First of all, I want to talk about why I read such a book, because for most people, except for junior high school and senior high school, I have never been exposed to this subject since. In fact, having a lovely little boy at home since February last year has touched my rethinking of life and the world. In this process, naturally aroused my interest in exploring the universe. I believe that everyone has had this experience, and some people may have it more than once. I just happened to meet this book when I bought it for my children in the process. Because its book review was good, I bought it and read it at will.
Although the title of this book has the high-end word "quantum physics", it is fortunately a historical story, and the popular understanding should be storytelling, so it is not as difficult as expected. Moreover, the writing of the book is quite interesting, and I like to make metaphors. For example, the electron energy level is compared to a bus stop, and the electron transition is compared to a passenger on a bus. From time to time, some "after-dinner gossip"-some related stories outside the main line-is not as stressful to read as the topic. Some "after-dinner gossip" can increase our knowledge and correct our misconceptions. For example, a gossip said that Newton's famous saying "If I see farther, it's because I stand on the shoulders of giants" was not original by Newton, and some historians think that he quoted this sentence to ridicule and satirize Hooke-because Hooke is short. There is also a story about Archimedes measuring gold crowns. Everyone must know what this story is about, but what I didn't expect was that this story turned out to be fabricated. The logical errors of the story were analyzed in detail from the physical point of view, and the source of the story was found from the historical point of view.
Closer to home, apart from interesting stories, the book describes the development of quantum theory very clearly, starting with its origin, and then explains six different explanations of quantum theory with six main lines: Copenhagen explanation, multiverse explanation, hidden variable explanation, ensemble explanation, GRW explanation and irrelevant historical explanation. At this point, I have to say that the title of this article is a bit exaggerated, because I didn't fully understand all the contents of these six explanations, but only had a general concept, so I didn't feel much better after reading it once.
This is the second time I have read this book, and I think it is necessary to read it together with philosophy books such as Tao Te Ching. Yes, you don't need to be surprised. This book is indeed similar to the Tao Te Ching in some places. For example, the Tao Te Ching says that "Tao gives birth to one, two, three and everything", which is a question of the origin of the universe. This book also talks about the origin of the universe and the production of matter from a physical point of view, and even some physical explanations support "out of nothing"-that is, matter can be produced out of thin air. I believe that if physics develops to the point where it can explain all phenomena in the universe, it can really be unified with philosophy. Ok, let's get back to the topic. Since I have only read this book once and my knowledge is limited, I can only choose a few points to share my experience with you.
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The first is the title of the book-Quantum Theory and God Roll the Dice. After reading this book, we can understand the meaning of the term quantum theory. In fact, simply speaking, the world is discontinuous, which is quantum theory. Time, space, microscopic particles and so on are all discontinuous. In fact, we can see that the beating of the clock is discontinuous when we map it to our life practice. Whether you have an electronic watch, a mechanical watch or a quartz watch, they all mean that time is discontinuous. This is the quantum form, and it is also the embodiment of my understanding of time quantization.
There is also a saying "God rolls the dice", which was said by Einstein. Because there is an explanation in quantum theory that the world is random, Einstein disagreed, saying that "old man" doesn't roll dice, that is, he thinks the world is not based on randomness, and "old man" is Einstein's nickname for God. Of course, whether the world is random is still under debate, but there are many people who agree with randomness at present, and Hawking also said in A Brief History of Time that God not only rolls the dice, but also throws them out of our sight. This invisible place is a black hole.
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The second is to let me know what Schrodinger's cat is. We should have heard of this animal before. It seems that there is a popular song named after it. In fact, the thing is this: Copenhagen explained that the state of microscopic particles is a mixed superposition of various possibilities before observation. For example, a radioactive atom is in a decaying/non-decaying superposition state, but this superposition state only exists in microscopic particles.
However, Schrodinger designed a thinking experiment. He put the cat in an opaque box with radioactive atoms, particle detectors, hammers and poison gas bottles. If atoms decay, a series of chain reactions will occur, poison gas bottles will be broken and cats will be poisoned; If it doesn't rot, the cat will live. Because the microscopic particles are in the superposition state of decay/non-decay, the cat is also in the superposition state of death/life through this device. This experiment magnifies the quantum effect to the everyday world. If it is true, then our world is in an uncertain superposition state when it is not observed, and it can only be determined after observation. This is the challenge that Schrodinger explained to Copenhagen. This dead and alive cat is Schrodinger's cat. As for the usage of this word in the entertainment circle, it is generally used to express a woman's elusive heart. You don't know whether the goddess likes you or not until you confess to her. At this time, her like/dislike for you is a superposition state. Only after you confess (that is, observe) will this superimposed state collapse into one of two States: "She also likes you" or "You are a good person".
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The third is something related to computers. Because I am a computer major, I will pay attention to these things. Let's start with computer tycoon von Neumann. Before reading this book, I had no idea that he could dabble in quantum physics. After reading it, I realized that it was the hidden variable theory that the great god used mathematical methods to shoot. But his proof is based on five hypotheses, and the fifth hypothesis was found to be problematic 30 years later. It doesn't take much mathematical skills and insight to find this mistake. Bohm, a famous expert in quantum mechanics who discovered this mistake, revived the explanation of hidden variables. For the curse of the fifth postulate, a simple sentence. In history, not only von Neumann was planted on the fifth hypothesis, but also Euclid, the famous ancestor of mathematics, was covered in mud on the fifth postulate. Russian mathematician Lobachevsky established non-Euclidean geometry under the assumption that the fifth postulate was not established.
Then there is the quantum computer. Isn't it a waste to read books on quantum theory without understanding the relationship between quantum computer and quantum theory? Quantum computer is actually a machine that uses the superposition state of quantum to calculate. If a bit can only represent 0 or 1, now a qubit can represent 0 and 1 at the same time. If we read a 10 bit binary number, then the traditional computer is processing this 10 bit binary number, while for the quantum computer, because each bit is the superposition of 0 and 1, it is actually processing 2 10 binary numbers at the same time. So the quantum computer greatly improves the operation speed. At present, commercial quantum computers are 654.38 billion times faster than traditional computers. In fact, for me, I care not only about the operation speed of quantum computers, but also about whether it will have an impact on computer theory. In other words, will the computer knowledge we have learned before become a pile of garbage because of the birth of quantum computers? Fortunately, it is not. As mentioned in this book, it has been proved that quantum computers can't achieve tasks other than algorithms, and it can't do more than ordinary Turing machines. So everyone is engaged in computers, you are still safe at present, and you can continue to learn the existing computer knowledge at present.
Article 1: Famous sayings about success
1, success = hard work+correct method+less empty talk. -Einstein
If you want to succeed in your care