Rediscover Quantum Mechanics Using Math
Audience: high-schoolundergraduate
Tags: physicsquantum-mechanics
Historically, the discovery of quantum mechanics was a messy evolution with many doubts and technological challenges. In this video, I wanted to explore a scenario where a physicist unfamiliar with quantum mechanics but with access to contemporary equipment re-discovers the main principle of quantum physics for themselves. It is a mix of math and experiment that eventually leads our imaginary physicist to conclude that they found a kind of physics which does not fit into the classical framework anymore. In the last part, we'll also explore potential applications of this new theory leading to the quantum bomb tester experiment and Grover's algorithm. This video requires only basic understanding of algebra and is hopefully comprehensible for high school students with an interest in physics.
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Great clarity and production quality! It really helped understand the QM concepts and made me want to delve more into it.
This was a great introduction to the weirdness that is quantum mechanics. It showed me a new way to think about how quantum mechanics can be useful. The one thing I wish it had done was provide more motivation for why we want to know this near the beginning of the video. The end did a good job of justifying it, but having something to keep in mind while learning would have been helpful.
The intro felt very abrupt. It would be helpful to have a bit of an intro into what the subject of the video is and maybe a small roadmap of what I’m going to learn by watching through to the end.
Excellent introduction (or re-introduction) to superposition from both the experiment and the math later on. I do wish the experiment was shown in some capacity outside of the animation, such as a video of a laser or even a paper about it like the “bomb box” experiment at the end of the video; as it is, it feels like the results are being handed down as givens even though it is not obvious the single particles would always hit the bottom detector. I also would have liked to know why a beam splitter would violate conservation of energy if it does not introduce a phase shift, and would a phase shift that’s an integer multiple of 2π count?
(3:09 How can a laser beam have an electric field? Light does not have an electric charge.)
The math in the video was very neatly animated and presented clearly. Good script and video production. Presented one cool application of beam-splitters, wouldn’t hurt to show others that were mentioned (iceberg), maybe something more niche (like the bomb thing was I think).
Motivation (6) - Your textual motivation in the description for this entry was amazing. If only you had included it at the start of the video too! If I’m watching the video in a vacuum, I might be a bit confused what it’s about in the beginning.
Clarity (9) - I loved the interferometer experiment. I’m not knowledgeable enough to say whether that’s a standard demonstration, but do know that the double slit experiment is often used to teach these concepts and I always felt that was not very intuitive. The interferometer experiment was super easy to follow though! Great job with this presentation!
Novelty (?) - Not knowledgeable enough to judge in this aspect.
Memorability (8) - Most clear explanation of quantum mechanics I have ever seen, so I will definitely remember it. Only suggestion I have is also show these experiments actually working in the lab as well. That way we can actually see for ourselves that the results are true.
This was an awesome video, very good explanations, visuals, commentary, the only thing I would improve would be the math explanation segments since they might have gone a little too fast, but this has been the best video I’ve seen so far, very good! :)
A good video to explore the “how the Quantum Mechanics started?” question.
The waffle was a little confused; but in a good way, like how you sometimes have to work for stuff to learn it—it was a good amount of confusing. I’ll have to re-watch a couple parts, but I’m willing to do that with this video.
Side tangents were tasteful, they didn’t go too far, which because I didn’t understand them.
I loved it though, it was clear and approachable. I loved the diagrams and the relation between intensity and probability, that was an insight I hadn’t seen in other videos/material I’ve read on this subject.
This wasn’t quite my take on “basic” algebra, but it wasn’t too bad.