Robert Gilmore

Alice in the Country of Quantum

Quantum physics for everyone

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SUMMARY

Preface
In the Country of Quantum
The Bank Heisenberg
The Institute of Mechanical
The School of Copenhagen
The Academy Fermi-Bose
Virtual Reality
Atoms in the Vacuum
The Rutherford Castle
The dance of the particles Massacarados
The Piteira Phantástica of Experimental Physics

Preface
In the first half of the twentieth century, our understanding of the
universe was turned upside down. The old theories of classical physics were
replaced by a new way of seeing the world - the quantum mechanics. This was
at odds, in many ways with the ideas of the old Newtonian mechanics, in fact,
in many ways, was at odds with our common sense. However, the strange thing
about these theories is its extraordinary success in predicting the observed
behavior of physical systems. For more absurd that quantum mechanics may
seem, this seems to be the way that Nature chose - once, we have to comply.
This book is an allegory of quantum physics in order dicionarizado of
"a narrative that describes a subject under the guise of another." The way in
which things are behaving in quantum mechanics seems very strange to our
habitual way of thinking and becomes more acceptable when we analogies with
situations with which we are familiar, even when such analogies may be
inaccurate. Such analogies can never be a true representation of reality, to
the extent that quantum processes are in fact quite different from our
ordinary experience.
An allegory is an extended analogy, or a series of analogies. As such,
this book follows the further steps of the Pilgrim s Progress or travel
Gulliver than Alice in Wonderland. Alice seems the most appropriate model,
however, when considering the world we inhabit.
The Country of the quantum by which Alice travels is looks more like a
theme park in which Alice is sometimes an observer, while sometimes it
behaves like a particle with electric charge may vary. The Country of the
Quantum shows the essential features of quantum world: the world we all
inhabit.
Much of the story is pure fiction and the characters are imaginary
but the notes that describe the "real world" are true. Through the narrative
you will find many statements obviously absurd and very different from common
sense. For the most part, they are true. Niels Bohr, the father of quantum
mechanics emseus beginning, is known to have observed that anyone who has not
been stunned to think of quantum theory does not understand.
 Seriously, though ...
The description of the world proposed by quantum mechanics is
certainly interesting and remarkable, but we seriously prepared to believe
that is true? (Interestingly we find that. To emphasize this statement,
throughout this book you will find brief notes that emphasize the importance
of quantum mechanics in the real world. The notes are more or less like this:
These notes summarize the importance to our world, quantum of topics
encountered by Alice in each chapter. They want to be sufficiently non-
intrusive, so you can ignore them while reading the story of the adventures
of Alice, but if you want to discover the real meaning of these adventures,
the notes are conveniently close.
There are also some long notes at the end of chapter. They explain
some of the key points in the text and are well characterized: See Note 1 at
the end of Chapter
Various aspects by which the quantum theory describes the world may
seem absurd at first sight - and thus may possibly opinion of the second,
third and twenty-fifth time. And yet, the only game in town. The old
classical mechanics of Newton and his followers are unable to give any
explanation for ripo of atoms and other microsystems. Quantum mechanics
agrees well with observation. The calculations are often difficult and
boring, but they were made, is perfectly suited to what was actually
observed.
It is impossible to emphasize enough the remarkable practical success
of quantum mechanics. Although the result of a measure can be random and
unpredictable, the predictions of quantum theory consistently fit the average
results obtained from many measures. Any macroscopic observation involve many
atoms and therefore many comments atômica.De new scale we see that the
quantum mechanics is successful in that it automatically fits the results of
classical mechanics for macroscopic objects the reverse is not true.
The quantum theory was developed to explain observations made in
atoms. Since its conception, was successfully applied to the core atom, the
strong interaction of particles that come from the core and the behavior of
which are composed of quarks. The application of the theory was extended by a
factor of something like one hundred billion. The systems considered both
decreased in size and increased in energy by this factor. And a long way of
extrapolation of a theory from its original design, but even here the quantum
mechanics seems to be able to deal with these extreme systems.
Until the point where it was investigated, quantum mechanics seems to
know of universal applicability. On a macroscopic scale, the predictions of
quantum theory lose their random appearance and fit those of classical
mechanics, which works very well with large objects. On a microscopic scale,
however, the predictions of quantum theory are consistently confirmed in
experiments. Even these forecasts, which seem to involve an absurd picture of
the world, are supported by experimental evidence. Intriguing mind, as
discussed in Chapter 4, the quantum mechanics appears to be in a strange
position to fit all the observations, although we discuss which observations
can actually be made. It seems that the world is more strange than imagined
and perhaps more strange than we can imagine.
Meanwhile, however, we follow Alice in the beginning of his journey by
Country of Quantum.
Robert Gilmore

Alice was bored. All his friends were on vacation, visiting relatives
and she, because of rain, was locked in the house, watching television. That
afternoon had seen the fifth episode of an introductory course in Esperanto,
a program of political propaganda and a garden. Alice was really bored.
He looked at the book that was on the floor beside the chair. It was
an edition of Alice in Wonderland it, earlier that day, had left there to
finish reading. "I do not know that there can be more interesting designs and
programs on television," wanders. "I wanted to be like the other Alice. She
was bored and found the path to a land full of strange beings and interesting
events. If there was any way to shrink to float through the screen of
television, maybe I could find many things fascinating."
Frustrated, she looked to the screen, which at that moment an image of
the Prime Minister said that made all the, things were better than three
years before, although not always seemed so. It was a little surprised to see
the image of the face of the prime minister was cutting up and slowly
becoming a blur of bright dots that danced and seemed to flow into the TV, as
if they were calling it. "Wow," said Alice, "I think they want me to follow!"
He is a heel and was toward the television, but stumbled in the book that was
displeasing dropped on the floor, and fell head.
As it fell, was amazed to see the screen is huge, and was surprised
surrounded by dancing dots that fluíam into the picture. "I can not see
anything with these points turns giving around me," he thought. "And be lost
in a snowstorm. I can not even see my feet. I just see a little. It is not to
know where I am."
At that time, Alice felt pull your feet into something solid and was
on a level hard surface. His back began to disappear the dots and realized
that she was surrounded by undefined ways.

Looked more closely to what was nearest and observed a small figure,
the height of your waist, max. It was very difficult to define it, as was
leaping from one side to another and are moving so fast you barely had to see
right. The form seemed to be carrying some kind of cane, or perhaps an
umbrella closed, it was pointed upwards. "Hello, Alice is presented politely.
"I am Alice. I know who you are?"
"I'm an electron," said the form. "I'm an electron spin-up. It is easy
to distinguish me from my friend there, the electron spin-down, which is
obviously very different from me." And he said to himself, in a low tone,
something that sounded like "Vive la différence". So that Alice could see,
the other electron is nearly equal, unless the umbrella, or whatever it was
that pointed down toward the floor. It was difficult to be sure, since the
dig is also leaping from one side to another as soon as the first.
"Please," said Alice to his younger acquaintance. "It could make a
nice stop for a moment so I can see it more clearly?"
"I am very gentle," said the electron, "but I fear that there is
enough space. But I will try anyway." So saying, he began to reduce its rate
of agitation. But the more slowly moved, the more it expanded to the sides
and would become more diffuse. At that time, although not to move quickly, he
was so vague and out of focus so that Alice could not see it more clearly
than before. "This is the best I can do," puff the electron. "I fear that the
more slowly I move, I am more widespread. Things are well here in the country
of Quantum: the less space you occupy, the faster you have to move, h. a
rule, and there is nothing that I can do. "
"Indeed there is no room to reduce the speed here," continued the
companion of Alice as a start to jump quickly from one side to another. "The
season is getting so crowded, it must be more comp.u it." In fact, the area
where Alice was manned by the figures was that squeeze side by side, dancing
and moving feverishly.
 Atomic particles at different objects in a macroscopic scale. Electrons are
very small and do not have particular characteristics, being completely
identical to each other. In fact, they have some kind of rotation, although
not possible to say exactly what's in rotation. A peculiar feature is that
all the electrons rotate the rate itself, no matter in which direction the
rotation is measured. The only difference is that each turn in one direction
and rotate in another direction. Depending on its direction of rotation, the
electrons are known as spin-up or spin-down.

"What strange beings," Alice thought. "I never see that they are
really quiet because it does not stop and nothing indicates that he will
stop." Why not seemed possible to make them move more slowly she decided to
try another topic. "You could tell me please what kind of season this is
where we are?" She asked.
"In a train station, of course," replied happily one of electrons
(Alice was very difficult to say which of them had spoken since they were all
very similar). "Let's take the train of waves to that screen that you see.
You will then get the express photon, I believe, if you want to go further."
"You are talking about the television screen?" Alice asked.
"Now this, of course," said a high of electrons. Alice could have
sworn that was not the same to answer the first question, but it was very
difficult to be sure. "Come! The train is here and we must embark."
In fact, Alice could see a row of small wagons lined up at the
station. They were all very small. Some were empty, some were occupied by one
electron, and two electrons. Wagons filled up quickly - in fact, seemed no
more than left empty - but Alice realized that none of the wagons carrying
more than two electrons. When they passed near the wagons, the two occupants
shouting "Lotado! Lotado."
"You could not squeeze more than two in a wagon, the train is so
full?", Alice said to his companions.
"Oh, no! Never addition of two electrons together, this is the rule."
"I think then we will have to occupy different wagons," said Alice a
little inconsistent, but the electron reassured.
0 the uncertainty principle of Heisenberg states that no particle can
have well defined values for position and velocity at the same time. This
means that a particle can not remain stationary at a given position, as a
particle state has a well defined velocity: the speed of zero.

"You is not a problem, you can enter the car you want, of course!"
"I do not see how this is possible," replied Alice. "If a car is too
full for you, certainly no room for me too."
"No way! Wagons can only accommodate two electrons, so the places for
nearly all electrons must be taken, but you are not Élet IOH! There is no
other train in Alice, then there is more than enough space Paia a Alice in
any of the wagons. "
Alice did not understand everything he said, but, fearing that the
train broke soon, began to seek a post that could accommodate one more
electron. "And this here", said to his companion. "Here is a wagon with only
one electron. Can you come here?"
"Of course not!" shot him, horrified. "This is an electron spin-up. I
can share a car with another electron spin-up, that suggestion, it is totally
against my principle."
"Against its principles, is what I mean?" Alice asked.
"I mean what I said. Against my principle, or rather, against the
principle of Pauli, which prohibits two of us, electrons, do the same thing
at the same time, including occupying the same space f have the same spin "he
replied, offended.
Alice could not understand what was left so hurt, but gave a quick
look around you to see was another car that was more appropriate for him. You
find one that housed a beckers electron-type spin-down, and the companion of
Alice promptly jumped inside. Alice was surprised to see that, although now
it seems the little wagon full of some form had space enough for her.
Once we took their seats, the train began to move. The trip was
monotonous and uninteresting landscape. So Alice was happy to see that the
train speed decreased. "This must be the screen, I suppose," thought Alice.
"I am anxious to know what will happen now."

While the electrons will jump from the screen Paia, a J; Iaiulc
stirring account of loniDii place. "What's happening?", Alice asked high.
"Why is everyone so excited?" Their questions were answered by a warning that
the air that seemed to come about.
"The match of the screen is now being excited by electrons coming, so
we will soon have the emission of photons. Soon the departure of the photon
Express." Alice looked around them to try to see the arrival of the Express,
where forms and bright light went running through the platform. Alice was a
surprise catch in the crowd and carried along with it while everyone gathered
in the same wagon. "They do not seem concerned with any principle, Pauli or
any other", while Alice thought the pictures would be squeezing into rorno
it. "These here are certainly not bother to be in the same place. I think the
Express is just starting. ... I wonder where you will stop that," concluded
the fall in the other platform. "Wow! It was a quick trip, for sure." (Alice
was corretíssima here. The journey lasted no some time, because time is
effectively frozen for anything that travels with the speed of light.) Again
it was surrounded by a crowd of electrons, all running away from the
platform.
"Come!", One shouted at her to land. "We must leave the station now if
we go somewhere."
"Sorry," Alice asked, hesitantly, "you are the same electron with whom
I was talking about before?"
"I am", replied, as triggered by a side passage. Alice was dragged by
the crowd of electrons and conducted through the main entrance of the
platform.
"Damn, that annoying thing", said Alice. "I lost sight of the only
person I know in this strange place and not have anyone explain to me what is
happening."
"Do not worry, Alice," said a voice at the height of your knee. "I'll
show you where to go." It was one of the electrons.
"You know my name?" Alice asked with amazement.
"Simple. I am the same electron that was talking to you before."
"No way!", She exclaimed. "I saw one electron going in another
direction. Maybe not the same with whom I was talking about before."
"Certainly it was."
"So you can not be the same," said Alice, of course. "You can not be
the same electron, you know?"

"Oh, yes we can", replied the electron. "He is the same. I am the
same. We are all the same, you know? Exactly the same!"
"This is ridiculous!," Alice argued. "Are you here by my side while
the other was for somewhere in that direction, so you two can not be the same
person. One of you has to be different."
 "No way," shouted the electron, jumping from one side to another, even
faster because of its excitement. "We are all identical. There is no way to
differentiate. So you see, it must be the same and I should be the same too."
At that point, the crowd of electrons surrounding Alice began to
shout: "I am the same," "I am the same too," I am the same as you, "" I am
the same as you. " The uproar was terrible. Alice closed his eyes and put
your hands in the ears until the noise stop.
When everything was quiet again, Alice opened his eyes and lowered his
hands. Saw that there was no sign of the crowd of more electrons and that she
was alone, leaving the entrance of the station. Looking around, he was a
street that, at first sight, and seemed normal. Turned left and began walking
by the sidewalk.
Before it was too far, crossed with a picture in front of a passage
gloomily looking for something in their pockets. Was low and very pale. It
was hard to see your face clearly, as was the case with everyone that Alice
had met recently. But he seemed quite a rabbit, Alice thought. "My God, my
God! I'm late and I can not ontrar in my keys. I have to enter directly! So
saying, he moved away a bit and running again directed to the port.
Went so fast that Alice could not see him in any position. Instead, he
saw a series of pictures of him in different positions held throughout its
path. The images were from the point of departure to the port where, instead
of to Alice as expected, remained at home, falling increasingly to become too
small to be seen. Alice barely had time to record this strange series of
images where the figure rebound back at the same speed, leaving again a
series of images. This time it ended abruptly with the unfortunate character
of fallen back on top of a culvert. Also decided, he stood up and fired again
toward the door. Again came the series of images that shrink into the door,
and again it bounce and then falling back.
While Alice ran in his direction, he repeated the movement several
times, throwing himself against the door and fell back again. "Stop, stop!",
Shouted Alice. "Do not do it. You end up getting hurt."

