electromagnetic interactions? -- Which particles are stable? Which are unstable? What does it mean to say that a particle decays? -- What is scattering? ; What is the same before and after a scattering or a decay? -- What changes during a scattering or decay? -- Constancy during change -- What are the "big four" absolute conservation laws? -- What additional absolute conservation laws operate in the quantum world? -- What is the TCP theorem? -- What conservation laws are only "partial"? -- What symmetry principles are only "partial"? -- What are laws of compulsion and of prohibition? -- How are the concepts of symmetry, invariance and conservation related? -- Waves and particles -- What do waves and particles have in common? How do they differ? -- What is the de Broglie equation? What is its significance? -- How are waves related to quantum lumps? -- How do waves relate to the size of atoms? -- What is diffraction? What is interference? -- What is the two-slit experiment? Why is it important? -- What is tunneling? -- Waves and probability -- What is a wave function? What is Schrödinger's equation? -- How do waves determine probabilities? -- How do waves prevent particles from having fixed positions? -- What is the uncertainty principle? -- How does the uncertainty principle relate to the wave nature of matter? -- What is superposition? -- Are waves necessary? -- Quantum physics and technology -- How are particles pushed close to the speed of light? -- How are high-energy particles detected? -- How does a laser work? -- How do electrons behave in a metal? -- What is a semiconductor? -- What is a p-n junction? Why is it a diode? -- What are some uses of diodes? -- What is a transistor? -- Quantum physics at every scale -- Why do black holes evaporate? How does quantum physics operate in the center of the Sun? -- ; What is superconductivity? -- What is superfluidity? -- What is a Josephson junction? -- What is a quantum dot? -- What is a quark-gluon plasma? -- What is the Planck length? What is quantum foam? -- Frontiers and puzzles -- Why are physicists in love with the number 137? -- What is entanglement? -- What is Bell's inequality? -- What is a qubit? What is quantum computing? -- What is the Higgs particle? Why is it important? -- What is string theory? -- What is the "measurement problem"? -- How come the quantum?
Summary:
Kenneth Ford's mission is to help us understand the "great ideas" of quantum physics - ideas such as wave-particle duality, the uncertainty principle, superposition, and conservation. These fundamental concepts provide the structure for this authoritative yet engaging book for the general reader.
This resource is supported by the Institute of Museum and Library Services under the provisions of the Library Services and Technology Act as administered by State Library of Iowa.