THE CHINESE ARE TAKING A BIG LEAP ON QUANTUM COMMUNICATION

Well, in keeping with what I promised late last week, we will begin our discussion on the fundamentals of quantum mechanics, the basis upon which the Chinese new hi-tech satellite was launched.

Let me start by giving you are overview of what we have before this advent.

FREE TUTORIAL ON CLASSICAL MECHANICS

The fundamental basis of  what we know as classical mechanics was laid out by Isaac Newton in 1687, when he stated the popular well know formula F=ma. Newton you remember was the scientist who stated that action and reaction are equal and opposite.

The three laws of motion were first compiled by Isaac Newton in his Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica (Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy), first published in 1687

He is known as the undisputed father of classical mechanics. He stated the following laws:

First law:              When viewed in an inertial reference frame, an object either remains at rest or continues to move at a constant velocity, unless acted upon by a net force.

Second law:        In an inertial reference frame, the vector sum of the forces F on an object is equal to the mass m of that object multiplied by the acceleration vector (a) of the object: F = ma.

Third law:            When one body exerts a force on a second body, the second body simultaneously exerts a force equal in magnitude and opposite in direction on the first body.

Almost everything you see today made by man in engineering including but not limited to our cars, airplanes, rocket propulsion, buildings were all based on Newton’s fundamental principles of classical mechanics. He helped us to understand issues as gravity, the rotation of the earth around the sun, even as far as most of what you know today about distance stars etc. Even our present communication networks were all products of the classical mechanics.

But towards the beginning of the 20^th century, things began to fall apart. Experiments began to reveal flaws in the laws of classical mechanics. When you narrow things down to atomic-levels, these laws are not obeyed as laid out. Scientist became confused when the spectra lines of the hydrogen molecule clearly violated the laws of classical mechanics. This requires new theories and new explanation of our understanding of nature itself. It was at this time that a relatively unknown young Austrian Physicist stepped in, Erwin Schrodinger.

THE SCHRODINGER WAVE EQATION: A FREE OVERVIEW

In 1925 almost after what many thought of as a mental breakdown, Schrodinger laid out a famous wave equation (I won’t be stating the equation to make the reading simple but will explain it)

Before Schrodinger, the nature of the universe had been understood on the basis of the three laws of Newton. But these laws were not adequate to explain what happens at the atomic levels. While classical mechanics assumes a continues flow of things, energy, events, etc. It appears that discontinuities exist at the atomic levels. For example, it was known that electrons do not assume every available energy in a continuum but there are jumps or steps now called quanta for which the energy of these electrons can exist. This appeared very strange. Let me explain it this way: You are climbing a steep hill, and suddenly discovered that you are not permitted to walk normally as usual up hill, that the only way to climb this hill is to do some jumps. If you are not ready for the jumps, you fall of a hole of no return. LOL! (A very primitive way of describing the observed behavior of electrons within an atom) So the electrons only occupied steps of energy levels and not all.

The Schrodinger wave equation itself was a bit strange. It came from nowhere except from Erwin’s mind. It was not derived, he just stated it, but again he took into cognizance the works of Max Plank who had already derived what we call the Plank’s constant, he also borrowed from the Euclidean space in terms of describing the positions of the quantum particles, but whatever was going on in his mind, no one knows. What we do know was that his equation resolved the gaps observed on the hydrogen spectral lines. Bingo!

Schrodinger himself could not give a name to his function (Which we call phi), asked what it represents, he said it was a charge density function.

Today we know what it is; it is a distribution probability function. OK, to make it easy, it is a probability that a quantum particle will exist in a certain space in certain locations. But you know, scientists don’t like that. They don’t like probability, they like exactness. So he had real issues with Professor Albert Einstein on this one.

More confusion was introduced, when these quantum particles (electrons, protons, atoms, molecules, photons etc.) exhibit a dual existence.

We called that double dealing the wave-particle duality. In simple understanding, usually a body should be a body. It cannot be a body with a mass and a wave at the same time. But this knowledge was violated by quantum particles, they can be a particle (a body with a mass) and a wave ( a massless energy form) simultaneously. LOL! Crazy isn’t it. Well it exactly happened. Let me shock you with another mystery surrounding quantum particles. They can exist in many places at the same time. They exhibit what scientist called a tunnel effect. This ability to exist in multiple states at the same time is called super-position.

Let me explain it this way; supposing you roll a ball up a steep-shaped hill, as long as you didn’t throw that ball, it is a common knowledge that the ball won’t have enough energy to fall over the other side. When its energy is exhausted it will simply roll back down. Ok, but a quantum particle behaves differently. Though it does not have much energy, it will appear on both sides of the hill simultaneously. It will tunnel through. How? LOL! I don’t know. You know how waves pierce through anything right??

The Other mystery about them is what we call QUANTUM ENTANGLEMENT. Let’s discuss that tomorrow God willing.

I hope I didn’t bore you with this free tutorials. I have tried so hard to avoid mathematical formulas.!!!! Enjoy your day.