The person stopped running and looked at Alice. "Hello, my dear. I

fear that I should do this. I locked on the outside and must come soon, so I
have no choice but tunelanitvavés of the barrier."
Alice looked at the door, which was big and strong. "I do not think
has much chance of running through it and throwing it against her," he said.
"You are trying to shoot it down?"
"Oh, no, certainly not! I do not want to destroy my beautiful door. I
just want to cross it. Moreover, I fear that what I said is true. The
probability of achieving cross it is not great, really, but I try . I Hzendo
it, threw it back against the door. Alice the left, thinking that would be
waste of time, and moved away when he returned tottery again.
After some steps, Alice could not resist and took a look back to see
if, by chance, he had abandoned. He saw once more the series of images that
went toward the door and cm shrink to get it there. She waited for the
rebound. Of <> ut the 1st time is was immediate, but this time nothing
happened. The door was there, solid 6 alone, and there was no sign of his
acquaintance. After a few seconds where nothing iii onteceu, Alice heard the
noise of chains and locks from behind the door, which opened. His known
reappeared and waved to her. "What my luck!", He said "The probability of
penetrating a thick barrier like this is really very small. And a stunning
lucky I have got through it in such a short time." Cm then closed the door
with a solid beat that indicated the end of that meeting. Alice continued to
walk.
A little ahead she reached a spot next to the empty street, where a
group of workers was assembled around a pile of bricks. Alice concluded that
workers were therefore more bricks were downloading from inside a car. "Well,
at least these people are behaving summer of sensible way," I thought it. At
that time, another group doubled the corner running, carrying something that
resembles a huge carpet rolled up, and started to take it on the ground.
Alice then realized it was some kind of floor of a building. The plan seemed
to be quite large, since it covered most of the available space. "Oh I think
that should be the same size of the building they will build," said Alice,
"but will build anything if the plant now occupies the space?"
Workers have just put the plant in position and returned to the pile
of bricks. Began to get the bricks and play them apparently at random on top
of the plant. Everything was confusing - the bricks catamaran now a place,
sometimes in another - and Alice did not see any purpose that. "What are you
doing?" asked a man who was away to the side. As he seemed not to be doing
nothing, it was inferred that the master-of-works. "You are just piling the
bricks disorganized. There should be building a building?"
"Sure, honey. And we," replied the master-of-works. "It is true that
the random fluctuations are still large enough to hide the default, but once
we have established the distribution of probabilities for the result we need,
we are getting, there is the fear."
Alice felt that demonstration of optimism not very convincing, but was
quiet and noted that the rain of bricks continued to fall on the ground.
Little by little, to his surprise, noticed that some bricks were falling in
some regions more than others and that it was possible to distinguish between
walls and doors. She looked fascinated as the recognized forms of comfortable
chaos that would arise from that original. "Wow, that amazing!" He said. "How
to do this?"

"It has not said to you", smiled the master-of-works. "You saw us
establish the distribution of probabilities before we start. It specifies
that it should be the places where bricks and which should not. We need
entertainment that before starting to throw the bricks because they do not
know where they will stop when the play means ", continued.
"I see why!," Interrupted Alice. "I used to see the bricks are placed
one after the other, in certain lines."
"Well, is not that we do here at Quantum. Here we can not control
where each brick goes, only the probability of that will go to a place or
another. This means that when a few bricks, they can fall in almost all
places and then not appear to have any kind of pattern. When their number
increases, however, you discover that there are only bricks where there is
some possibility that they exist and where the probability is greater, where
there is more bricks. When dealing with large quantities of bricks, all just
work very well, true. "
Alice found it very funny, although the master-to-talk works so
precisely that it seemed to make some sense. Not asked anything, because the
answers just to confuse him more. Thanked for the information and then
continued walking down the street.

Not long after, she spotted a window where a large sign saying:

"I'm sure it must be something very exciting, but I have no idea what
it is, and if someone were to ask, I am sure that I would answer more lost
than I am now," exclaimed Alice desperate. "Do not understand anything of
what I have seen so far. I find someone I give a good explanation about what
is happening around me."
 I had noticed that had spoken up high to hear the answer for a pass.
"If you want to understand the country of Quantum, will need someone to
explain quantum mechanics. Therefore, you should go to the Institute of
Mechanics," it advised.

"Oh, they will be able to explain me what is happening here", shouted

Alice delighted. "And I will be able to explain all the things I saw, so (orno
0 poster in that window and that means that 'eV'?"
"I think the mechanics can explain most of you," replied his
informant, "but as" eV are units of energy, you probably should start asking
about them in the Bank Heisenberg, mainly because there is across the street.
"
Alice looked at where he pointed and saw a large building with a
facade very pompous, obviously built to impress. Had an entry with pilasters
of stone and, at the top, in letters bottle was engraved with the name BANK
Heisenberg. Alice through the street, climbed a long stairway that led to the
great door and entered.

Through the door, Alice was in a room with tall columns and walls of
marble. It was like that of other banking houses that she had known, but this
looks more like a bank. There was a row of boxes along the wall, and large
hall was divided by barriers of tape so that clienres were already forming
queues while waiting to be served. Currently, however, there was a customer.
In addition to the boxes behind the counter and the guard standing next to
the door, Alice did not see anyone else.
How were you advised to inquire at the Bank, she started walking with
determination toward the row of boxes. "One moment", said the guard. "Where
do you think you're going, missy? Not see that there is a queue?"
"Sorry," replied Alice, "but I am not seeing the same line. There is
nobody here."
"Of course there is, and many", emphasized the guard. "We received
many 'ninguéns' today. Usually we refer to them as virtual. Rarely seen many
particles virtual waiting for their loans of energy."
Alice noticed - and this was becoming common - that nothing would be
quickly cleared. He looked at the window of the box and saw that although the
Bank seems to be empty, the boxes were very busy. Glossy pictures would
appear one at a time in front of a window or another, and then left at the
Bank. In a moment, she saw a couple of pictures together to materialize in
front of the box. Realized that one was an electron, the other was very
similar, but was half as the negative of a photograph of the first, the
opposite in every detail of electrons that she had seen before.
"He is a positron, a antielétron," muttered a voice heard in the
Alice. She turned and saw a young woman to look hard and very well dressed.
"Who are you?", Asked Alice.
"I am the Manager of the Bank," replied the young. "I am in charge of
the distribution of loans to energy virtual particles. Lótons The majority
is, as you can see, but sometimes serve pairs of particle and antiparticle,
coming together to ask for a loan, as one pair of electron and positron you
saw earlier. "
"Why need loans of energy", said Alice. "Why not see them even before
they get the loan?"
"Well, see," replied the manager, "so that a particle exists properly,
to be free, and can be seen moving normally and everything else, it must have
at least a specific minimum energy that we call energy mass at rest. These
poor virtual particles do not even have the energy. The majority has no power
and there is so not true. lucky for them, can make a loan in the Bank of
energy here and there that allows for some time . She pointed to a poster on
the wall that said:

TERMS OF LOAN
? • t =? / 2 is given preference to immediate payment.
"This is what we call the Heisenberg relation. It governs all our
transactions. The" is called the Planck constant, reduced the value
correctly, of course. The? Gives the exchange rate for our loans for energy.
The quantity? is the amount of energy and loaned? t is the time for which the
loan is worth. "
"I mean," said Alice, trying to follow what the manager said, "that is
how the exchange rate between two currencies, so the more time there, more
energy can be borrowed?
"Oh, no! It's just the opposite! The energy and time is multiplied
together to give a constant value. The higher the energy, the shorter is the
period of time that the loan is worth. To understand properly, take a look at
that particle and antiparticle alien who came to make a loan in Box 7. "
Alice looked at where the manager indicated and was impressed. In
front of the box was a pair of pictures, one was the opposite of the other,
just as the electron and positron that she had seen before. This pair,
however, was bright and flashy figures whose presence had so much space that
almost hide the box behind them. Alice was impressed with the extravagance of
the two, as could not fail to be, but when I would open the mouth to make a
comment, they disappeared and disappeared completely.
"Here is an example of what I was saying," continued the manager
calmly. "He even got a huge amount of energy to sustain the huge mass of rest
necessary for the style of their life. But because the loan was too high, the
deadline for payment was so short, but very short, they managed to not leave
the counter before paying the loan back. Because these heavy particles can
not go very far before you pay your loans for energy, they are known in our
industry as short-range particles, the manager added.

"The relationship between time and energy is the same for all, then?",
Alice asked, feeling that it might have finally managed to find anything
definitive.

Most of the particles have a mass at rest, and that is the equivalent
B joined large amount of energy. Without initial energy virtual particles can
exist for a short time "getting loaned" the power of that $ precl am for your
rest and united mass of quantum fluctuations.

"Exactly! The Planck constant is always the same, regardless of time

and the place where it is implemented. And the so-called universal constant,
which means simply that it is the same anywhere.
"We work with energy here at the Bank," continued the manager,
"because here in the country of Quantum, energy acts as if it were money. As
you give real names or dollars to your money, we call the unit of energy used
more eV from here. The amount of energy of a particle is what determines what
it is capable of doing. The speed at which you can go, that the state can
take, how will it affect other systems, it all depends on the energy that
particle has.
"Not all particles are completely devoid of energy, as they are in
the queue. Many of them have enough energy itself and, if so, to keep it as
long as you want. They must have seen you walking outside. All particle that
needs a body, must have enough energy to sustain its existence. "
She pointed to another framed notice on the wall that said:
Mass is Energy. Energy is mass
"If you want a particle has mass, it must find energy to sustain that
weight. If over some energy, it can be used for other things. Not all
particles with mass mind. There are some" free-and-easy, "Particle bohemian
who have no rest mass. They are not limited as the majority, who need to turn
to get their mass and therefore can make use of even small amounts of energy.
photons is a good example. A photon has no mass rest. Therefore, a photon at
rest does not weigh anything. But look well, photons are not found at rest,
usually, they are always running around, the speed of light because it is
them that the light is made, it • The light is not a constant and smooth
flow. It is a lot of quanta, small packets of energy, so that the flow is
granular. These quanta, or particles of light are called photons. Almost
everything is made of how much of any size. It is this that is the name of
quantum physics. See all the photons leaving the bank now. The photons are
all basically the same, just like the other one, as the electrons are the
same, but you may notice that many of them are quite different. This is
because they have different amounts of energy. Some have very little energy,
like those of radio frequency photons that are coming out now. "
Alice looked at a crowd of photons that was in her, flowing around
your feet and out the door. While leaving, she heard snippets of music,
voices empostadas and something about "a lunch Thursday." "I did not know
that radio waves were made of photons," said Alice. "Oh, yes. They are. They
are photons with a wavelength and large, low frequency and very little
energy. They go in groups, because to have noticeable effects need a lot of
time. They are very nice figures, are not ", smiled the partner of Alice.
"But the visible photons, those who are the light that people use to see,
have a higher frequency and more energy. The effect of one can be quite
noticeable. The most wealthy, the big spending, are the waves of X-ray and
gamma photons. Each one carries a lot of energy and can make your presence is
noticed in the environment, if they decide interact. "
"This is all very interesting," said Alice, most sincere, "but I am
still confused about the very idea of energy. Could I say the real power?"
"Very wise for his question," replied the manager, met.
"Unfortunately, it is not easy to answer it. Come to my office and I try to
give you an explanation."
The manager crossed the hall, Alice quickly pulling up a slight but
intimidating door in the corner opposite, leading to a large and modern
office. Making a signal to Alice sits in a comfortable armchair in front of a
large table, the manager gave it back and sat in a chair, across the table.
"Well," she began, "energy is a bit like the money in his world, and
it is not easy to explain exactly."
"I thought it was easy," replied Alice. "Money is made of coins, and
my change, or may be cash, too."
"That's paper-money, which certainly is a form of money. But the
money does not need to be in coins and notes. It can also be a savings
account, for example, or in shares of companies, or invested in construction.
E as energy, which can take several forms, very different from each other.
"The most obvious is the kinetic energy," said the manager, while in
the swing chair. His voice had the tone of complacent who is preparing to
make a long speech to a captive audience.
"A particle, or any object will have kinetic energy when moving.
Cinética means movement. There are other forms of energy, too. There is the
potential energy as the gravitational energy of a rock that is on top of a
hill and that so you can scroll down. There is also the energy, or chemical
energy, which is the potential energy that the electrons have when they are
within atoms. There is, as I said, the rest mass energy, many particles need
only have to exist, so we have some mass. A form of energy can be converted
into another, as you deposit money in your paper-notebook. I can give an
example, if you look through the window. " She bent and pressed a button on
your desk, and a round window was opened on the wall in front of Alice.
Through her, Alice could see a mountain-Russian. While watching, a cart
arrived at the top of a rise, making a break before descending the other
side.
"That cart, as you see, is not moving now and so it has zero kinetic
energy. But he is on top, and its position gives it potential energy. When
you start to fall, he loses time and therefore also loses a little of its
energy potential, which is converted into kinetic energy. And what does go
further and faster while descending. " Alice could barely hear the excited
shouts of joy of shooting passengers on the cart paths.

Energy exists in many forms. It can manifest as, rest mass energy of
a particle, such as kinetic energy that is involved in the movement of any
object and how the various types of potential energy. One form of potential
energy is gravitational potential energy of an object, which decreases as the
object falls.
"If the trails were smooth and well-wheel racing without friction,"
continued the speaker disinterested, "the cart back to sleep only when you
were exactly the same time that he left." She bent back to tinker with
something on the table. The figures in the distant mountain-Russian shouted
by surprise when they saw that the next rise before them suddenly acquired a
much greater height. The trolley speed dropped to stop completely before
reaching the top. "How did you do that?" Alice exclaimed, astonished. "Never
underestimate the influence of a Bank," muttered his companion. "Let's see
what happens now."
The cart began to move backwards on the rails amid cries still
excited but not so happy about the last time. The speed was increased to the
cart to move triggered by the lowest point and start to climb the other side,
less speed. He did precisely where Alice had seen first and then started to
decline again.
"So he continued indefinitely, with the energy of the moving cart of
potential energy to kinetic energy, and vice versa, but I think you
understand." The manager pressed another button on the table and the window
is closed.
"This is the kind of look obvious that they see the energy in the
World Classic. It changes the form of a continuous and smooth. You saw the
car speed increased progressively as descended without large jumps. And there
is no obvious restriction on the amount of energy that any object can have.
Here in the country of Quantum, is not often that happens. In many
situations, a particle can have only a limited set of values of energy and
can only accept or reject energy in packages, that we call quanta. In the
World Classic, all payments are made to power supply, with many plots and too
frequent and pequenininhas same infinitesimal, but here it is normal to be
made in installments with certain value.

In quantum theory, consider energy and momentum is considered as

important as position and time. More important, in fact, it is easier to
measure the energy of an atom to determine where he is. Energy is in a sense,
the equivalent of money in the physical world. Energy is classically defined
as "the ability to perform work." It is necessary to have energy particles,
if they want to do something, that is, make transitions from one state to
another. Momentum is a quantity more like speed. It is going in a certain
direction, while energy is only a direction associated with greatness. When
we say how much energy there is not anything left to say. Electrons, moving
from right to left and from left to right at the same speed, have the 'same
kinetic energy, but momenta1 opposites.
"As you saw, the kinetic energy is a kind of theatrical energy and
spectacular - something that the bodies only when they are in motion. The
more body mass you have, the more kinetic energy it has and the faster
moving, more energy kinetics will no quantity depends on the way the
direction in which the body moves, just the speed. In this sense, there is a
difference with the other important quantity that tells us how a particle
moves. This is something that call momentum or momentum. The momentum is such
as measure of the obstinacy of a particle. Every particle is determined to
continue to move in exactly the same way moved before, without any changes.
If something moves quickly, is need a certain strength to make it slower. A
force is also necessary to change the direction of motion, even if the speed
of the particles remain the same. A change only in the direction of movement
is not such that the particle loses its precious energy kinetics, since it
only depends on the speed of movement and not its direction. Still, the
particle to resist this change because it involves the change of its
momentum. Particulates are very conservative in that sense.
"It's all a matter of what we call the switch," continued the
enthusiastic manager. "When you describe a particle, we must use the correct
parameters. If you want to say where she is, you should talk to their
position and time, for example. "
"I thought it was only necessary to say in which position it is,"
objetou Alice. "This is where she will not tell?"
"Certainly not. You need the time, as the position. If you want to
know where an object is now or where it is tomorrow, not advance nothing I
tell you if your position is where he was a week ago. You must know the time
and position, because things tend to move, you know? " Like if you want to
know what a particle is doing, you must describe it in terms of its momentum
and energy. Generally, we have the position and time if you want to know
where a particle is. "
"Here in the country of Quantum, the parameters tend to be related.
When you try to see where something is, it affects the momentum of this
object, how fast it is moving. It is another form of Heisenberg's relation
that I showed you at the Bank .

