This weekend, I read pages 86-89 , and it was very interesting. What started out talking about social identity ended with talking about identity of atoms and particles. It was very philosophical and thought-provoking.

unique-ness

          "Identity overlaps with, but is not that same thing as, individuality." We are are consistently ourselves... that is out identity! Our individuality is what makes us distinct from another who is consistently themselves. This implies that not every is the same, but every has many different things that make them all unique.  This scale of uniqueness is gigantic! The idea is, quantum with all it's randomness is even bigger, and much harder to discover on such a large scale.
         The authors go on to write about how in the past, gods and men both have disguised themselves as another to hide their true identity... but this doesn't take away from the individuality of things.





            The Authors quote Pesic, and ancient Greek philosopher. "Here, individuality is a sacrament: the union of something visible or perceptible." and I think that he is saying that indentity and individuality in science comes together... or in anything. Quantum is where the two come together, at a crossroads of sorts.

                                                       -Griffin

         Today I enjoyed a great lunch at Panera Bread, and after, came home to read 20 minutes of The Quantum Moment. In this section, which ended up being pages 73-75 , I read about the transition of the classic Newtonian view on physics to the new age Quantum ideas, and more about the confusing topic of probability and randomness, and it's validity as the quantum science is improved.

Ernest Rutherford

         The first transition is the coining of the term Thermodynamics. This is a science of heat, "conceived not as a single substance, as it had been, but as a phenomenon arising from motions of numerous particles." (73) I think as we begun to name these sciences and understand them better, we began to be able to find more out about them, faster. Science has grown so fast in the past few hundred years.
         Many sciences, especially mathematically based ones, can assist in the understand of other sciences. Scientists studying thermodynamics could use statistics to understand the processes better. The authors go on to use radiation as an example.
They say that because radiation seemed so spontaneous, so random, that a scientist named Ernest Rutherford studied a specific element, called  thorium oxide, and came up with one of the first quantitative laws.

Radiation spreads out as a it travels from it's Gamma or X-ray source.

       
       "The intensity of radiation, he said, fell off with time. (Now what we call it's 'half-life')." (74)
         The idea that randomness lay at the very core of nature was proposed by philosopher Charles S. Peirce in the late 19th century, "this, he felt, would prevent scientists from coming up with one final set of law valid for all scales and disciplines, and require them to keep producing new laws." (74) meaning, the spontaneity of quantum ideas and the randomness of it all should be refreshed and re-thought constantly.
          Albert Einstein had a large impact on statistics and probability when he publish his papers on quantum theory in 1916-1917. The began to talk about thermodynamics in a new light, (get it) and he tried to put some sort of probability into something that we know as improbable; the behavior of particles inside an atom. "The moment Einstein made this connection, he regretted it." (75).
           So, like last weeks reading, I am encouraging the reader to think about something... how probable is probability? How constant is constant? How likely is likely? How random is random?



          -Griffin Carlson

This week, I read pages 71-73 , which discussed at first the seemingly impossible ideas of the new physical world, in comparison to the ideas of the old Newtonian world. I was asking myself questions like, "How random is random?" after I read this section. They left me with a sense of wonder and enticement.                                                  

           "Could the dance of subatomic matter be improvisational? Can Reality be determined by a probability curve?" (71)

A typical probability curve. 

These are two questions asked on page 71 of The Quantum Moment. These ideas are so like quantum, seemingly improbably, but yet possibly possible... confused? I know, it can seem a bit intimidating. 

           Our authors go on to say, "In the classical Newtonian world, the answer to such questions is 'No!'" (72) The idea that these almost philosophical questions can be put into an idea, when they still can't be entirely sure of, is scary. To make certain the uncertain is the kind of science that Quantum theory discusses. 

           They go on to give a list of things that seem random-incalculable, like a coin toss, or the lottery. In order to compensate for these, "scientists create theories of probability and measurement error." (72) Many ideas come from the old science in the Newtonian world, that today we question. Many descriptive words came about to illustrate these ideas, and in the words of a famous Historian David Lindley, as quoted in my book, - [you] "could know the blueprint"..."but not the shape and color of every brick" (73). The idea that maybe things that seem uncertain or practically impossible, or maybe that seem valid every time are not actually valid, is the ideas expressed in this quantum theory. Confusing, yet awesome and interesting. 

Mind blown, right? 

They say, 

         "Human figures, arising from random rods, poems compiled by wandering sheep" that one is a long story... "and reality from probability are some instances where form is arising from randomness is called "quantum. How did this happen?" (73) 

                             -Griffin Carlson, 2/7/2015

2/2/2015
In this 30 minutes of reading(pages 52-64), I read how Einstein and his theory of relativity effected science in the time. How new ideas and theories came into play, and caused all of the scientists of the time had to change their ideas as the new ones of Einstein, Bohr, and others came in. The whole idea of the atom was revolutionized, and therefore, the structure and such were revolutionized. Many new writings came in, and we now have thesis on all of these new principles.

2/2/2015
Earlier today I read pages 72-83. In these pages he talked about the relative forces that act on matter in space, and how electrodynamics can be deciphered in an easy way. The forces acting on an electron consist solely of forms of energy, and not really any gravitation pull or anything. It's all inside the atom it went back to the last few pages of reading, about how the energy on an orbital is a certain amount, and the atom has to get over the "hump". The idea was that the atom had almost the relative distance of the Earth to the Sun to cross. I thought that was pretty amazing!

Weekend of 2/2/2015
This weekend I read pages 64-72 in my book, The Quantum Moment. This book is all about the uncertainty of quantum, and other things in our lives, and how we can relate this science of physics to philosophy. How uncertain is uncertain? Pretty uncertain. Why? because of laws like The Heisenberg uncertainty principle. which states that we cannot know both the location of an electron and it's momentum.
Not only did I read a bit of philosophy in this section, but more about the science of electrons. It was fun to relate some  of the knowledge in the book to my chemistry class, and how the electrons in an atom move on levels of energy, called orbitals, where they orbit the nucleus. This knowledge illustrates the action of an electron, and allows readers like me to see where the Heisenberg Uncertainty principle come into play. It's a dense book, but I am excited to keep reading!