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Money for Nothing

In Cosmology by Brian Koberlein1 Comment

Although there is a great deal of evidence for the big bang, it does raise an interesting question. If the universe began with the big bang, what caused the big bang? One of the more popular answers is that the universe quite literally came from nothing.

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Duality

In Physics by Brian Koberlein3 Comments

When quantum theory is presented in popular science, it is often presented as a strange or spooky thing where particles can act like waves and waves can act like particles. It usually focuses on experiments such as the double-slit experiment where the photon or electron “knows” how the experiment is done and alters its behavior accordingly. This is rather unfortunate, because although quantum theory can seem strange, it is hardly mysterious. It basically comes down to a concept known as duality.

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The Sun’s Magic

In Quantum Mechanics by Brian Koberlein2 Comments

Atoms and nuclei are not governed by the familiar rules of Newton but rather by the rules of quantum mechanics. Quantum mechanics can be a bit hard to wrap your head around, but one of the central principles is that you can never be entirely certain of things. If you want to know where an atom is, or what its energy is, you can never get an exact measurement. This “fuzziness” factor leads to a number of strange effects, of which one is quantum tunneling.