There are many types of energy. The kinetic energy is due directly to
the movement. A cannon ball in motion has an energy that does not stop a
bullet. Rest mass energy is another type. The rest mass energy of any object
is large. In Newtonian mechanics did not need to consider the rest mass
energy which, by not changing, not affecting the transfer of energy. Quantum
processes in the masses of the particles change frequently and the variation
in energy, rest mass can be released for other forms. A conversion of less
than one percent of the body at rest to a small part of the material occurs
in nuclear weapons, for example. Not a very large variation in energy
compared with other cases investigated in the physics of particles, but it is
devastating when released by a significant number of particles within our
everyday world.
"That is why, then," said Alice, remembering is a previous meeting,
"that the electron with whom I earlier could not stop so I could see it all
without being diffuse?
 "Without doubt. The relationship of uncertainty affect all particles
in this way. They always seem somewhat vague and it is impossible to locate
them with precision.
"I know what I do! Call the Counter Uncertainty to explain that,"
exclaimed the Manager. "His work is to balance the accounts. So he has to
worry all the time with the quantum fluctuations." She has an elegant finger
to push a button more among the many who trimmed his desk.
There was a brief pause, then one of the ports scattered along the
wall of the room is opened and a figure entered. It seemed a very design of
the millionaire miser of an illustrated edition of "A Tale of Christmas," not
to be entertained by his words and an uncontrollable nervous tic. Carrying a
huge book that seemed to swell-box, shaking as if its contents were in
constant motion.
"I think it," he cried, triumphant, trembling so much that almost
left the book drop. "Close the balance of the accounts! Residual quantum
fluctuations Except, of course," he added, less enthusiastic.
"Very good," the manager replied, distracted. "Now I want you to take
this girl here, Alice, telling him the uncertainties and fluctuations in
quantum energy of a system, those things."
With a wave goodbye to Alice, the manager returned to his desk and
started to do something especially complicated with all the buttons that were
there. The Count took Alice out soon, before anything else happened.
It is appropriate to speak of relations of the Heisenberg uncertainty
is to describe the strange mixture of energy and time, position and momentum,
which occurs in quantum systems. 0 of this problem description is that it
promotes the belief that Nature is, in fact, uncertain, that nothing can be
reliably predicted and that, in fact, worth anything. This is not true!
They reached a much smaller office and more stodgy, with a high desk
and old, covered with books, boxes and pieces of paper stacked on the floor.
Alice looked at a box of books-that was open. The page was filled with
columns of numbers, as well as other books, box that she had seen, except for
the fact that these books were the numbers changing, but in small quantities
without stop, when she looked for them.
"Okay", said the figure Victorian middle in front of Alice. "You know
about the uncertainty, is not it, young lady?"
"Please, if not quite work," Alice said politely.
"Well," he began, sitting at the table and crossing your fingers as
the judges are to increase the dignity of their appearance. What was not a
good idea, because this time he began to tremble so violently that the
fingers were stuck in one another and he had to stop through to them.

"Well," repeated, putting the hand in the pockets by force, by

security. You should not ever forget that energy is preserved, which means
there's always the same amount of energy. It can be converted from one form
to another, but the total is always the same. At least when you think the
long term, "he added gloomily and sighed, looking away with regret.
"It is not true in the short term, then", said Alice, feeling that it
should say something to continue the conversation.
"No. Not completely. In fact, not even if the period is well short.
You saw the relation of Heisenberg on the poster outside the Bank, did not
see?"
"Ah, yes, I said it ditava the terms of loans for energy."
"In a way, is what she does. But where do you think has the energy
for the loans?"
"The Bank, of course."
 "Oh, my God, no!", Said the meter, slightly horrified. "With all
certainty, no! It would be good if the banks started to lend energy to your
own stock!
"No," continued in a tone of conspiracy, looking around carefully,
"Not everyone knows that, but the energy is not the Bank. Actually, it does
not come from anywhere. It is a quantum fluctuation. The amount of energy
that a system has not fully defined, but varies for more and less, and the
shorter the time period in which we examined, the greater will be its
variations.
"In this sense, energy is not like the money. The money keeps it well
in the short term. If you want money for something, you must get it
somewhere, right? You can get a bank account or borrow to someone, or even
steal! "
"I do not do that", shouted Alice outraged, but the counter
continued, undisturbed.
"No matter where it, he has to come from somewhere. If you get more
is because someone else has less. This is what happens in the short term
immediately, at any rate.
"The long term is different, it is possible that there is inflation
and you discover that much money circulating. We have more, but the money
does not seem to buy as much as before. Energy is the opposite. In the long
run it keeps the quantity total remains the same, and nothing like the
economic inflation. Every year you will need on average the same amount of
energy to transfer from one state to another in an atom. In the short term,
on the other hand, energy is not well preserved. A particle can harvest the
energy they need without it having to come from somewhere, it simply appears
as a quantum fluctuation. These fluctuations are the result of the
relationship of uncertainty: the amount of energy that is to uncertain and
the shorter the time that you have, the more uncertain the amount will be. "
"That seems terribly confusing," said Alice.
"Suffice to say", replied emphatically his companion. "Really, you
would like to counter when the numbers in your books are floating without
stopping?"
"It must be horrible," she said in solidarity. "How do you get?"
"Usually, I try to take as much as possible when I'm doing the
balance of accounts. It helps a little. The greater the time I spent, minor
fluctuations waste, right? Unfortunately, people get impatient and come ask
me if I am planning is calculating the balance forever. This is the only way
to do that, "he continued, with honesty. "The longer I take, will be minor
fluctuations in energy. If I was doing this forever, there would be no
fluctuation and my accounts have a perfect balance," he said, triumphant.
"Unfortunately, I do not leave in peace. All are impatient and eager to make
transitions from one state to another, all the time."
"There is one more question I want to do," Alice pointed out. "What
are these states so that I hear talking? Could explain them to me, please?"
"I am a better person for it. How is all part of Quantum Mechanics,
you should go to the Institute of Mechanics and ask there."
"It was what I said before," said Alice. "Since this is where I ask,
could you tell me how to get there?"

Energy can be transferred from one form to another, but the total
energy of a system is constant (provided that there is no exchange of energy
in the neighborhood). This is an absolute truth in classical mechanics. True
long-term quantum systems, but in the short term, the value of energy is
subject to fluctuations. The floating floor is better than the word
uncertainty, since there are real physical consequences. The penetration into
the barriers during alpha decay of nuclei is one of the cases, talk to alpha
decay in Chapter 8 and we have seen the penetration barriers in Chapter 1.
"I can not really tell you how to get there. This is not how we do
things here. But I can get is very likely that you'll get there."
He turned and went to the other side of his office, before a wall
covered with a dusty curtain. When you suddenly pull it revealed to Alice a
row of doors along the wall. "What brings each of them?" She asked. "Some of
them leads to the Office that you were talking about?"
"Each one could take it to almost anywhere, including, of course, the
Office. But the question is they all are likely to lead to the door of the
Institute."
"I do not understand," demanded Alice, with a growing sense of
confusion that was already becoming familiar. "What is the difference? Say
that each of them leads to almost anywhere is the same as saying that all
they can take almost anywhere."
"No way! Is completely different. If you go through any of them, you
will end up almost anywhere, but if you go through all the same time,
probably get my point, at the peak of the pattern of interference."
"What nonsense!" She exclaimed. "We can not go through all doors at
once. You can only go through a door at a time."
"Ah, this is different! Of course, if I see you going through a door,
then you will have this port, but if I do not see it is quite possible that
you have gone through any of the doors. In this case, the rule generally
applies. "
With a gesture, he indicated a large poster and fascinating, nailed
to the wall opposite the table, where it was impossible not to be seen. The
poster said:
What is not forbidden is COMPULSORY!
"This is one of the most basic rules that we have here. If you can do
many things together, you is not only a must do them all. So, you avoid
having to make decisions all the time. So go, go by all the doors and in so
doing leaving in all directions at once. You will see that it is very easy
and then come to the right place. "
"This is ridiculous!," Alice protested. "There is no way to go
through several doors at the same time!"
"How can you say that before you try? Never did two things at once?"
"Sure," she replied. "I watched TV while the house was my duty, but
this is not the same thing. I never went in two directions at once."
"I suggest you try," replied the Count, irritated. "You will never
know if you can not do anything if you try. This is the kind of pessimism
that always hinder progress. If you want to go somewhere here, you have to do
all that is possible, and all at the same time. No need to worry about where
you will stop. The interference takes care of this! "
"What? What is interference?" She asked.
"No time to explain. In the Institute of Mechanics will tell you
that. Now go, and they explain it when you arrive."
"This is horrible!", Alice thought with itself. "All the people who
told me I hurried to another place, promising explanations when I get there.
I wish that someone explain me all right, once and for all! I am sure you do
not know how I can go in several directions at once . It seems impossible,
but he is so sure that we have, which I think is best to try. "
Alice opened a door and entered.
THE MANY WAYS OF ALICE:
Alice entered the door and the left was a small square of
parallelepiped with three narrow alleys that left her. Chose the left alley.
Before he could go very far, it is a wide paved area. In the center it built
up a high, dark building, without windows on lower floors. Was threatening.
 ***
Alice entered the door and the left was a small square of
parallelepiped with three narrow alleys that left her. Chose the right lane.
Before he could go very far, it is a park with paths of stone covered with
herbs, followed by that between trees that hung melancholy. High iron fences
around the park and a wet mist darkened the picture of the inside.
***
Alice entered the door and the left was a small square of
parallelepiped with three narrow alleys that left her. Chose the middle lane.
Before he could go very far, it is another square, in front of a building,
looking very poor.
***
Alice entered the door from the right and was in a narrow alley where
the other two left. Chose the left alley. Before he could go very far, it is
a wide paved area. In the center it built up a high, dark building, without
windows on lower floors. Was threatening and she had the clear impression
that should not be there.
***
Alice entered the door from the right and was in a narrow alley where
the other two left. Chose the right lane. Before he could go very far, it is
a park with paths of stone covered with herbs, followed by that between trees
that hung melancholy. High iron fences around the park and a wet mist
darkened the picture of the inside. She had the clear impression that should
not be there.
***
Alice entered the door from the right and was in a narrow alley where
the other two left. Chose the middle. Before he could go very far, it is
another square, in front of a building, looking very poor. In a way, it
seemed to him that this was the right place for her to be.
***
******
***
Alice entered the door of the middle and was facing a wall with three
passages in arc alleys that led to a little further. Chose the left alley.
Before he could go very far, it is a wide paved area. In the center it built
up a high, dark building, without windows on lower floors. Was threatening
and this time the feeling that should not be there was very strong.
***
Alice entered the door of the middle and was facing a wall with
three passages in arc alleys that led to a little further. She followed the
alley on the right, because this way somehow seemed to be completely wrong.
***
Alice entered the door of the middle and was facing a wall with three
passages in arc alleys that led to a little further. Chose the middle lane.
Before he could go very far, it is another square, in front of a building,
looking very poor. She was sure now that this was the place where it should
be.
***
Alice noted the building more closely. A poster near the door foxy
she read the words "Institute of Mechanics." It was there that she wanted to
come!

Particles that can take different paths exist as a superposition

(sum) of amplitudes. Each path contributes with a possible range, or
option, for the behavior of the particle and all amplitudes are present,
together. The different amplitudes can interfere, combining it and focusing
on certain areas to increase the likelihood of there being particles. In
other places, can cancel each other to reduce probability of finding
particles. Amplitude and interference will be discussed in the next chapter.

Alice considered the building that was ahead. It was a modest

structure of bricks, already punished by the media time. In front, there was
a poster that said "the Institute of Mechanics." Beside the door was a poster
in which someone had nailed a warning: "Do not knock. Only from." Alice tried
and saw that the door was not locked. Opened it and entered.
Across the room door had a large and dark. In the middle of the room
was bright and clear an area. Within this limited region was possible to
distinguish anything with reasonable sharpness. More to beyond, lay an
apparently limitless extension of darkness in which nothing substantial could
be discerned. In the spot light she saw a billiard table with two figures
moving around. Alice walked in his direction and when approached, they turned
to look at it. It was a strange double well. One was tall and angular and was
wearing a white shirt with collar pressing too hard and high, narrow and a
tie, to the surprise of Alice, an overalls. His face was aquiline, and he had
sideburns tired. He looked at her with such intensity that Alice felt that he
could see even the smallest detail what they observed. His companion was
smaller and younger. His round face was decorated with a few large glasses of
a metal frame, it was difficult to understand where he was, looking, or even
where exactly were his eyes. He wore a white laboratory coat under which
appeared a shirt with the design of something vaguely atomic ahead. It was
not easy to say with certainty what it was, because the colors were faded.
"Excuse me, this is the Institute for Mechanics? Alice asked, more to
pull conversation. For the poster, she knew it was.
"Yes, my dear," said the chief and impressive of the two. "I am a
classical mechanics of the World Classic, and I am visiting my colleague
here, which is a quantum mechanics. Whatever your problem, I am sure that one
of us can help it. Just wait until we finish our shots. "

