Fury of the Quantum Fist Quantum mechanics will be our most powerful tool in the world of tomorrow. For those of you that did not know this, quantum mechanics is a physics system or theory using the assumption that energy exists in discrete units. It is probably no exaggeration to say that quantum mechanics is the most successful scientific theory in history. This has been a great success, but in spite of the fact the origins of the quantum theory stretch back nearly a century, it is only in recent years that the general public has become aware of the subject. Indeed, until a few years ago, the very word quantum was almost unknown outside the scientific community. Now books with 'quantum' in the title are absurdly numerous.
The reason for this recent surge in interest can be traced to the truly strange nature of quantum mechanical ideas. Quantum physics amounts to much more than a theory of atomic and subatomic processes, it represents nothing less than a complete transformation of our world view.
Niels Bohr and Albert Einstein. The picture was ta...
English: two-picture formulation of quantum theory
English: A GIF animation about the summary of quan..."Its [quantum physics] implications for the nature of reality and the relationship between observer and observed are both subtle and profound. (Barenco)" A description of the world in which an object can apparently be in more than one place at the same time, in which a particle can penetrate a barrier without breaking it, in which something can be both a wave and a particle, and in which widely separated particles can cooperate in an almost psychic fashion, is bound to be both thrilling and bemusing. Niels Bohr, one of the founders of the theory, once remarked that anybody who is not shocked by quantum mechanics hasn't understood it.
For decades the complexity and incredibility of the quantum world was an obstacle to the theory being...