Anthony's+Week+Quantum

I think what is most amazing about quantum science is not that it brought sweeping changes in physics, but just how fast it happened. Before the 1900’s, the period of “classical physics” it took over 2000 years to figure out the physics of the universe. From the ancient Greeks, to Newton, to Einstein there were thousands of years that went by to figure out the physics of the heavenly bodies, and compared to quantum physics, this stuff was easy. We could use the words “equals” and “this will happen” when describing what will happen in the Universe. When examining the quantum world however, we have to say words like “we think,” “it is probable” or “weirdness.” Even with all these new things being practically made up as scientists went along, it happened in a much shorter time. To really understand quantum physics, you need at least a PhD, but to understand where it came from, you only need to care about it. It all started in 1900 when Max Plank was studying black bodies, he discovered, reluctantly the quantum, small packets of energy. What did this mean to physics? Well it caused Bohr to come up with a brand new model of the atom. It lead to the formulation of Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principal. A complete rethinking of how the world worked on the subatomic level. Now granted, there’s a lot more to the story, but explaining it usually only results in headaches. The most amazing thing I believe is the little amount of time it took to develop the first quantum theory. Like I said, the laws of the macro-Universe took thousands of years to figure out how it works. Now granted we still do not know everything about the quantum world, but let’s look at the timeline. Plank discovers the quantum around 1900. Thirty years later, the first complete quantum theory is developed that is for the most part correct. Thirty years, a tiny fraction of the time that it took to get a theory of the Universe that was even close to correct; and this is studying something you cannot directly observe, because simply observing it changes your results. To come up with all of this in less than half a decade is amazing.