Both have turned to the billiard table. The classical mechanics mirou
carefully, considering the minimal Panesar of all angles involved. Finally,
the shot was well at ease. The ball came back and hit a series of impressive
rebound and eventually come into collision with the red ball, which was
precisely to within one of Caçapa. "There is," exclaimed with satisfaction
when taking the ball from inside the hole. "It's the way it is, you see?
Careful and accurate observation, then action needs. Proceeding thus, you get
the result we choose."
His companion did not reply, took his place on the table and made a
vague motion with his putter. After their previous experience, Alice was not
surprised to see the ball shoot in all directions at the same time, there was
no place on the table where she could say with certainty that the ball had
not been, but also could not tell where the ball was state. After a break,
the player looked inside one of Caçapa, stuck his hand and took a red ball.
"If you do not mind if I make an observation," said Alice, "it seems
that you play so much different."
"That's right," replied the classical mechanics. "I hate when he
makes shots like that. I like that everything is done with great care and
precision and that all details are planned in advance. However," he added,
"imagine that you have not been here to see us play pool, so can tell us what
you know. "
 Alice brought back all his experiences since he had come to the
country and explained how the quantum had found everything very confusing and
everything seemed strange and undefined. "I do not know how I found this
building," he concluded. "I said that I would probably interference to the
right place, but could not understand what happened."
"Well," said the classical mechanics, which seemed to have chosen
itself to be the spokesman of the double. I can not say I understood
everything well. As I said, taste of things clear, the question is followed
by the end, it all very clear and predictable. In fact, many things that
happen here do not make sense to me, "he muttered, in a confidential tone." I
left the world only to give a classical spin. There is a splendid place,
where everything happens with mechanical precision. The question then is the
effect in a wonderfully predictable, so that everything makes sense and you
know what will happen. There's more: the trains are always on time, "he
added. See Note 1 at the end of the chapter.
"Sounds impressive," said Alice with education. "To be so organized,
everything must be controlled by computers."
"No," replied the classical mechanics. "We do not use a computer. In
fact, things do not work in the world electronic classic. We are better
machines with steam. I do not feel very at ease here in the country of
Quantum. My friend here is much more familiar with the quantum conditions .
"However," he continued, more sure of himself, "I can tell you what
is interference. This is also in classical mechanics. Follow me and show how
it works."
He took Alice through a door after a long hallway and into another
room. This room was well lit, with bright lights that illuminated every
corner of the room and it did not seem to come from any particular source.
They were standing in a narrow wooden bridge, which was in the back room,
held on the walls. The floor in the middle of the room was covered with a
kind of substance that did not seem bright gray solid. Random flashes of
light through this material, as well as a TV channel with the outside air.
The guide explained to Alice, "This is the room in Gedanken, which
means' room to think." You should know that in some clubs there are rooms and
rooms to write to read. Well, we have a room to think. Here, the thoughts of
people take shape, so that everyone can see them. You can do experiments of
thought that allow us to discover what would happen in various physical
situations, and much cheaper than the experiments of truth, of course.
"How does it work?", Asked Alice. "Just think of something and it
appears?"
"Correct, in essence, is just what you need to do."
"Oh, please, can I try?" Alice asked.
"Certainly, if you want."
Alice thought the substance moving with intensity and bright. To his
surprise and joy, where before there was nothing, she saw a group of furry
bunny jumping here and there.
"Yes, very beautiful," said Mechanic, very impatient. "But that does
not help to explain the interference." He made a gesture and all the birds
disappeared, except for a pequenininho it is without being noticed, in one
corner of the area.
"Interference," he began, with authority, "is something that happens
to the waves. There are several types of waves in physical systems, but is
simpler to think of water waves." He looked hard to the floor, which, right
in front of the eyes of Alice, became a sheet of water with small waves
through the surface. In one corner, the rabbit sank with a "plop" when the
floor beneath it became water. He tried to leave and looked for them. Then he
shook it, looked with sympathy for his hair soaked, and disappeared.
 "Now, a little wave," continued the classical mechanics, without
paying attention to the unfortunate rabbit. Alice looked unwilling to ground
and a wave came up to blow across the surface dramatically break on a beach,
on one side of the floor.
"No, not this kind of wave you want. These big waves that overflow
are complicated enough. We want that sort of softer wave, which spreads when
you throw a stone in water." As he spoke, a series of circular waves began to
spread, from the center of the water.
"But we believe in what we call the plane waves, all moving in the
same direction." The circular ripples become a series of long parallel
furrows, like a wet field and plow, all moving through the ground, on one
side to another.
"Now, we a barrier in the middle." One obstacle appeared low in the
center, dividing the floor into two. The waves were up to the barrier and
collided against her, but there was no way to move to the other side, which
was now quiet and still.
"We make a hole in the fence now, so that the waves can pass through
it." A small cleft, very well-made, appeared a little left of center point of
the barrier. To pass through this gap, the waves are scattered by the quiet
region circumferentially opposite the barrier.
"Now see what happens when we have two cracks in the barrier,"
exclaimed the Mechanic. Instantly there was a crack on the left and one on
the right of the central point. Circular ripples spread out from both. Where
they were, Alice could see that the water rose and descended more than when
there was only a crack in the barrier, while in other places it barely moved.
"You'll understand when you freeze the motion. It is clear that we
can do this in a thought experiment." The movement was stopped in water and
the ripples were frozen in place where they were, as if the whole area was
suddenly transformed into ice.
"We will now mark the regions of maximum amplitude and minimum", he
continued, given the classical mechanics. "The scale measures how much water
went from the level it had when it was stopped." Two fluorescent arrows
appeared, floating in space by the surface. One was the color of green apples
and was pointing to a location where a disturbance in the area had been
increased. The other was a red arrow means pale and showed the place where
the surface was hardly disturbed.
"You can see what is happening if we see the effect of only one slot
at a time," he said, with a growing enthusiasm. One of the cracks in the
barrier disappeared and only the circular waves that left the other slot,
still frozen in their positions as if they were made of glass. "Now, we move
to another slot." Alice noticed that the difference between a very small
place and another. The position of the crack had been altered and the
circular pattern of ripples that it was moved a little, but in general
appearance seemed the same. "We can not understand what you are trying to
show me," she said. "The two cases seem the same to me."
"It will be easier to see the difference if I move quickly from one
event to another." A crack in the barrier began to jump from one side to
another, first to right and then left. Until that happens, the pattern of
ripples Forward and Back, first to right, then left.
"See the pattern of waves below the green arrow," said Mechanic, who
in the eyes of Alice, was more excited about it than it should. She, however,
did what he asked and realized that the place indicated by the arrow was an
increase in water, in both cases. "Every crack in the barrier produced a wave
that brings this particular point. When both slits are open, the wave is
twice as high here and the total elevation and depression are much higher
than when only one slot. The so called constructive interference.
 "Now we see the pattern of waves below the red arrow." Ali Alice saw
that as a crack caused an increase in point, the other produced a depression.
"See that in this position the wave of a crack up as the wave of the other
down. When the two meet, they cancel each other and in total the disturbance
disappears. The so called destructive interference.
"This is, indeed, all that is to know about the interference of
waves. When two waves are crossing and are combined, their amplitudes, the
quantities that measure how much rise or fall, also match. In some places,
the waves participating are all going in the same direction, then the
disturbances are added and the final result is considerable. In other places,
they go in opposite directions and cancel each other is. "
"I think I understand," she said. "It means that the doors of the
Bank functioned as the cracks in the barrier, causing a great effect in
places where I needed to go and cancel each other in other positions. But I
do not see how this applies to my case. With its waves of water, you say that
most of the wave in one place and less in another because of this
interference, but the wave is scattered throughout the region, while I'm in
one place at a time. "
"Exactly!" cried the triumphant classical mechanics. "That is the
problem. As you said, you are in one place. You are more like a particle than
a wave, and the particles are behaving in ways quite different sense in the
classical world. A wave spreads by a wide area and we only see a small
portion of it in any position. Because of the interference, you may have more
or less of it in different positions, but still, you are looking for only a
small part of the wave. A particle, for other hand, is located at some point.
Looking at different positions, you see the particle, or it simply is not
there. In classical mechanics particles do not exhibit effects of
interference as evidence. "
He turned to the floor of the room and looked Gedanken it with
firmness. A mirror of water, the area turned into an area shielded with
strengthened barriers along the perimeter, high enough for them to protect
themselves behind them. From one side to another, in the middle of the floor,
where before there was a barrier to wave, built up a wall with a narrow
opening screened a little left of center. "We can now see the same
arrangement, but I did some changes so that we can observe particles fast.
They are more or less as the bullets of a gun, and that is why we use that
one."
Interference is, classically, a property of waves. It occurs when
amplitudes, or disturbances, are from different sources and are combined in
some places and adding or subtracting cancel in others. This results in
regions of intense activity or low, respectively. You can see this effect in
the pattern produced when the ripples left by two boats cross each other. The
effects of interference can also cause poor reception of a TV when the waves
reflected by a building near interfere with the direct signal. Interference
requires extensive and overlapping distributions. In classical physics,
particles occupy a certain position and do not produce interference.
He made a gesture toward one of the ends of the room where a machine
gun appeared to unpleasant appearance, with many boxes of ammunition stacked
to the side. "This weapon is not very well supported and therefore not always
shoot in the same direction. Some bullets reach the crack in the wall and go
to the other side as part of the wave was in our last thought experiment.
Most of them, of course, reach the wall and ricochet. Oh, that reminds me,
"he said, suddenly. "We must use it, if any bullet strikes on the rebound."
Getting a pair of steel helmets, he has one for Alice.
"Is it really necessary?" She asked. "If the experiment is only
thought, these bullets are designed and can not cause us any harm."
 "Perhaps, but you may think that was hit by a bullet and it would not
be very nice."

Alice put the helmet. She felt the weight of it on his head, and
thought he matter for anything, but continue talking too much would not be
useful. The Mechanical stretch your body, waved like an emperor and machine
gun fire began, making much noise. The bullets left in irregular flow. The
majority agrees with the wall and zoom away in all directions, but some pass
through openings in the barrier wall and came to the other side. Alice was
intrigued to see that when a bullet was the wall on the other side of the
barrier, she immediately stopped and stood slowly to be floating in the air
well above the point where they reached the wall.
"You see, while the wave of water spread across the wall above the
slit, a bullet to reach in only one position. In this experiment, however,
there is a greater likelihood of the bullet passed right by the sliding of
the crack in the edge the opening and go up to the very end. If we wait a
little longer, we will see how the probability varies for different points
along the wall. " As time passed and the air was getting filled with bullets
flying, the number of those floating near the wall with growing regularity.
As noted, Alice began to distinguish a pattern that would be formed.
"See, now you can see how the bullets that passed through the slit
is spread by the wall," said the mechanic when the gun stopped. "Most did
directly toward the opening, and the number is decreasing as much to one side
to another. Now see what happens when the gap is shifted slightly to the
right." In another gesture of his, the bullets fell on the floor and floating
gun again. Although the demonstration and be loud and disruptive, Alice
noticed that the end result was the same as the previous time. Frankly, it
was disappointing.
"As you can see," said a mechanic with undue confidence, "the
distribution is similar to earlier, but slightly shifted to the right,
because the center is now across the opening." Alice does not understand any
difference, but was ready to accept what he said.
"Now," said the Mechanic Theater in tone, "let's see what happens
when both slits are present." So where Alice could see, was not the slightest
difference. Except that with the two slits, and more bullets would reach the
wall. This time, she decided to make a comment. "I fear for me, all times are
equal," she said, apologizing up.
"Exactly", replied the delighted Mechanic. "But, as you may have
noticed, the center of distribution is now in the middle, between the cracks.
We had a distribution for the probability of the bullets passing by the left
slot and other distribution for that pass by the right slot. With the two
slits, the bullets can go through any of them. The total distribution, then,
is the sum of the probabilities obtained for each of the slits, since the
bullets should go through one or the other. They can not pass through both
the same time, "he added, turning to the quantum mechanics that had just
entered the room.
"It's what you say," replied the fellow, but how can you be so sure?
Look what happens when we repeat the Gedanken experiment with electrons. "
This time, it made a gesture toward the floor of the room was the
quantum mechanics. His gestures were not as determined as those of his
colleague, but seems to work the same way. The gun and the armored walls
disappeared. The floor has to be shiny material that Alice had seen at first,
but the wall that it had been used was still there, across the floor side by
side with the two slits in the middle. Across the room was a large screen
with a bright green. "This is a fluorescent screen," muttered the mechanism
for Alice. "She emits a flash of light every time an electron to reach, so we
can use it to detect where they are."
 On the other side, where the gun was before there was another gun.
This was pequenininha, like a small version of where those guns are fired
bullet in the man-shows of circus. "What is it?", Alice asked.
"And an electron gun, of course." Looking more carefully, Alice saw a
escadinha which led to the mouth of the cannon, with a row of electrons
waiting his turn to be fired. They were much smaller since the last time in
the turns. "But of course," she said to herself, "these are just electrons
thought."
Looking at them, she was surprised to see them waving to her. "How
will they know me", she asked. "They should all be the same electron that I
knew before!"
"Start shooting!", Commanded the quantum mechanics, and the electrons
quickly risen the ladder, and entered the cannon were fired in a regular
flow. Alice could not see them cross the room, but via a glint in the place
where each one of them reached the screen. The ClaroI to erase it, leaving a
bright star that was marking the place where the electrons were landing.
As the first gun of the electron gun continued to fire a stream of
electrons and a lot of star began to regroup, starting to show a distribution
recognizable. At first, Alice was not sure what was seeing, but when the
number of star began to rise, it became clear that their distribution was
quite different from that obtained with piles of bullets from previous
experience.
Instead of a slow and gradual decline from a maximum in the center,
toward the side, the stars were distributed in bands, with black spaces
between them, where there was little or no star. Alice noticed that in some
ways, this case was similar to the wave of water, where there are regions of
high activity interspersed with quiet areas. Now, there were many regions
where electrons were detected, with very few of them in intermediate areas.
Because of this, Alice was not surprised when the quantum mechanical said,
"What you're seeing there is the clear effect of interference. With the waves
of water, had higher and lower regions of the surface motion. Here, each
electron will be detected in only one position, but a. probability of
detecting an electron varies from one position to another. The distribution
of different intensities of the wave you saw before was replaced by a
distribution of probabilities. With one or two electrons such distribution is
not obvious, but using a bunch of electrons, you will find more of them in
regions of high probability. With only one opening, we would see that the
distribution to fall toward the low side, and the bullets and the waves of
water they behaved when there was only one slot. Here we see that when there
are two slits, the amplitudes of the two interfering in each other, with
obvious peaks and dips in the distribution of probability. The behavior of
electrons is very different from the bullets of my friend. "
"I do not understand," said Alice, and this seemed the only thing
that was in life. "It means that there are so many electrons that in some
way, the electrons pass through a hole that are interfering with those who
cross the other hole?"
"No. That is not what I mean. No way. You will now see what happens
when you shoot a single electron." He slapped palms and said "Okay, let's do
it again, but slowly this time." The electrons into action, or to be more
precise, one into the gun and was shot. The others remained where they were
seated. Shortly after, another electron went through the mouth and the gun
was fired too. Continued so for some time, until Alice began to realize the
same pattern of clusters and voids appearing intervals. These groups and
intervals were not as clear as before because the low intensity with which
the electrons were getting was that there were not many of them in groups,
yet the pattern was clear. "There it is. You see that the effect of
interference works even when there is only this one electron at a time? An
electron alone can display interference. He can pass through both openings
and interfere with itself, so to speak."
The strongest experimental evidence of quantum behavior is provided
by the phenomenon of interference. When a result can be obtained by a number
of ways, there is an amplitude for each possible way. Then, if these
amplitudes are joined with each other, can add or subtract and distribution
of total probabilities show distinct maximum and minimum: intense bands and
bands that alternate empty. In practice, this effect has been observed which
is expected to find it. It is a form of interference that produces the
various combinations of states of energy that occur in atoms. Only those
states that "fit perfectly" will affect positively the potential to reach a
maximum in high probability. Other states if you cancel one another, and
therefore do not exist.
"This is bullshit!", Exclaimed Alice. "An electron can not pass
through the two openings. As the classical mechanics, makes no sense." She
went to the fence and looked more closely to try to see where the electrons
passing through the barrier. Unfortunately, the light was very weak and the
electrons moved with such speed that she never could distinguish that they
began opening. "This is ridiculous," she thought. "I need more light." Alice
had forgotten it was a "fourth thinking" and was surprised when a beam
supported by a strong tripod appeared alongside his elbow. She quickly sent
the torch of light for the two openings and was pleased to see that there was
a flash of visible near one or other opening when the electron was. "I did
it!" She screamed. "I can see the electrons are passed through cracks and is
exactly as I said. Each of them goes through only one opening."
"Aha!", Replied the excited quantum mechanics. "But you saw what
happened with the pattern of interference?" Alice turned to look at the wall
behind the barrier and was amazed to see that now the distribution of star is
the most concentrated in the center and would gently fell to the sides, just
as the classical distribution of bullets. It was not fair.
"It's always so and there is nothing we can do," said Quantum
Mechanics, consoling her. "When there is to learn by observing which slit the
electrons pass, the interference occurs between the effects of the two slits.
If you watch the electrons, you see that, in fact, they are in one place or
another and not in both, but this case, they behave as expected, ie as if
they had passed through only one slit, not causing interference. The problem
is that there is no way to observe the electrons without disturbing them, as
when you put the light on them. The simple act of observing force the
electrons to choose a route. Whether you notes for which hole each electron
passed. Whether or not you pay attention in the holes. Any comments that
would tell you this, disturbs the electrons and interference stops. The
effects of interference only happen when there is no way of knowing by which
slit the electron passed. If you know or not, it does not matter.

