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Quantum Mechanics

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What Is the Measurement Problem in Quantum Mechanics?

Quantum theory has two rules for how states change and no agreed account of when the second one applies. A century on, experiments are finally narrowing the options.

Quantum Mechanics 14 min read

Explainer

What Is the Uncertainty Principle?

The uncertainty principle turns 100 next year, and it is probably the most misquoted idea in physics. Werner Heisenberg never called it a principle. The exact inequality in every textbook…

Quantum Mechanics 9 min read

Explainer

What Is Schrödinger’s Cat?

Schrödinger's cat is the most famous image in quantum physics, and it is almost always told backwards. In 1935 Erwin Schrödinger did not claim a cat could be alive and…

Quantum Mechanics 10 min read

Explainer

What Is the Schrödinger Equation?

In late 1925 Peter Debye told Erwin Schrödinger that talk of electron waves was childish without a wave equation. Within weeks Schrödinger had one, and a century later it still…

Quantum Mechanics 14 min read

Explainer

What Is the Double-Slit Experiment?

Fire electrons one at a time at two slits and they land as single dots, yet the dots build up into the stripes of a wave. Try to find out…

Quantum Mechanics 10 min read

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