Whenever any of this comes up I remember that physics professor's speech on first day of quantum mechanics that got viral:
“Nobody understands quantum mechanics. The people who came up with it don't understand it. I will do my best so that by the end of this course you don't understand it either, and so you can got out to the world and spread our ignorance.”
Or something to that effect.
I'm so good at not understanding stuff. My time has come.
Quantum mechanics is illogical and stuff that happens makes no sense but can be recrcreated through experimentation....as long as you don't look at it.
The end
I'd say we understand quantum mechanics better than most things.
We know more about the behaviour of an electron than we know about the oceans, the Earth, the sun, the weather, the stock market, the human body, prime numbers, and so on.
Whenever this picture comes up I remember that it's wrong - both electrons on it have the same spin, one is just rotated 180°, but it says +½ for one and -½ for the other, is like a part of the joke?
All electrons have spin 1/2, that's a property of it being an electron. They have a spin vector (the arrow shown) and whether it is in the same direction or opposite direction to the magnetic field it's in determines where it is plus or minus.
Now you might think "but what if it is not entirely aligned with the field, then it wouldn't be 1/2", which is true, on aggregate for large numbers of electrons, but if you ever look at a single electron its spin will either be "up" or "down" never any other orientation.
This is the kind of thing people are referring to when they say "no one understands QM", we know it is the case, we can measure it and predict it, but it makes no fucking sense.
I recall a Richard Feynman video where the interviewer asks him to explain how magnets work.
His answer amounts to "I can't explain that to you because if I gave you an accurate answer it would be too technical for it to make sense to you, and if I simplified it to the extent that you could understand, it would no longer be a meaningful answer."
His point was that we don't understand the interaction between fundamental forces enough to say, if we were to try and answer the question accurately enough.
So, in one sense ICP was right that we don't know how magnets work. But also they were wrong that scientists be lying. They shouldn't have been pissed.
That interview answer always seemed like a cop-out to me. You could make a comparison to gravity to explain how magnetism "just is".
Title-Text: "Of these four forces, there's one we don't really understand." "Is it the weak force or the strong--" "It's gravity."
I expect Feynman’s answer, if he had a whiteboard and unlimited time, would’ve been to dive into Maxwell’s equations.
With that in mind, his answer makes complete sense. Good luck explaining coupled PDEs to people who aren’t mathy in a few sentences without visual aid. The analogy to the gravitational force isn’t on point; there’s a lot more to be said about how magnets tie to into E&M more broadly, compared to gravity.
Though you’re absolutely right that once you get deep enough into any topic in physics that the answer to “why?” inevitably becomes “it just be like that”.
I think OP's meme illustrates Feynman's point very well; there comes a stage where if the number of incorrect statements in your explanation outnumber the the correct ones, it's no longer a meaningful explanation.
It's been a while since I watched it, so judge for yourself.
Yeah, "spin" was a stupid thing to call it. We have a nice, hard definition of what "spin" is on a macro scale. Why take a complex property of matter that we don't have a name for, and give it the same name as a fairly common, easy-to-understand phenomenon? Extraordinarily smart people being idiots, honestly.
Imagine a mathematical concept that approximates a particle across a spherical plane. Now imagine a force emitted from this sphere in a field. Okay, we're ready to talk about why this is wrong, too.
You lost me at 'spherical plane'
A hollow sphere.
You could picture this as a spherical cow of uniform density if you prefer.
Imagine a woman in hot pants with thighs like a Robert Crumb dream woman.
I don't know if it helps with this problem though.
NoU Imagine a cactus eating a deer.
That's a challenging wank.
(RIP Sean Lock)
Sounds like a class with an attribute called spin.
The universe is a digital simulation confirmed
The memory required to track all these particles was insane, so we just made a wave of where they were most likely to be and picked a random spot when the exact location was needed. 🤷
The electron is rotating in the sense that it resists a tilting force.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PdN1mweN2ds
Disclaimer: My knowledge of physics ends at the high school level.
Apparently there is an experiment where they get an object suspended in water to rotate when being bombarded by electrons with the same spin.
Although my physics knowledge is probably less than the average highschool level.
I studied (a single course...) at university level and I think you understood at least as much as I did.
Right-hand rule bitches!
- Ok, so is it correct to say it has some rotation properties?
- Hahaha, oh no. Nonononono. No. Not at all correct no. However, it's the best we've got so yeah that's what we're going with.
Is more like a feeling
electrons be vibin
It's only half spinning too.
The way I understood it (probably wrong): imagine if a point like thing, but is actually a wave, hits something else. It will leave a trace on the detector curving in a certain direction. This is interpreted as angular momentum aka spin.
There are also things like Hydrogen Fine Structure , that behaves as though it is a ball that actually spins. 🤷
...that is f*cking brilliant...
You must be thinking of the Stern-Gerlach experiment.
A ball, however tiny, has 3 dimensions, it has a surface that moves around a mathematical point at the center of the sphere.
A point of zero dimensions has no diameter nor perimeter, no surface with which to spin. Yet when influenced by a magnetic field, a point-like indivisible particle behaves as if it does spin.As Chief Brody might say, we're gonna need a bigger math!
How about imaginary numbers and the complex plane?
Now add the Uncertainty Principle, just for shits 'n' giggles!
Probability space! Probability amplitudes and polarizations!The trick is to accept it without thinking about it
Shut up and calculate!
this is the best interpretation of quantum mechanics
It's actually kind of liberating when you manage to do that.
It's not true, but if you pretend it is, it allows you to do all kinds of math. Follow the rules as if the spin were real and there were real momentum and it allows you to predict things that you can test. It's almost like looking at a really good magic trick, where you know that what you seem to be seeing isn't possible, but the magician is manipulating things so that your brain can anticipate what's coming next.
Ah yes the spin
I've always understood it more like a cake that's moist, but it's not a cake and it's not moist.
The middle finger is for B field. The thumb is reserved for force. The index finger is for current. 🎵
I am imagining a glorious unibrow
Lozenge's Thumb Rule
I think it's like the magnetic charge of the thing?
Nope, distinct property. I don't think there's any good analogy really (that I've heard).
Particle spin and charge are different properties
And if you're lucky it doesn't exist at all.
How about:
"Imagine you have ADHD, but you're forced to sit in place."
Would that work?