"It is this: when there is interference, it seems that each electron

is passing through both slits. If you try out, you will see that each
electron only goes through one slit, but then the effect of interference
disappears. We can not escape it!"
Alice gave a little thought to the matter. "This is absolutely
ridiculous!" He concluded.
"Certainly," replied the quantum mechanics with a satisfied smile.
"Totally ridiculous, I agree, but that is how nature works and we must follow
it and mean complementarity", Alice asked.
"Sure. Complementarity means that there are certain things you can
not know. Not the same time at least."
"It is this complementarity that mean," she protested.
 "When I say, this is what you mean," said the Mechanic. "The words
mean something, which I like. It's all a matter of who is the master.
Complementarity is what I say."
"You said that," said Alice, without fail completely convinced by the
last statement of the facility.
"No, you did not," said the Mechanic. "This time I mean that there
are questions that can not be a particle, such as where it is that speed and
moves. Actually, not much talk of an electron occupying a particular
position."
"This is a lot to say a single word!", Alice said with irony.
"Certainly," replied the mechanic, "but when I make a word work
overtime as now, I always paid more. I can not explain what is really
happening with the electrons. It is normally required of an explanation that
she made sense in terms and words you already know and quantum physics does
not. It seems that it makes no sense, but it works. Give up to say with
certainty that nobody understands quantum physics. I can not explain to you
but I can describe what is happening. Come to the backroom and I will see
what I can do. " See footnote 2 at the end of the chapter.
In quantum mechanics, particles are like waves and waves are like
particles. They are the same. Both the electrons as the light show the
effects of interference, but when detected, are perceived as individual and
how each is observed in a fixed location.
The interference between the possible paths that a particle can travel will
result in a distribution of probabilities with minimum and maximum well
pronounced, which is more likely that a particle is detected in a position
than in another.
They left the room, Gedanken, whose floor was back to his usual
brilliant appearance, and continued for a corridor to another room furnished
with a few seats. When the two had already been seated, the mechanic said:
"When we talk about a situation like the electrons through the openings, we
describe using a scale. It is more or less like the waves you saw, and is
actually called, with frequency of the wave function. The range can pass
through two openings at the same time and not always positive, as the
likelihood. the less likely that you can have is zero, but the amplitude can
be positive or negative, with different pathways it may cancel or add to each
other and result in interference, as with the waves of water. "
"Where are the particles then", asked Alice. "By opening up what they
are, indeed?"
"Indeed, the scale does not say that. However, it raised the
magnitude squared, ie to multiply it by itself to always give a positive
number, you can get a distribution of probabilities. If you choose any
position determined, is that this distribution is likely to say, if you
observe a particle, find it in that position. "
"And that is all she says?" Exclaimed Alice. "I must say that I feel
inadequate. You never know where something is."
"Yes, this is true. You can not tell where a particle is, except that
is not where the probability is zero, of course. If you have a large number
of particles, however, be assured that you will find more particles where the
probability is higher, much less one where the probability is low. If you
have a very large number of particles, it is possible to say with much
precision the place where many particles are. This is the case for those
workers who you were talking . They knew what they were building because they
were using a lot of bricks. In numbers too high, the reliability of the
system is very good. " See footnote 3 at the end of Chapter
"And there is no way to tell which one particle is doing without
watching it?", Said Alice, just to be sure.
 "No, no way. When you see what can happen in several different ways,
you have a scale for each possible way, and the overall amplitude is obtained
adding up all of them. You will have a superposition of states. In a way ,
the particle is doing everything it can to it. Not only do you not know what
the particle is doing. The interference shows that the odds are all present
and influence each other. In a way, are all equally real. It is not forbidden
is compulsory. " "I saw a poster that said that in the Bank. Seemed very
serious."
"And it is! This is one of the most important rules here. How many
things can happen, they happen. Take a look at the cat, for example."
"What cat?", Alice asked, looking around, confused.
"But the cat of Schrödinger here. He has left us to cuidássemos it."
Alice looked to where the mechanic pointed and saw a large striped
cat who slept in a basket in the corner of the room. As if awakened by having
heard his name, the cat stood up, stretch out. Or better, got up and was not
raised, lounge and not yawn. Alice saw that, beyond the slightly blurred
picture of the cat's arched back, a cat was also identical, still asleep in
the bottom of the basket. He was very hard in a very unnatural. Looking at
him, Alice could swear he was dead.

"Schrödinger developed a Gedanken experiment in which a poor cat got

trapped in a box, along with a container of poison gas and a mechanism to
break the bottle if a sample of a radioactive material were suffering decay.
This is definitely a decay process quantum. The material may or may not fall
and then, according to the rules of quantum physics, there would be a
superposition of states, where some in the decay would have occurred and in
others not. Of course, in those states in which the decay occurs, the cat
die, and then we would have a superposition of states of cats, some dead and
some alive. When the box was opened, someone to watch the cat and from then
on he was dead or alive. The question was proposed by Schrödinger: "What
state of the cat before the box is open? "
"And what happened when they opened the box", Alice asked.
"In fact, everyone was so excited discussing the issue that anyone
opened the box, and that is why the cat was like that."
Alice looked at the basket where an aspect of the cat licking itself
with dedication. "He seems very much alive," she noted. Mal of the words had
left his mouth, the cat became very solid and tangible version dead and gone.
Satisfied purr, the cat jumped out of the box and began to chase a mouse that
had left the wall. Alice noticed that there was a rat hole, she could see -
the mouse had just gone straight to the wall. The quantum mechanics of the
eye followed the direction of Alice. "Ah, yes. This is an example of
penetration into barriers: happens all the time here. Where there is a region
that a particle can not enter in accordance with the laws of classical
mechanics, the amplitude does not necessarily cease immediately on the border
region, despite declining rapidly within it. If the region is well close,
there will still be left some magnitude on the other side, and this gives
room for a small probability that a particle can appear there, apparently
having crossed a seemingly insurmountable barrier, a process called
"tunneling." happens frequently. "
Alice was passed in your head the things that had seen so far and
noticed a problem. "As I got to watch the cat and set their condition if he
could not do it by itself? What decides that a comment that was made and who
is able to do them?"

"This is a very good," replied the quantum mechanics, "but we are

only mechanical and not so much in mind with these things. Just do the work
and use methods that we know work in practice. If someone wants to discuss
extent of the problem with you, you have to go somewhere more academic. I
suggest that there is a lesson from the School of Copenhagen. "
"And what do I get there?", Alice asked, settling with the fact of
having been passed on to another place. In response, the mechanism leading to
the corridor and opened a door, which was not to the alley where she had
entered, but to a forest.
Notes
1. Quantum mechanics is usually contrasted with the classical or
Newtonian mechanics. The latter, which deals with the detailed description of
objects in motion, was developed before the early 20th century and is based
on the original works of Galileo, Newton and others before and after them.
The Newtonian mechanics works very well on large scales. The movement of
planets can be predicted far in advance and great accuracy. It works almost
equally well to artificial planets and space missions for exploration: their
positions can be made years before. Works great also for apples falling from
trees.
In the case of an apple that falls, air resistance is significant
about that. The classical mechanics describes the suit as the collision of a
huge number of air molecules rebound in apple. When you ask about the air
molecules, they respond to him that they are small groups of atoms. When you
ask about the atoms, it is an embarrassing silence.
The classical mechanics was not successful in trying to explain the
nature of the world in atomic scale. Things must be different in some way for
small objects than large objects appear to be. To use these arguments, you
should ask: small or large compared to what? There must be some size, a
fundamental constant setting the scale on which this new behavior becomes
obvious. It is a definitive change in the way they observed the behavior of
things, and it is universal.
Atoms in the sun and distant stars emitting light in the same
spectrum as the lamp on his desk-to-head. The transition to quantum behavior
is not something that happens only locally, there is a fundamental property
of nature involved. This property is denoted by the universal constant that
appears in most of the quantum equations. The world is granulated in the
scale defined by the constant character. On this scale, energy and time,
position and momentum, are blur together. It is not necessary to say that the
scale of human perception, character is very small and most of the quantum
effects is not absolutely clear.
2. What the relations of the Heisenberg uncertainty tell us is that
we see things so wrong. We believe beforehand that we should be able to
measure the position and momentum of a particle at the same time, but found
that we can not. The very nature of the particles does not allow us to make
such measurements on them and the theory tells us we are doing the wrong
questions, questions to which we have no viable answers. Niels Bohr used the
word complementarity to express the fact that it is possible to have concepts
that can not be precisely defined at the same time: pairs of concepts such as
justice and legality, rationality and emotion.
There is something fundamentally wrong with our belief that we should
be able to talk about the position and momentum, or the exact amount of
energy of a particle in a given moment. Do not you know that would be
significant while talking to two very distinct qualities. It seems that this
is not as significant.
3. Quantum mechanics is not a particle set classic in the traditional
sense, instead dealing with states and amplitudes. If you amounts to a square
amplitude (ie multiplied by its value) you get a distribution of
probabilities gives the probability of obtaining various results when making
an observation or measurement. The actual value obtained by measuring with
any appears to be random and unpredictable. Just seems that the suggestion
made earlier in this book that nature is uncertain and that "everything"
must, in the end, be true. It seems?
Well .. no. If you make many measurements, the average result can be
predicted with precision. Recording of bets do not know which horse will win
each race, but confidently expected to make some profit by the end of the
day. Unable to provide large and unexpected losses, as working with small
numbers whose average can not be trusted. The number of gamblers would be a
few thousands, instead of 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 atoms or more,
existing even in a tiny piece of matter. These digits appear with a number
less than the design of a repetitive wallpaper, but it is undeniably great.
The mean expected statistical fluctuations in measurements of very large
numbers of atoms are negligible, even if the results for individual atoms can
be quite random.
Amplitudes of quantum mechanics can be calculated with enough
accuracy and compared with experiments. A much cited result is the magnetic
moment of an electron. The electrons revolve as little pawns and have
electrical properties: they behave like small magnets. The magnetic force and
rotation of the electron are related, and this ratio can be calculated using
the appropriate units.
A classical calculation result reaches 1 (with arbitrary assumptions
about the distribution of electric charge of an electron).
The classic comes to the calculation result 2.0023193048 (± 8) (the
error is the last decimal place).
A measurement result reaches 2.0023193048 (± 4).
And a good agreement! The probability of achieving, at random, so
consistent values is similar to the probability of a dart throw, also at
random, and adjust on the fly - when the target is as far as the Moon This
result in particular is often given as an example the success of quantum
theory. You can calculate, with the same accuracy, the amplitudes of other
processes, but very few figures that can be measured with such accuracy.
2

Alice inside the woods and was followed by a path that winds through
the trees, until you reach a fork. There was a plaque there, but not much
help. The arrow pointing to the right said "A" and pointed to the left that
said "B", nothing more. "Damn," Alice exclaimed, irritated. "This is the most
useless card I have ever seen." She looked around to see if any could track
where they were on the tracks, where surprised to see the Schrödinger cat
sitting on a bough of a tree a few meters away.
"Cat," she said, timidly. "Could you tell me which path should I
take?"
"That depends a lot on where you want to reach," said the Cat.
"Do not know where ...", she began.
"So, no matter where you are," interrupted the Cat.
"But I have to decide between two paths," said Alice.
"This is where you wrong," smiled the cat. "You do not have to
decide, you can take all the paths. Sure, I know that now. I especially tend
to do nine different things at once. The cats crawl anywhere, when not being
observed. Speaking of observation, "he said, hurry," I think I'm about to be
obs ... At this time, he disappeared suddenly.
"What a weird cat," thought Alice, "and that weird suggestion. He
should be referring to the superposition of states of the mechanic who spoke.
I think it's like the time we left the Bank. Somehow, I go in several
directions at the same time, then I think you should try to do the same thing
again. "
******
 Status: Alice (A1)
Alice turned to the right, in plate, and continued by the winding
road, looking at the trees while walking. Had not gone far when it came to
another fork, this time the board had two arrows that said "1" and "2." Alice
turned to the right and continued.

While going, the trees were scarce and it was a road trails and steep
rocky. The slope was increasing, until it was up the slope of a mountain
alone. The trail led to a narrow path that a cliff edge, which in turn went
to a small lawn. Its front, the slope of the cliff, she saw an opening as a
mouth bocejante, and a passage, which took forward and down.
The passage was very dark, but to their own surprise, and she ended
up coming down. The floor and walls were smooth and went straight to the
front, a slight slope in the direction of a distant light and brightness. As
she walked, the light would gradually become stronger and more red and the
tunnel was getting warmer. Small clouds of steam and she passed it heard a
sound like that of a huge animal snoring in his sleep.
At the end of the tunnel, Alice spotted a huge underground. Just gave
to try to guess the dark vastness of the place, but close to his feet, she
saw a great brightness. A huge red and gold dragon slept deeply, with its
long tail coiled around him. Below him, serving him in bed, there was a high
pile of gold and silver, jewelry and wonderful sculptures, all bathed in red
light.
Status: Alice (A2)
Alice turned to the right, in plate, and continued by the winding
road, looking at the trees while walking. Had not gone far when it came to
another fork, this time the board had two arrows that said "1" and "2." Alice
turned left and continued.
As was walking, looked down and saw that the path followed by where a
trail had changed from the forest to a narrow street paved with yellow
bricks. She continued to follow through the trees until the forest is opened
in a large grassy clearing. It was very long, run to where Alice could see,
and the entire field was covered with poppies. The yellow brick road to
follow through the gates of the clearing up of a distant city. It was, Alice
could see that the high walls of the city were green and glowed, and the
gates were nail emeralds.
******
Status: Alice (B1)
Alice turned to the left of the plate, and continued along the
winding path. There was no remarkable to see yet. She turned a corner and
came to another fork, this time the board had two arrows that said "1" and
"2." Alice turned right and continued walking.
The vegetation was getting thicker and it was difficult to see
anything that was not very close, although the path itself, is still clear
and defined as followed by wind between the cerrado trees. Alice turned a
bend and suddenly reached an open space. In the center of the clearing stood
a small building with a sloping roof and a small tower with a bell in one of
its ends. The words "Copenhagen School" were deeply marked a plate of stone
above the door. "This must be the place where they said I should go," Alice
said to herself. "Just do not know if I even go to a school! I step in my
time quite! But perhaps the schools here are different from those to which I
am accustomed. I get to see!" Without knocking, she opened the door and
entered.
******
Status: Alice (B2)
Alice turned to the left of the plate, and continued along the
winding path. There was no remarkable to see yet. She turned a corner and
came to another fork, this time the board had two arrows that said "1" and
"2." Alice turned left and continued walking.
A little later, the road began to tilt and Alice began to climb a
morrote. At the top of the hill for a few minutes she stopped and looked in
all directions in the region - and that this region was curious! There were
many streams across the region from one side to another, and the floor was
divided into squares formed by living fences, which were of a stream to
another.
"Damn! The field is divided like a chessboard," Alice said to the
final.
******

"Oh, my face, between! said a calm voice, and Alice realized it was
being observed. She passed the door and looked around them for the classroom.
It was a very big room with tall windows on all sides. There were a few rows
of school desks and in the middle of the room. On one end was a blackboard
and a large table, behind which was the Master.
"It seems quite a normal school," Alice admitted to itself, while the
children turned to look in the room. She saw, however, that the portfolios
were not occupied by children but by an incredible collection of creatures
stacked in front of the room. There was a mermaid with long hair and a scaly
tail of fish. There was a uniformed soldier that observed more closely, and
seemed to lead a ragged little girl with a tray full of matches. There was
also a very ugly duckling and a fat man with size of royalty and that for
some reason, was wearing only undershorts with.
"Is he really?" Alice thought. When looked up, thought it had seen a
man dressed in rich costumes and a robe of embroidered velvet. Looking back,
however, that all could see was a burly man wearing only his underpants.
"Hello, my dear," said the Master, a paternal figure with full
eyebrows. "He came to join in our discussion?"
"I do not know how did I get here," said Alice. "I thought I was in
several places agorinha it, and I have no idea why did I get here and not
elsewhere."
"This is because we found you here, of course. You were a,
superposition of quantum states, but was seen as being here, because it was
here I was, of course. Of course, you was not observed in any of the other
places."
"What if I had been seen elsewhere", Alice asked, curious.
"Why, then, the number of states would have collapsed to the other.
You will not be here, but in the position where it was observed, of course."
"I can not understand how this could be," Alice replied that he was
already feeling terribly confused again. "What difference does it make if I
was seen or not? Sure, I would be in one place or another, no matter who was
watching me or not."
"It's what you think! Is not to say what is going on in any system if
you have not seen. There may be a variety of things could be happening, and
you can even establish the likelihood of something or another, since that is
not looking. In fact, the system is a mixture of states corresponding to all
the things that might be happening. That is the situation until you look to
see what the system is doing. The height of this process, an option is
selected and this will be the only occurrence in the system. "
"And what about all the other things that were happening there?"
asked Alice. "Just disappear?"
"Well, there are more things he can do than what he was doing, but
this is exactly what happens," replied the Master, with a broad smile. "You
understand perfectly. The other states simply cancel it. The Earth may become
of the Earth's ever been. At this time, all other states no longer true,
either. They become, say, just dreams and fantasies, and the observed state
is the only real. This is what we call the reduction of quantum states. You
will soon get used. "
"It means that when you look at something, you can choose what you
see?", Alice asked, suspicious.
The vision "orthodox" quantum mechanics is the Copenhagen
Interpretation (second named Niels Bohr, the Danish physicist, Hans Christian
Andersen and not). Where is possible that different things happen in a
physical system, a range for each, and the total system state is given by the
sum, or superposition of these amplitudes. When an observation is made, it is
a value that corresponds to one of these amplitudes and the amplitudes not
disappear in a process called reduction of the amplitudes.
"Oh, no, you have no right to choose. What you see is probably
determined by the probabilities of various quantum states. What you see is
really a matter of pure chance. You do not choose what will happen, the
quantum amplitudes only give the probabilities of different results, but do
not what will happen. This is pure coincidence, and is only set when an
observation is made. " The Master said that quite frankly, but so little that
Alice had to strive to understand your words.
"Making observations is important, then," Alice thought with itself.
"But who can make comments? Obviously, the electrons can not see themselves
through the cracks in a study of interference, as passed by the two cracks
appear at the same time. Or maybe I should say 'when the amplitudes for the
two cracks are present? " she corrected, imitating the way of speaking that
both had heard this place. "It seems that I am not properly noticed when I
was in a superposition of states, just now.
"Actually," she said suddenly, surprised by a thought, "if the
quantum mechanics says that you must do everything we can, then for sure you
should see all possible results of any action you make. If the principle
quantum superposition of works everywhere, you can not measure all! Anything
you try to measure would have several possible results. It would be possible
to see any result and in accordance with its rules, if you can see any of
them, you must note to all. The results of their measurements were all
present in a new version of this superposition of states of which you speak.
You could never see anything of truth or could never be something that you
could fail to observe. "
Alice stopped to breathe, then to take leave for their new thinking.
She noted that everyone in the room looked at her seriously. When she stopped
talking, everybody was shaken, half impatient.
"You're talking about something very important, of course," said
Master sweetly. "It is known as problem of the measure and is exactly the
subject we were discussing here." See footnote 1 at the end of Chapter
The Master continued: "It is important to remember that this is a
real problem. There must be a mixture of amplitudes such as occur in systems
with one or two electrons, as the experience of the two slits you saw,
because the amplitudes interfere with each other. There is only one way to
say that an electron can be in a state, but you do not know what state it is.
This could produce interference. We are then forced to accept that in a
sense, each electron is in all states. I think not a question appropriate and
want to know what the electron really doing because there is no way to find
it. If you try to check, you change the system and just looking at something
different.
"As you said, it seems we have a problem here. Atoms and systems that
contain a small number of particles always do everything they can do, never
make decisions. We, on the other hand, always do one thing or another and
never observed more than a result of each particular situation. My students
prepared a short explanation about the problem of the measure. They consider
that point, if there was any, stops working the quantum behavior that allows
the presence of all states the same time, so that only comments can be made.
You might want to sit and watch the presentations. " Alice could not dispense
with this great opportunity. Sit in one of the books and was waiting with
anxiety.
"The first to speak," said the Master, his voice quiet noise appease
the expectations of students, "is the Emperor." The portly gentleman, put
clothes in the bottom of purple color with very good taste and the first to
be noticed by Alice to enter the room, got up and went to the front of the
room. See footnote 2 at the end of Chapter
The Theory of the Emperor (The Mind of the Matter)
"Our hypothesis," he began, a smile spreading snob the room, "is that
everything is in the mind.

