What on earth is a wavefunction?
If you drop a pebble into a pond, ripples spread outward in gentle circles. We all know this sight, and it feels natural to call them waves. Now imagine being told that everything — from an electron t…
classical mechanics
9 posts
The Kapitza pendulum
Rarely does a 'problem' come along that makes you think more than casually about the question of mathematics's reality, and problems in mathematical physics are full of them. I came across…
The molecule that was also a wave
According to the principles of quantum mechanics, you're a wave – just like light is both a particle and a wave. It's just that your wavelength is so small that your wave nature doesn't ma…
The calculus of creative discipline
Every moment of a science fiction story must represent the triumph of writing over world-building. World-building is dull. World-building literalises the urge to invent. World-building gives an unnece…
Scientists make video of molecule rotating
A research group in Germany has captured images of what a rotating molecule looks like. This is a significant feat because it is very difficult to observe individual atoms and molecules, which are ver…
Bohr and the breakaway from classical mechanics
One hundred years ago, Niels Bohr developed the Bohr model of the atom, where electrons go around a nucleus at the center like planets in the Solar System. The model and its implications brought a lot…
Bohr and the breakaway from classical mechanics
One hundred years ago, Niels Bohr developed the Bohr model of the atom, where electrons go around a nucleus at the centre like planets in the Solar System. The model and its implications brought a lot…
Thinking quantum
In quantum physics, every metric is conceived as a vector. But that's where its relation with classical physics ends, makes teaching a pain. Teaching classical mechanics is easy because we engage…
The philosophies in physics
As a big week for physics comes up–a July 4 update by CERN on the search for the Higgs boson followed by ICHEP '12 at Melbourne–I feel really anxious as a small-time proto-journalist and particle-…