| Home | It's a Mystery
A number of years ago I was discussing Catholic theology with a priest and when I remarked that something didnÕt make sense, he exclaimed, "ItÕs a mystery!" Richard Feynman was lecturing on Young's slit experiment and said it seemed as if each photon goes through both holes and interferes with itself on its way through. Feynman described this as the "central mystery" of quantum theory. Then he added that in fact it was "the only mystery." If you understood this, you would understand quantum physics, but he went on to say "nobody understands quantum mechanics!" Feynman once said something to the effect, that if you keep saying to yourself ŌHow can it be like that?Ķ you will slip down the drain into a blind alley from which there is no escape. ŌNobody knows how it can be like that.Ķ So if perhaps the greatest theoretical mind of the century couldnÕt understand it, "DonÕt worry, be Happy!" Even the great Enrico Fermi fell into the trap of applying common sense to the mystery concerning the response of radiation of another atom of the same kind some distance away. If the second atom is in an excited state it will emit radiation and so on.... When FermiÕs mistake was finally sorted out a couple of decades later we got the principle that spawned the laser. "Nothing can travel faster than the speed of light?Ķ another exception is quantum particles tunneling through a barrier that Newtonian physics would say impossible. Physicists puzzled over how long this takes for decade but now it has been measured, and would you believe, it takes place faster that the speed of light? This seems to be what is happening in stars. Protons kept apart by their positive charge can still fuse by tunneling. This fusion through tunneling is what makes the sun hot and shine. So you see, itÕs of more than just esoteric interest. I guess IÕll close this essay, IÕm getting so mystified I can no longer type. |