"The laws that govern quantum systems," he continued, "the use of

amplitudes to describe the physical states and the superposition of
amplitudes when more than one condition as possible - these laws apply to all
material things of the world. We say 'all material things' he repeated, "Our
hypothesis is that because this overlap is not experienced by our conscious
mind. The physical world is governed at all levels by the quantum behavior
and any purely material system, large or small, will always be a combination
of states, with a scale for this is that everything can or could have been.
Only when the situation comes to the attention of the sovereign will of a
conscious mind is that a choice is made.
"Because the mind is something foreign, or in our case, cited above,
are outside the laws of the quantum world. We are not tied to the need to do
anything that could be done, instead, we are free to choose. When we found
something this thing is seen, she knows that We observe the universe as we
know it remains to observe and, thereafter, provided that it has been
observed by Nós. And Our act of observation that requires a unique and
defined the world. We can not have a choice about what we observe, but what
we observe is only true at the time. "
He stopped and launched mandões for all eyes in the room. Alice was
strangely impressed by his confident, despite the undergarment color purple.
"For example, when we look at our new and magnificent imperial costumes, we
realize, of course, ornate splendor." He looked at himself and suddenly was
dressed head to toes in rich robes. Its cover and its jacket was adorned with
beautiful lace and velvet of her light robe of skin had edges of ermine. "It
is possible that when our attention is diverted from our costumes, they are
less real and tangible than now seem to be observed when all they are made of
better fabric, they are, really."
The Emperor raised his head and looked to their colleagues. Alice
surprised that, despite its observation has the rich look of your clothes, so
he turned to look, they immediately became transparent, showing the
undergarment bearing a beautiful monogram.
"It is therefore our view. All the material world is actually
governed by the laws of quantum mechanics, but the human mind is beyond the
material world and therefore is not restricted to these laws. We have the
ability to see things just as we can. We cannot choose what to see, but what
we see is reality in the world, at least while we were watching. When we
finished our observation, the world may again enter into his customary
condition of mixed states. "
The interference between the possible paths that a particle can travel will
result in a distribution of probabilities with minimum and maximum well
pronounced, which is more likely that a particle is detected in a position
than in another.
 They left the room, Gedanken, whose floor was back to his usual
brilliant appearance, and continued for a corridor to another room furnished
with a few seats. When the two had already been seated, the mechanic said:
"When we talk about a situation like the electrons through the openings, we
describe using a scale. It is more or less like the waves you saw, and is
actually called, with frequency of the wave function. The range can pass
through two openings at the same time and not always positive, as the
likelihood. the less likely that you can have is zero, but the amplitude can
be positive or negative, with different pathways it may cancel or add to each
other and result in interference, as with the waves of water. "
"Where are the particles then", asked Alice. "By opening up what they
are, indeed?"
"Indeed, the scale does not say that. However, it raised the
magnitude squared, ie to multiply it by itself to always give a positive
number, you can get a distribution of probabilities. If you choose any
position determined, is that this distribution is likely to say, if you
observe a particle, find it in that position. "
"And that is all she says?" Exclaimed Alice. "I must say that I feel
inadequate. You never know where something is."
"Yes, this is true. You can not tell where a particle is, except that
is not where the probability is zero, of course. If you have a large number
of particles, however, be assured that you will find more particles where the
probability is higher, much less one where the probability is low. If you
have a very large number of particles, it is possible to say with much
precision the place where many particles are. This is the case for those
workers who you were talking . They knew what they were building because they
were using a lot of bricks. In numbers too high, the reliability of the
system is very good. " See footnote 3 at the end of Chapter
"And there is no way to tell which one particle is doing without
watching it?", Said Alice, just to be sure.
"No, no way. When you see what can happen in several different ways,
you have a scale for each possible way, and the overall amplitude is obtained
adding up all of them. You will have a superposition of states. In a way ,
the particle is doing everything it can to it. Not only do you not know what
the particle is doing. The interference shows that the odds are all present
and influence each other. In a way, are all equally real. It is not forbidden
is compulsory. " "I saw a poster that said that in the Bank. Seemed very
serious."
"And it is! This is one of the most important rules here. How many
things can happen, they happen. Take a look at the cat, for example."
"What cat?", Alice asked, looking around, confused.
"But the cat of Schrödinger here. He has left us to cuidássemos it."
Alice looked to where the mechanic pointed and saw a large striped
cat who slept in a basket in the corner of the room. As if awakened by having
heard his name, the cat stood up, stretch out. Or better, got up and was not
raised, lounge and not yawn. Alice saw that, beyond the slightly blurred
picture of the cat's arched back, a cat was also identical, still asleep in
the bottom of the basket. He was very hard in a very unnatural. Looking at
him, Alice could swear he was dead.

"Schrödinger developed a Gedanken experiment in which a poor cat got

trapped in a box, along with a container of poison gas and a mechanism to
break the bottle if a sample of a radioactive material were suffering decay.
This is definitely a decay process quantum. The material may or may not fall
and then, according to the rules of quantum physics, there would be a
superposition of states, where some in the decay would have occurred and in
others not. Of course, in those states in which the decay occurs, the cat
die, and then we would have a superposition of states of cats, some dead and
some alive. When the box was opened, someone to watch the cat and from then
on he was dead or alive. The question was proposed by Schrödinger: "What
state of the cat before the box is open? "
"And what happened when they opened the box", Alice asked.
"In fact, everyone was so excited discussing the issue that anyone
opened the box, and that is why the cat was like that."
Alice looked at the basket where an aspect of the cat licking itself
with dedication. "He seems very much alive," she noted. Mal of the words had
left his mouth, the cat became very solid and tangible version dead and gone.
Satisfied purr, the cat jumped out of the box and began to chase a mouse that
had left the wall. Alice noticed that there was a rat hole, she could see -
the mouse had just gone straight to the wall. The quantum mechanics of the
eye followed the direction of Alice. "Ah, yes. This is an example of
penetration into barriers: happens all the time here. Where there is a region
that a particle can not enter in accordance with the laws of classical
mechanics, the amplitude does not necessarily cease immediately on the border
region, despite declining rapidly within it. If the region is well close,
there will still be left some magnitude on the other side, and this gives
room for a small probability that a particle can appear there, apparently
having crossed a seemingly insurmountable barrier, a process called
"tunneling." happens frequently. "
Alice was passed in your head the things that had seen so far and
noticed a problem. "As I got to watch the cat and set their condition if he
could not do it by itself? What decides that a comment that was made and who
is able to do them?"

"This is a very good," replied the quantum mechanics, "but we are

only mechanical and not so much in mind with these things. Just do the work
and use methods that we know work in practice. If someone wants to discuss
extent of the problem with you, you have to go somewhere more academic. I
suggest that there is a lesson from the School of Copenhagen. "
"And what do I get there?", Alice asked, settling with the fact of
having been passed on to another place. In response, the mechanism leading to
the corridor and opened a door, which was not to the alley where she had
entered, but to a forest.
Notes
1. Quantum mechanics is usually contrasted with the classical or
Newtonian mechanics. The latter, which deals with the detailed description of
objects in motion, was developed before the early 20th century and is based
on the original works of Galileo, Newton and others before and after them.
The Newtonian mechanics works very well on large scales. The movement of
planets can be predicted far in advance and great accuracy. It works almost
equally well to artificial planets and space missions for exploration: their
positions can be made years before. Works great also for apples falling from
trees.
In the case of an apple that falls, air resistance is significant
about that. The classical mechanics describes the suit as the collision of a
huge number of air molecules rebound in apple. When you ask about the air
molecules, they respond to him that they are small groups of atoms. When you
ask about the atoms, it is an embarrassing silence.
The classical mechanics was not successful in trying to explain the
nature of the world in atomic scale. Things must be different in some way for
small objects than large objects appear to be. To use these arguments, you
should ask: small or large compared to what? There must be some size, a
fundamental constant setting the scale on which this new behavior becomes
obvious. It is a definitive change in the way they observed the behavior of
things, and it is universal.
Atoms in the sun and distant stars emitting light in the same
spectrum as the lamp on his desk-to-head. The transition to quantum behavior
is not something that happens only locally, there is a fundamental property
of nature involved. This property is denoted by the universal constant that
appears in most of the quantum equations. The world is granulated in the
scale defined by the constant character. On this scale, energy and time,
position and momentum, are blur together. It is not necessary to say that the
scale of human perception, character is very small and most of the quantum
effects is not absolutely clear.
2. What the relations of the Heisenberg uncertainty tell us is that
we see things so wrong. We believe beforehand that we should be able to
measure the position and momentum of a particle at the same time, but found
that we can not. The very nature of the particles does not allow us to make
such measurements on them and the theory tells us we are doing the wrong
questions, questions to which we have no viable answers. Niels Bohr used the
word complementarity to express the fact that it is possible to have concepts
that can not be precisely defined at the same time: pairs of concepts such as
justice and legality, rationality and emotion.
There is something fundamentally wrong with our belief that we should
be able to talk about the position and momentum, or the exact amount of
energy of a particle in a given moment. Do not you know that would be
significant while talking to two very distinct qualities. It seems that this
is not as significant.
3. Quantum mechanics is not a particle set classic in the traditional
sense, instead dealing with states and amplitudes. If you amounts to a square
amplitude (ie multiplied by its value) you get a distribution of
probabilities gives the probability of obtaining various results when making
an observation or measurement. The actual value obtained by measuring with
any appears to be random and unpredictable. Just seems that the suggestion
made earlier in this book that nature is uncertain and that "everything"
must, in the end, be true. It seems?
Well .. no. If you make many measurements, the average result can be
predicted with precision. Recording of bets do not know which horse will win
each race, but confidently expected to make some profit by the end of the
day. Unable to provide large and unexpected losses, as working with small
numbers whose average can not be trusted. The number of gamblers would be a
few thousands, instead of 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 atoms or more,
existing even in a tiny piece of matter. These digits appear with a number
less than the design of a repetitive wallpaper, but it is undeniably great.
The mean expected statistical fluctuations in measurements of very large
numbers of atoms are negligible, even if the results for individual atoms can
be quite random.
Amplitudes of quantum mechanics can be calculated with enough
accuracy and compared with experiments. A much cited result is the magnetic
moment of an electron. The electrons revolve as little pawns and have
electrical properties: they behave like small magnets. The magnetic force and
rotation of the electron are related, and this ratio can be calculated using
the appropriate units.
A classical calculation result reaches 1 (with arbitrary assumptions
about the distribution of electric charge of an electron).
The classic comes to the calculation result 2.0023193048 (± 8) (the
error is the last decimal place).
A measurement result reaches 2.0023193048 (± 4).
And a good agreement! The probability of achieving, at random, so
consistent values is similar to the probability of a dart throw, also at
random, and adjust on the fly - when the target is as far as the Moon This
result in particular is often given as an example the success of quantum
theory. You can calculate, with the same accuracy, the amplitudes of other
processes, but very few figures that can be measured with such accuracy.
2

Alice inside the woods and was followed by a path that winds through
the trees, until you reach a fork. There was a plaque there, but not much
help. The arrow pointing to the right said "A" and pointed to the left that
said "B", nothing more. "Damn," Alice exclaimed, irritated. "This is the most
useless card I have ever seen." She looked around to see if any could track
where they were on the tracks, where surprised to see the Schrödinger cat
sitting on a bough of a tree a few meters away.
"Cat," she said, timidly. "Could you tell me which path should I
take?"
"That depends a lot on where you want to reach," said the Cat.
"Do not know where ...", she began.
"So, no matter where you are," interrupted the Cat.
"But I have to decide between two paths," said Alice.
"This is where you wrong," smiled the cat. "You do not have to
decide, you can take all the paths. Sure, I know that now. I especially tend
to do nine different things at once. The cats crawl anywhere, when not being
observed. Speaking of observation, "he said, hurry," I think I'm about to be
obs ... At this time, he disappeared suddenly.
"What a weird cat," thought Alice, "and that weird suggestion. He
should be referring to the superposition of states of the mechanic who spoke.
I think it's like the time we left the Bank. Somehow, I go in several
directions at the same time, then I think you should try to do the same thing
again. "
******
Status: Alice (A1)
Alice turned to the right, in plate, and continued by the winding
road, looking at the trees while walking. Had not gone far when it came to
another fork, this time the board had two arrows that said "1" and "2." Alice
turned to the right and continued.

