If you think it makes sense, you don't understand it
- Everything, including light, is both a wave and a particle and the behaviour it shows depends on how it's observed. Particles above atomic scale have such large wavelengths that it's not measurable.
- Something's position and velocity cannot be measured exactly. The more accurately one is measured, the more the other measurement is messed. There is a theoretical, minimum product of position error and velocity error, which is known as Planck's constant, I think. Fortunately, such unavoidable errors are too small to mess up human scales.
- Things can't be said to actually have a position or velocity, merely probabilities of being at a particular place or having a particular velocity. They are more like vague, probabilities smears. There can be tiny chance that an electron moves through a barrier, even though it never acquires the energy required to jump that barrier. This is known electron tunnelling and affects microprocessor design.
- Subatomic particles can spontaneously appear from nothing with its anti-particle. Even a vacuum has a 'vacuum energy' that has subatomic particles appearing and annihilating each other all the time. Sadly, this energy is too weak and too random to be used.
- The famous Schrodingers cat experiment is merely an idea to show the absurdity of Quantum physics. The probabilities of the vague, wave-particles interact to create vast numbers of possible scenarios, which exist simulataneously until they are observed and collapse to leave just one. By sticking a cat in a closed box and hooking a radioactive particle to break a poison vial, there are two possible scenarios in this case: the particle spontaneously triggers, breaking the vial and killing the cat; the particle fails to trigger and the cat remains alive. The cat is both dead and alive. When the box is opened or the contents otherwise observed, then the possible scenarios collapse leaving just one.
- Quantum physics underpins modern microelectronics and chemistry. If Quantum physics is wrong, I don't want to know about it.
Matthew Greet
Choose Life. Choose a job. Choose a career. Choose a family. Choose a fucking big television, choose washing machines, cars, compact disc players and electrical tin openers. Choose good health, low cholesterol, and dental insurance. Choose fixed interest mortgage repayments. Choose a starter home. Choose your friends. Choose leisurewear and matching luggage. Choose DIY and wondering who the fuck you are on a Sunday morning. Choose sitting on that couch watching mind-numbing, spirit-crushing game shows, stuffing fucking junk food into your mouth. Choose rotting away at the end of it all, pishing your last in a miserable home, nothing more than an embarrassment to the selfish, fucked up brats you spawned to replace yourself. Choose your future. Choose life... But why would I want to do a thing like that? I chose not to choose life. I chose somethin' else. And the reasons? There are no reasons. Who needs reasons when you've got heroin?
- Mark Renton, Trainspotting.