Quantum Mechanics Articles

Quantum mechanics is a mathematical framework for understanding physical phenomena that fail to be described sufficiently by classical physics: the work of Newton, Maxwell, and others. You might ask, ‘Why can’t we use classical methods at that point?’ We’re unable to sufficiently probe atoms and subatomic particles with classical instruments at that scale. The simplest instruments that we can use at that scale, like probing with an electron or photon, are either too energetic or don’t have the right properties to measure what we want to measure.

This doesn’t just mean that WE are unable to measure it, but that, and this is what makes QM weird, physics doesn’t allow us to learn any more about it. So instead of being able to watch particles zooming and blipping and popping about like we are able to watch a ball on a playground, we have to use statistical methods to determine where some particles might be and where it might be going. This is the very broad description of how QM works.