While going, the trees were scarce and it was a road trails and steep
rocky. The slope was increasing, until it was up the slope of a mountain
alone. The trail led to a narrow path that a cliff edge, which in turn went
to a small lawn. Its front, the slope of the cliff, she saw an opening as a
mouth bocejante, and a passage, which took forward and down.
The passage was very dark, but to their own surprise, and she ended
up coming down. The floor and walls were smooth and went straight to the
front, a slight slope in the direction of a distant light and brightness. As
she walked, the light would gradually become stronger and more red and the
tunnel was getting warmer. Small clouds of steam and she passed it heard a
sound like that of a huge animal snoring in his sleep.
At the end of the tunnel, Alice spotted a huge underground. Just gave
to try to guess the dark vastness of the place, but close to his feet, she
saw a great brightness. A huge red and gold dragon slept deeply, with its
long tail coiled around him. Below him, serving him in bed, there was a high
pile of gold and silver, jewelry and wonderful sculptures, all bathed in red
light.
Status: Alice (A2)
Alice turned to the right, in plate, and continued by the winding
road, looking at the trees while walking. Had not gone far when it came to
another fork, this time the board had two arrows that said "1" and "2." Alice
turned left and continued.
As was walking, looked down and saw that the path followed by where a
trail had changed from the forest to a narrow street paved with yellow
bricks. She continued to follow through the trees until the forest is opened
in a large grassy clearing. It was very long, run to where Alice could see,
and the entire field was covered with poppies. The yellow brick road to
follow through the gates of the clearing up of a distant city. It was, Alice
could see that the high walls of the city were green and glowed, and the
gates were nail emeralds.
******
Status: Alice (B1)
Alice turned to the left of the plate, and continued along the
winding path. There was no remarkable to see yet. She turned a corner and
came to another fork, this time the board had two arrows that said "1" and
"2." Alice turned right and continued walking.
The vegetation was getting thicker and it was difficult to see
anything that was not very close, although the path itself, is still clear
and defined as followed by wind between the cerrado trees. Alice turned a
bend and suddenly reached an open space. In the center of the clearing stood
a small building with a sloping roof and a small tower with a bell in one of
its ends. The words "Copenhagen School" were deeply marked a plate of stone
above the door. "This must be the place where they said I should go," Alice
said to herself. "Just do not know if I even go to a school! I step in my
time quite! But perhaps the schools here are different from those to which I
am accustomed. I get to see!" Without knocking, she opened the door and
entered.
******
Status: Alice (B2)
Alice turned to the left of the plate, and continued along the
winding path. There was no remarkable to see yet. She turned a corner and
came to another fork, this time the board had two arrows that said "1" and
"2." Alice turned left and continued walking.
A little later, the road began to tilt and Alice began to climb a
morrote. At the top of the hill for a few minutes she stopped and looked in
all directions in the region - and that this region was curious! There were
many streams across the region from one side to another, and the floor was
divided into squares formed by living fences, which were of a stream to
another.
"Damn! The field is divided like a chessboard," Alice said to the
final.
He stopped and looked around with a satisfied air. "Thank you for
your work. It is very interesting," said the Master. "Anybody got any
questions?"
Alice had discovered that, yes. Perhaps the atmosphere of the school
were affected, after all. She raised a hand. "Yes", the Master asked,
pointing to her. "What is the question I would like to do?"
"One thing I do not understand," she said. (This was not the whole
truth, because there were many things she did not understand and that amount
would increase at an alarming rate. But there was one thing in particular
about what she wanted to ask.) "You say the world is strange that normally
mixture of different states, but it is reduced to a single condition where
you, as a conscious mind, the notes. suppose that anyone can become something
real in this way. What then happens to the mind of others ?
"We think we can not understand what you mean," replied the Emperor,
threatening, but at this time the Master interrupted.
 "Maybe I can elaborate a little on top of the little girl's question.
We were talking earlier of electrons passing through two slits. Suppose I
could take a picture of an electron passing through one slit or the other.
According to what you said, and the picture could show the electron in either
of the two slits, would show that was in both. The film of the machine does
not have a conscious mind and would be unable to reduce the function of
wavelength, so he should file a superposition of two different images.
Suppose now that I did a number of copies of that picture without, of course,
look for them. You say that each of those copies would now also a mixture of
different images, each corresponding to different apertures through which the
electrons could have been? "
"Yes," replied the Emperor with all care. "We believe that this would
be the case."
"If it were, we believe that send the copies to different people. The
first to open the envelope and look at the photo would make images become one
of the real, causing the disappearance of the other?" Again, the emperor
agreed, cautious. "But in this case, the pictures that other people would
have received a reduction to the same image, even though they are in other
cities, the miles of distance. We know from experience that the copies of a
photo must show the same image as the original . Thus, when the first person
look at one of the copies of the photo, she would make a chance to become the
only real and therefore this act presumably affect all other copies, which
would have to agree with the first. So a person who looked for a picture in a
city would make all other copies in many different cities in the world
suddenly changed to show all the same. would as a kind of weird race, with
the first person to open the envelope setting other copies of images before
the envelopes were opened. I think that was a little girl wanted to say, "he
concluded.
"Naturally, this does not present any problem in our case," replied
the Emperor, "because nobody would dare to look at this picture before we
examine the. However, we agree that a situation should arise in this way to
people of lower orders . In this case, the situation would be that you just
described. "
Alice was so impressed to see this seemingly ridiculous argument be
accepted, nor understood that the Emperor returned to his seat and little
mermaid going to the front of the skirt. The siren was a little unbalanced,
since it had no feet. Therefore, the Master sat on the table and was shaking
its tail. The attention of Alice returned to the classroom when the siren
began to speak.
The Theory of the Little Mermaid (Many Universes)
"As you know," she began in a liquid voice and music, "I am a
creature of two worlds. I live in the sea and I am equally at ease on land.
But that is nothing compared to the number of worlds we all inhabit, as we
are citizens of many worlds - many, many worlds.
"The cabinet before me said that the quantum rules apply to the whole
world, except the minds of the people who inhabit it. I tell them that they
apply to the whole world, all things. There is no limit to the idea of
superposition of states. When an observer looks at a superposition of quantum
states, it is expected that he or she see that all the relevant selection of
states. That is the case, an observer sees all results, or better, the the
observer is also a superposition of different states and each state of the
observer sees the effect corresponding to that original state in the mixture.
Each state is simply expanded to include the observer in the act of seeing
that particular state.

"This is not how it seems to us, but that is because the different
states of an observer unaware of the existence of each other. When one
electron through a barrier where there are two cracks, it can go both by the
right as the left. What the observer can see is pure coincidence. You could
see that the electron was left, but there is another you will have seen that
the electron to the right. When you observe an electron, you can be divided
into two versions of itself, one to see each possible outcome. If these two
versions never meet, each will ignore the existence of another. The world is
divided into two, with two slightly different versions of you. It is clear
that when these their two versions begin to talk with others, you must have
different versions of these people too. What then is the division of the
world. In this case, it split in two, but for more complex observations it is
split into a greater number of versions. "
"But for sure this would happen very often," Alice could not avoid
and stop the flow of the explanation of the siren.
"Sometimes Always," calmly replied the mermaid. "Where there is a
situation where a measure can provide different results, all possible
outcomes will be observed and the universe is split in the number of
versions.
"Usually, the worlds remain separate and divided it away without ever
making it to the existence of each other, but sometimes they come together
again and present effects of interference. The presence of these effects of
interference between the different states shows that they and can exist
together. "
The siren ended his explanation and was seated there, combing the
endless threads of his long hair that fell side by side, but separately, over
their shoulders.
"This implies a large amount of universes. There would have to be as
many universes as there are grains of sand on the beaches of the Earth,"
Alice protested.
"Oh, no. There would have to be much more than that. Much more!"
mermaid replied, closing the subject. "Much, much more," continued, dreamy.
"Very, very, very ..."
"This theory," interrupted the Master, "has the advantage of being
very economical in relation to statements, but this is not the case with the
universe!" He called the next to present his theory. It was the Ugly
Duckling, who had to stand on the table in the master to be seen more
clearly.
The Theory of the Ugly Duckling (It's all very complicated)
The Duckling began his explanation and Alice realized that, besides
being very ugly, he seemed very angry too. His speech was so full of quacks
and chiados that was difficult to understand what he said. For just as Alice
thought she could see that he spoke to the superposition of states only
worked well for small systems with few electrons and atoms. He said they only
had to argue that the systems were often in a mixture of states because of
the occurrence of interference, as a lonely and single state would not
interfere with that.
He said he did not know the truth if the interference occurs with
objects that contain many particles. It is known that interference and
therefore the superposition of states exist for groups with few particles, so
it is assumed that the same applies to complicated things, like ducks. He did
not believe it for anything in this world.
A duck contains a bunch of atoms of duck, he continued, and before
any overlapping states could interfere, all the atoms in each state should be
separate exactly match with the appropriate atom in other states. Are many
atoms that would not be possible. On average, the effect is canceled and not
see any result set. Since then, he asked, you can be sure that the ducks are
always in a superposition of states? Answer me if this is so smart. All this
superposition of states works well for a few particles at a time, but stop
well before reaching a duck.

He continued saying that he knew very well that means something and
when not seen. He knew that was not in a superposition of states and that no
one was for his chance. When he moved, he continued, determined, even changed
from one state to another determined. The change was irreversible and there
is no way back and recombining with other states. Nothing would interfere
with him, he concluded. At that point, his gaggle was so exalted that Alice
could not accompany him. She not surprised when he was so angry that fell
from the table, out of his field of vision.
There was then a pause and a moment of silence that was interrupted
when a long, graceful neck appeared behind the table, followed by a body
feather, white as snow. It was a swan.
"How beautiful!", Exclaimed Alice. "Can I pet you?"
The swan Chiou mad and hit the wings so scary. Alice noticed that,
despite its change is certainly irreversible, his temperament did not seem to
have changed much.
At that time there was an uproar in the back of the room, and Alice
heard a voice shouting, "Stop this farce! You are all wrong!" She looked
toward the sound and saw a figure tall and angry, standing in the space
between the tables. It was the classical mechanics. Its floor was seriously
compromised because it carries a pinball machine, like those that Alice had
seen in a cafe. (They are found most often in bars, but Alice was too young
to have seen them in places like this.)
The theory of classical mechanics (Wheels Within Wheels)
The classical mechanics went to the front of the room and put your
computer desk next to the Master. She had the form of a table in that way
inclined writing "Interceptor electrons. At the top there were two openings
through which the particles were fired and, below, was prepared a row of
alternately Caçapa marked with "win" and "not win". The surface of the table,
although painted with strong colors, strangely had the various obstacles and
pitchers that Alice had seen in pinball machines.
"You are only cheating themselves," announced the classical mechanics
with firmness. "Look carefully this unit, which is basically a normal
apparatus of interference of electrons with two slits, and I know what is
really happening."
Alice noticed that, despite all the striking decor, the unit was not
more than a smaller version of the experiment shown to her room in the
Mechanical Gedanken. The classical mechanics soon showed its operation,
firing a stream of electrons by the two slits. At least Alice assumed they
must have been, though not see through the cracks because they were the only
ones present, where the electrons were indeed until his arrival was marked
Caçapa in the lower part of the machine. As she expected, the electrons are
grouped into cells separated by intervals, where very few electrons were
found. Alice was intrigued to see that these intervals in the pattern of
interference coincided well with the Caçapa saying "wins."

"Seeing that the interference occurs, you argue that this shows that
the electrons moved in some way by the two slits, since the combination of
the amplitudes of each of them produces the interference pattern that we see.
I say to you that the electrons actually pass individually for just a crack,
so perfectly sensible. The interference due to hidden variables!
Alice found it difficult to monitor what exactly happened at that
point. The most that she saved that moment was that the mechanic pulled the
table something that seemed covered with a cloth and it was not there before.
No matter what happened, but now the surface of the table was covered with a
pattern of protuberances and deep channels leading to the two slits. "Look!
Hidden variables", exclaimed the mechanic.
"There are so well hidden," Alice pointed out, looking for strange
infidel area that is now revealed.
"My idea," began the classical mechanics, clearly ignoring the remark
of Alice, is that electrons and other particles so they behave perfectly
rational and classical as well as particles that are used in the World
Classic. The only difference is that, as well as normal forces acting on the
particles, they are also affected by a particular quantum force, or wave
pilot. And she is causing the strange effect that interpret as arising from
interference. In my statement with the pinball of electrons, each electron
actually goes in a slot or another, by moving on the table and so normal and
predictable. Any randomness in all of it originates from different initial
speeds and directions that the electrons will be initially. When the
electrons cross the rails you see here in the quantum potential, they are
deflected by the quantum force, and a bicycle wheel attached to a rail train,
which is why most of the electrons has been grouped. That is what produces
the so-called effects of interference. "
"Well," said the Master, "this is certainly a very interesting theory
- very, very interesting even. However, if you do not mind what I say, it
looks like you removed the difficulties they had with the behavior of
electrons at the expense of a strange behavior and the quantum potential.
"Because your strength is to produce quantum effects that give the
interference, it must be influenced by things that occur in very different
places. If a third slit was made on your desk, the forces on the quantum
particle is changed, even if no particle move it. It must be, because the
interference to three holes is different from that to two, and its strength
needs to play all those quantum interference effects that we know they occur.
Moreover, quantum potential, or network quantum forces, must be very
complicated. In theory, there is nothing similar to the reduction of the wave
functions that occurs in normal quantum theory, then its potential to be
influenced by all the possibilities of all things that could have happened -
in any occasion. It is like the theory of Many Universes, accordingly. In
theory, you say that what is observed depends on the trajectory that the
particle will have when they are affected by the pilot wave and the wave
itself retain the pilot information of all things that could have happened
and there is no avoiding it. The wave would have to be incredibly complex as
the sum of all the universes in the theory of many universities, even if it
does not affect the particles in most of the time .
"The pilot wave theory in its influences the behavior of particles,
but the way in which the particles move individually has no effect on the
wave. It depends only on the particles that could have done. There is no
symmetry of action and reaction between particle and wave pilot. As a
classical mechanics, this should be a hassle for you. You would not want to
contradict Newton's law which says that action and reaction are always equal,
would you like? "
At this time the quantum mechanics, which had followed the classical
mechanics into the classroom without saying anything, went to the front of
the room and he's got the arm. "Come with me," he said. "Surely you do not
want to be accused of heresy by counteracting the classical laws of Newton.
All this academic discussion on what the electrons are no longer or do not
for guys like us. We are Mechanical. As Mechanical, my main concern is
Quantum laws that work and work well. When calculating the amplitude of some
process, it tells me what is likely to happen.
 There are many "answers" to the problem of the measure, but none is
universally accepted. In practice, quantum mechanics is usually used to reach
the amplitude and the various probabilities to give a physical system. Then,
these probabilities are used to predict the behavior of large sets of atomic
systems without too much concern about what would happen with a single
system. The results for the sets can be compared with the action, again
without much concern about the way in which these measurements were made.
The practical answer to this problem is "close your eyes and
calculate." The interpretation of quantum mechanics can be difficult, but
there's no denying that it works well.
She gives me the probability of different results and is accurately
and reliably. It is not my job to be worried that the electrons are doing
when I'm not looking for them, since I know what they are doing when I watch
them. That is why I pay. "
He took his silence in a corner, turned to Alice and asked, "I
learned everything I know about that monitors and measures?"
"Well," she began, "to tell the truth, I am more confused than when I
arrived here."
"Okay," suddenly interrupted the quantum mechanics. "I thought.
You've learned what you wanted. Come along and see some of the results of
quantum theory. Let me show you some of the attractions of the country of
Quantum."
Notes
1. The extent of the problem "is that the selection of a unique
opportunity and the reduction of all other amplitudes is quite different from
other quantum behavior and how that can happen is not obvious. The problem is
contained in its simplest form, the question "how is it possible to measure
anything?. The conventional view of quantum mechanics is that when there are
multiple possibilities, a range for each scale and total system is obtained
by the sum, or superposition of them all. For example, if several slits
through which a particle can pass, the magnitude of the system contains a
range for each opening, and there may be interference between the individual
amplitudes. Without external influences , the amplitude change is so smooth
and predictable. When you make a measurement on a system whose sum of
amplitudes corresponding to different possible values of the measured
quantity, the theory says you observe, with some probability, one or other of
these values. Immediately after the measure, the value is a known quantity
(because you just measure it) and then the sum of self-states (see box on
page 85) is reduced to one, only for the actual value measured by you.
The description of the measure in orthodox quantum mechanics has the
disadvantage that the measurement procedure does not seem at all compatible
with the rest of quantum theory. If quantum theory atomic theory is true, as
seems to be, and if the world is made of atoms, then presumably the quantum
theory should apply to the whole world and all things contained therein. This
includes the instruments of measurement. When a quantum system can result in
different values, its amplitude is the sum of states corresponding to each
possible value. When a measuring instrument is itself a quantum system and
there are several values that could be measured, he is not entitled to select
only one. He should be in a state that was the sum of the amplitudes of all
possible results that he could measure and no single observation could be
made.
The conclusion to be drawn is that:
a) I never noticed anything of truth
or
b) The quantum theory is a bunch of bullshit.
Neither of the two conclusions is sustainable (for the most tempting
option (b) may appear). We know very well that we look at things, but we can
not deny that quantum theory has been successful insuperability to describe
all the observations, while no other alternative theory does so well. We can
not abandon it lightly.

