The very nature of the quantum theory ... forces us to regard the space-time coordination and the claim of causality, the union of which characterizes the classical theories, as complementary but exclusive features of the description, symbolizing the idealization of observation and description, respectively. Niels Bohr
Everything we call real is made of things we cannot call real. Niels Bohr
So what was Bohr? He was the first of us all. The father of it all. Modern atomic physics began when Bohr realised that quantum theory applied to matter as well as energy, 1913. Copenhagen 2002 starring Stephen Rea & Daniel Craig & Francesca Annis et al, director Howard Davies, Heisenberg’s commentary
If you think you understand Quantum Theory, you don’t understand Quantum Theory. Richard Feynman
What I essentially did was to figure out how to analyse and discuss the original quantum theory of electricity and magnetism that had been written in 1928, how to interpret it so as to avoid the infinities, to make calculations in which there were sensible results which have since turned out to be in exact agreement with every experiment that’s been done so far. Richard Feynman, interview Horizon: No Ordinary Genius 1993
We have always had a great deal of difficulty understanding the world view that quantum mechanics represents. At least I do, because I’m an old enough man that I haven’t got to the point that this stuff is obvious to me. Okay, I still get nervous with it ... You know how it always is, every new idea, it takes a generation or two until it becomes obvious that there’s no real problem. I cannot define the real problem, therefore I suspect there’s no real problem, but I’m not sure there’s no real problem. Richard Feynman, article Journal of Theoretical Physics 1982
That’s the best hope – that we will find out that quantum mechanics as we know it actually breaks down for very large things. Steven Weinberg, interview Professor Richard Dawkins
The world was made of atoms. And they were made up of three fundamental particles: protons and neutrons packed into a nucleus, surrounded by electrons moving in orbits. Michael Mosley, The Story of Science: Proof & Passion, BBC 2010
The electron is an unbelievably weird beast, and you simply cannot pin it down. An electron is never in just one place: it flits around as if it were in many places at the same time … The behaviour of electrons could only be described not as certainties but as probabilities. Not where electrons are, but where they are likely to be. The new theory was known as Quantum. ibid.
According to Quantum Mechanics it’s possible for two similar particles to become linked in such a way that anything that happens to one of them is instantly communicated to the other regardless of distance: this is called quantum entanglement. Weird or What? s1e7: Mind Control, Discovery 2010
Quantum Physics: The tiniest scale ... These sub-atomic bits might actually be made of something smaller – tiny vibrating strands. Brian Greene, Beyond the Cosmos: Multiverse, National Geographic 2012
We’ve discovered a revolutionary new set of laws that have completely transformed our picture of the universe. Brian Greene, Beyond the Cosmos: Quantum Leap
These strange mysterious laws ... of quantum mechanics ... rule over atoms and tiny particles. ibid.
Albert Einstein was not afraid of new ideas. But during the 1920s the world of mechanics began to veer in a direction Einstein didn’t want to go. ibid.
How can a particle be a wave? ibid.
All the matter in the universe is made of atoms and sub-atomic particles that are ruled by probability, not certainty. ibid.
In the 1920s physicist Niels Bohr found that Newton’s Laws break down at the atomic level. The replacement Quantum Theory ... showed that the electron orbiting the atomic nucleus doesn’t look like this at all. It’s more smudged out, more like a ripple or a wave. Horizon: The Anthropic Principle, BBC 1987
We have to record some kind of measurement to know where an electron is. In fact, until we decide to find out where the electron is by doing an experiment to observe it the electron as a material entity cannot be really said to exist. ibid.
That by our acts of observation we bring things into existence, at least in the realm of the very small, is supported by scientific experiment. ibid.
If we bring the tiny world of the Quantum to existence by our observations, do we need any other mechanism to account for the whole of reality? ibid.
The photons arrive at the slits one at a time. So those that get through the screen on the other side should make two bright lines. They shouldn’t interfere and make the full pattern of stripes, but they do. Horizon: The Time Lords, BBC 1996
Einstein never warmed to quantum mechanics despite a lifetime of arguments with [Niels] Bohr. Horizon: Einstein Fame, BBC 1996
Einstein had unleashed quantum mechanics. A scientific revolution that would lead directly to parallel universes. The new theory described the physical world around us in a disturbing new way – down at the sub-atomic level. Horizon: Parallel Universes, BBC 2001
It’s not just that light can be both a wave and a particle at the same time; the opposite’s true. All the particles that make up matter are also waves, and they can be doing many different things at the one time. They can appear from nowhere, and disappear without warning. ibid.
Quantum mechanics describes the behaviour of the fundamental particles of our universe. The sub-atomic particles that make up every atom. Horizon: Einstein’s Unfinished Symphony, BBC 2005
Werner Heisenberg proposed a whole new law of physics. He said that it was impossible to measure both the speed and the position of a particle. Because strangely the mere act of observing these tiny objects radically affected their behaviour. But if that was true it had profound implications. If you couldn’t be precise about a particle’s speed and position, then it would be impossible to make accurate predictions about its movements. And Einstein believed everything should be predictable ... The best you could hope for was a science based on probabilities. ibid.
What goes on beneath these fields in the Tevitron are some of the most violent collisions in the universe. Deep underground in a four-mile vacuum pipe, encased by super-conducting magnets, they smash together two sub-atomic particles at close to the speed of life. Horizon: What is Reality? 2011
Working out which of these are elementary is a problem that has defined particle physics for over sixty years ... When experimenters first broke into them [atoms] they discovered ever smaller bits inside. ibid.
The particle zoo – a whole new level of reality had been discovered. ibid.
With the discovery of the Top Quark, physicists are close to understanding one of the greatest mysteries of reality: what it’s all made of. ibid.
Welcome to the weird world of quantum reality: where nothing is quite what is seems ... A remarkable experiment that puts the very existence of reality into question: known to physicists as the Double Slit experiment its remarkable because it reveals two astonishing paradoxes about the nature of reality no-one can fully explain. ibid.
Single photons ... What you get is something completely different: even though only single photons of light are being fired through the slits they don’t create two lines, they mysteriously create three. ibid.
If you put detectors by the slits, the mysterious behaviour stops. The photons behave just like bullets. Take the detectors away – the multiple stripes mysteriously re-appear. So what is going on? Rather astonishingly it seems we can change the way reality behaves just by looking at it. But this means reality has a secret life of its own. ibid.
The quantumness of reality is apparently very sensitive. ibid.
According to this theory the photon of light faces two slits; it doesn’t split in two – it splits the world in two. Every photon in the double slit experiment creates a new parallel world. ibid.
Quantum reality is just about the strangest discovery Physics has ever made. But it is also fantastically powerful. ibid.
The most important particle of all – the Higgs Boson ... The Higgs is now Fermilab’s Number One priority. But they aren’t the only ones looking for it. They have competition. From the biggest particle accelerator of them all – the Large Hadron Collider in Geneva. It is more than three times as powerful. ibid.
As things get colder, they also get stranger ... It’s like a different world ... Everything is in a low energy state. Horizon: What is One Degree? Ben Miller reporting, BBC 2011
As the helium atoms turn into a super-fluid at that critical temperature their fundamental nature asserts itself. Instead of individual atoms bouncing around, the atoms move together as if they were of one mind. ibid.
As a super-fluid the liquid helium has no viscosity. ibid.
I’ve gone through the rabbit hole ... As temperature decreases, as we get closer and closer to absolute zero, we pass into a completely new world, the quantum world, and it’s baffling, and it’s weird. Temperature – the random thermal motion of molecules. ibid.