Quantum Mechanics: The Physics of the Microscopic World

Quantum mechanics is one of the most successful physical theories ever devised; learning what distinguishes it from classical mechanics; Professor Schumacher explains ground rules for the course, which teaches ideas and methods of quantum mechanics.

Debating whether the physical world is discrete or continuous; by the 19th century, physicists see a clear demarcation; matter is made of discrete atoms, while light is a continuous wave of electromagnetic energy; a few phenomena are hard to explain.

Max Planck and Albert Einstein propose ideas to resolve puzzles about light and matter; Planck's discovery that light energy can only be emitted or absorbed in discrete amounts called quanta; Einstein's application of this concept to matter.

Light propagates through space as a wave, but it exchanges its energy in the form of particles; Louis de Broglie shows that this wave-particle duality also applies to matter; this relationship makes quantum mechanics inherently probabilistic.

The mystery of why atoms are stable; Niels Bohr suggests that quantum theory explains atomic stability by allowing only certain distinct orbits for electrons; Erwin Schrodinger's powerful equation reproduces the energy levels of Bohr's model.

One of the most misunderstood concepts in quantum mechanics is the Heisenberg uncertainty principle; Werner Heisenberg's route to this view, which establishes a trade-off between how precisely a particle's position and momentum can be defined.