Alice followed the quantum mechanics along the way that out of
school. While progress, the path would be extended gradually to become a flat
road.
"I think the most interesting thing you've shown me so far," said
Alice, "was the way those obtained interference effects even when there was
only one electron present. It is true then it makes no difference if we have
only one electron or many ?
"It is true that you can see the interference with one or more
electrons. But that does not mean make difference. Some effects are only seen
when you have many electrons. See the Pauli principle, for example ..."
"I heard of him," interrupted Alice. "The electrons told him that I
came here. Can you tell me what it is, please?"
"It is a law that applies when you have a bunch of particles equal -
completely identical in all respects. If you want to know more about it, it
is better to ask here, since we are close by. They are experts in the
behavior of many particles together. "
Mechanic's words made Alice look around and realize that, while
going, they had reached a high wall of rock that accompanied one side of the
road. Well ahead of them was a large gate. The doors were made of twisted
iron and is opened between two huge columns of stone, each with a painted
crest in the center. The right of the gate above the wall, Alice could see a
panel of wood which read:
Academy Fermi-Bose - For electrons and photons
In the center of the gate was an imposing figure, a wide and very
portly man who looked even more massive and heavy with academic gown and hat
of bachelor he used. His face was round and stained adorned by a large
mustache and sideburns. Firmly attached to one of his eyes had a monocle,
which hung a long black ribbon.
"This is the Principal Director, the Mechanical whispered in the ear
of Alice, who was nearest him.

"I mean the principle of Pauli", asked Alice excited. She had been
surprised by his grip of sudden appearance.
"No, no," Chiou the Mechanic, "he is the Principal Director of the
Academy. Although the Pauli principle to be the main principle of the
Academy, he is the Director." Alice wanted to not have asked.
 They crossed the street toward the imposing character.
"Excuse me, sir," began the Mechanic. "You, by tenderness, could not
say anything about the systems with many particles for my friend here?"
"Sure, sure," said the Director with a powerful voice. "Never a lack
of particles here, oh no. I am happy to show you the Academy.
He turned, making his gown curl, and was showing the way to the
Academy. While going, Alice saw some figures in and out of the bushes. In a
moment, one of the put your head over a bush and made a face to them. Or at
least so it seemed to Alice. As always, it was very difficult to see any
detail. "Ignore him," rugiu the Director. "This school is only one electron,
the electron Minor."
They reached the door of the Academy, which is located in an old and
honorable house that seemed a bit of a mansion with Tudor dynasty. Without a
pause, the director led them through the main door into a hall with arch to
the ceiling and then led them up by a large staircase. While going by the
building, Alice saw small figures hiding behind the handrails, in and out of
rooms and corridors by fire side when they approached. "Ignore him," again
commanded the Director. "It is the electron Minor. Particulates are particles
always!"
"But the electron can not be minor, if I just see him on the road,"
protested Alice. "Sure, can not be the same particle in two places at the
same time. This is how the experiment in which an electron can pass by the
two slits?," She said to quantum mechanics.
"No, not that. They have many electrons there. Not noticed? The
electrons are all exactly equal. They are completely identical to each other.
There is no way to distinguish between them, so all are, of course,
Electronics Minor."
"All right," confirmed with the Director as the decision led to his
office, "and this is a problem, I say. You must imagine how difficult it is
for a teacher to have twins two students in school and not knowing
distinguish between them. Well here there are hundreds of identical particles
entirely. This is a call from hell!
"The electrons are not so bad," he continued. "We only count and see
if the total is correct. At least the number of electrons remains the same,
then we know how many should have, but with the photons, not even this works.
Photons are bosons and therefore does not retain . You can start a lesson
with, say, thirty, and finish the class with fifty. Or the number may fall to
less than twenty - it is difficult to guess. That's life very difficult for
employees of the school. "
Alice noticed that an unknown word remark. "Will could you explain
that?" She said, hopeful. "Could you tell me what a bóson?"
The director was even more red than before talking with the mechanic.
"I think you better take it to the class of suits of Symmetry for beginners.
What do you think? That will explain everything about bosons and Férmions."
"Absolutely right," said the Mechanic. "Come on, Alice. I think I
remember the way."
Walked in a corridor until you reach a room and at the time the
class was starting.
"Attention, please," said the professor. "As you know, you guys,
electrons, are identical to each other as well as all of you, the photons.
This means that there is no way to know if two of you have changed places. To
an observer, you could have changed places and of course, changed to some
extent. Everyone knows that you have linked to you, a function of wavelength,
or amplitude, and that this amplitude is a superposition of all the things
you could be doing. Where we can not say the they are doing, you will be
doing all the things, or in any way, you have a scale for each of these
things. Vejam so that any group of you is impossible to say when two of you
changed place, and that means wave function of the total will be a
superposition of all amplitudes for which a different pair has been
exchanged. I hope you all have noted that. " See footnote 1 at the end of
Chapter
"The probability of making an observation is given by the square of
the wave function, ie the value of the function multiplied by itself. As you
are all identical, it is obvious that if two of you change places, the
difference not is observable and therefore the square of the wave function
does not change. It may seem that there was no way. Tell me about what can
change? "
One of the electrons raised his hand, or at least inferred that Alice
is what happened. It was not possible to see with great clarity. "The signal
changes, teacher."
"Very well, is an excellent response. I would be in your observation,
saying it was a great response but unfortunately, can not distinguish it from
others. Yes, as you know, the amplitudes do not have to be positive. May be
positive or negative, so that two amplitudes can cancel each other when there
is interference. This means that there are two cases in which the square of
its amplitude does not change. It may be that the scale does not change when
two of you change places. In this case , the particles are bosons, like you,
the photons. But there is another possibility. When two of you change places,
the range can be reversed. Muda of positive to negative and vice versa. In
this case, the square remains positive and distribution of probabilities is
unchanged, because the magnitude multiply itself takes two inversions, which
results in no change. This is what happens to you as férmions, electrons. All
particles are in one or other of these classifications: or are férmions are
either bosons.
"You may think it does not matter much if its amplitude is inverted
or not, especially because the distribution of probabilities remains the same
but in fact is very important, especially for férmions. The point is that if
two of you are on the same state - to say, in the same place and doing the
same thing - and move from place, is not only a change inobservável.
Actually, there is some change. In this case, neither the distribution of
probabilities or the magnitude can change.

The interference between the possible paths that a particle can

travel will result in a distribution of probabilities with minimum and
maximum well pronounced, which is more likely that a particle is detected in
a position than in another.
They left the room, Gedanken, whose floor was back to his usual
brilliant appearance, and continued for a corridor to another room furnished
with a few seats. When the two had already been seated, the mechanic said:
"When we talk about a situation like the electrons through the openings, we
describe using a scale. It is more or less like the waves you saw, and is
actually called, with frequency of the wave function. The range can pass
through two openings at the same time and not always positive, as the
likelihood. the less likely that you can have is zero, but the amplitude can
be positive or negative, with different pathways it may cancel or add to each
other and result in interference, as with the waves of water. "
"Where are the particles then", asked Alice. "By opening up what they
are, indeed?"
"Indeed, the scale does not say that. However, it raised the
magnitude squared, ie to multiply it by itself to always give a positive
number, you can get a distribution of probabilities. If you choose any
position determined, is that this distribution is likely to say, if you
observe a particle, find it in that position. "
 "And that is all she says?" Exclaimed Alice. "I must say that I feel
inadequate. You never know where something is."
"Yes, this is true. You can not tell where a particle is, except that
is not where the probability is zero, of course. If you have a large number
of particles, however, be assured that you will find more particles where the
probability is higher, much less one where the probability is low. If you
have a very large number of particles, it is possible to say with much
precision the place where many particles are. This is the case for those
workers who you were talking . They knew what they were building because they
were using a lot of bricks. In numbers too high, the reliability of the
system is very good. " See footnote 3 at the end of Chapter
"And there is no way to tell which one particle is doing without
watching it?", Said Alice, just to be sure.
"No, no way. When you see what can happen in several different ways,
you have a scale for each possible way, and the overall amplitude is obtained
adding up all of them. You will have a superposition of states. In a way ,
the particle is doing everything it can to it. Not only do you not know what
the particle is doing. The interference shows that the odds are all present
and influence each other. In a way, are all equally real. It is not forbidden
is compulsory. " "I saw a poster that said that in the Bank. Seemed very
serious."
"And it is! This is one of the most important rules here. How many
things can happen, they happen. Take a look at the cat, for example."
"What cat?", Alice asked, looking around, confused.
"But the cat of Schrödinger here. He has left us to cuidássemos it."
Alice looked to where the mechanic pointed and saw a large striped
cat who slept in a basket in the corner of the room. As if awakened by having
heard his name, the cat stood up, stretch out. Or better, got up and was not
raised, lounge and not yawn. Alice saw that, beyond the slightly blurred
picture of the cat's arched back, a cat was also identical, still asleep in
the bottom of the basket. He was very hard in a very unnatural. Looking at
him, Alice could swear he was dead.

"Schrödinger developed a Gedanken experiment in which a poor cat got

trapped in a box, along with a container of poison gas and a mechanism to
break the bottle if a sample of a radioactive material were suffering decay.
This is definitely a decay process quantum. The material may or may not fall
and then, according to the rules of quantum physics, there would be a
superposition of states, where some in the decay would have occurred and in
others not. Of course, in those states in which the decay occurs, the cat
die, and then we would have a superposition of states of cats, some dead and
some alive. When the box was opened, someone to watch the cat and from then
on he was dead or alive. The question was proposed by Schrödinger: "What
state of the cat before the box is open? "
"And what happened when they opened the box", Alice asked.
"In fact, everyone was so excited discussing the issue that anyone
opened the box, and that is why the cat was like that."
Alice looked at the basket where an aspect of the cat licking itself
with dedication. "He seems very much alive," she noted. Mal of the words had
left his mouth, the cat became very solid and tangible version dead and gone.
Satisfied purr, the cat jumped out of the box and began to chase a mouse that
had left the wall. Alice noticed that there was a rat hole, she could see -
the mouse had just gone straight to the wall. The quantum mechanics of the
eye followed the direction of Alice. "Ah, yes. This is an example of
penetration into barriers: happens all the time here. Where there is a region
that a particle can not enter in accordance with the laws of classical
mechanics, the amplitude does not necessarily cease immediately on the border
region, despite declining rapidly within it. If the region is well close,
there will still be left some magnitude on the other side, and this gives
room for a small probability that a particle can appear there, apparently
having crossed a seemingly insurmountable barrier, a process called
"tunneling." happens frequently. "
Alice was passed in your head the things that had seen so far and
noticed a problem. "As I got to watch the cat and set their condition if he
could not do it by itself? What decides that a comment that was made and who
is able to do them?"

"This is a very good," replied the quantum mechanics, "but we are

only mechanical and not so much in mind with these things. Just do the work
and use methods that we know work in practice. If someone wants to discuss
extent of the problem with you, you have to go somewhere more academic. I
suggest that there is a lesson from the School of Copenhagen. "
"And what do I get there?", Alice asked, settling with the fact of
having been passed on to another place. In response, the mechanism leading to
the corridor and opened a door, which was not to the alley where she had
entered, but to a forest.
Notes
1. Quantum mechanics is usually contrasted with the classical or
Newtonian mechanics. The latter, which deals with the detailed description of
objects in motion, was developed before the early 20th century and is based
on the original works of Galileo, Newton and others before and after them.
The Newtonian mechanics works very well on large scales. The movement of
planets can be predicted far in advance and great accuracy. It works almost
equally well to artificial planets and space missions for exploration: their
positions can be made years before. Works great also for apples falling from
trees.
In the case of an apple that falls, air resistance is significant
about that. The classical mechanics describes the suit as the collision of a
huge number of air molecules rebound in apple. When you ask about the air
molecules, they respond to him that they are small groups of atoms. When you
ask about the atoms, it is an embarrassing silence.
The classical mechanics was not successful in trying to explain the
nature of the world in atomic scale. Things must be different in some way for
small objects than large objects appear to be. To use these arguments, you
should ask: small or large compared to what? There must be some size, a
fundamental constant setting the scale on which this new behavior becomes
obvious. It is a definitive change in the way they observed the behavior of
things, and it is universal.
Atoms in the sun and distant stars emitting light in the same
spectrum as the lamp on his desk-to-head. The transition to quantum behavior
is not something that happens only locally, there is a fundamental property
of nature involved. This property is denoted by the universal constant that
appears in most of the quantum equations. The world is granulated in the
scale defined by the constant character. On this scale, energy and time,
position and momentum, are blur together. It is not necessary to say that the
scale of human perception, character is very small and most of the quantum
effects is not absolutely clear.
2. What the relations of the Heisenberg uncertainty tell us is that
we see things so wrong. We believe beforehand that we should be able to
measure the position and momentum of a particle at the same time, but found
that we can not. The very nature of the particles does not allow us to make
such measurements on them and the theory tells us we are doing the wrong
questions, questions to which we have no viable answers. Niels Bohr used the
word complementarity to express the fact that it is possible to have concepts
that can not be precisely defined at the same time: pairs of concepts such as
justice and legality, rationality and emotion.
There is something fundamentally wrong with our belief that we should
be able to talk about the position and momentum, or the exact amount of
energy of a particle in a given moment. Do not you know that would be
significant while talking to two very distinct qualities. It seems that this
is not as significant.
3. Quantum mechanics is not a particle set classic in the traditional
sense, instead dealing with states and amplitudes. If you amounts to a square
amplitude (ie multiplied by its value) you get a distribution of
probabilities gives the probability of obtaining various results when making
an observation or measurement. The actual value obtained by measuring with
any appears to be random and unpredictable. Just seems that the suggestion
made earlier in this book that nature is uncertain and that "everything"
must, in the end, be true. It seems?
Well .. no. If you make many measurements, the average result can be
predicted with precision. Recording of bets do not know which horse will win
each race, but confidently expected to make some profit by the end of the
day. Unable to provide large and unexpected losses, as working with small
numbers whose average can not be trusted. The number of gamblers would be a
few thousands, instead of 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 atoms or more,
existing even in a tiny piece of matter. These digits appear with a number
less than the design of a repetitive wallpaper, but it is undeniably great.
The mean expected statistical fluctuations in measurements of very large
numbers of atoms are negligible, even if the results for individual atoms can
be quite random.
Amplitudes of quantum mechanics can be calculated with enough
accuracy and compared with experiments. A much cited result is the magnetic
moment of an electron. The electrons revolve as little pawns and have
electrical properties: they behave like small magnets. The magnetic force and
rotation of the electron are related, and this ratio can be calculated using
the appropriate units.
A classical calculation result reaches 1 (with arbitrary assumptions
about the distribution of electric charge of an electron).
The classic comes to the calculation result 2.0023193048 (± 8) (the
error is the last decimal place).
A measurement result reaches 2.0023193048 (± 4).
And a good agreement! The probability of achieving, at random, so
consistent values is similar to the probability of a dart throw, also at
random, and adjust on the fly - when the target is as far as the Moon This
result in particular is often given as an example the success of quantum
theory. You can calculate, with the same accuracy, the amplitudes of other
processes, but very few figures that can be measured with such accuracy.
2

Alice inside the woods and was followed by a path that winds through
the trees, until you reach a fork. There was a plaque there, but not much
help. The arrow pointing to the right said "A" and pointed to the left that
said "B", nothing more. "Damn," Alice exclaimed, irritated. "This is the most
useless card I have ever seen." She looked around to see if any could track
where they were on the tracks, where surprised to see the Schrödinger cat
sitting on a bough of a tree a few meters away.
"Cat," she said, timidly. "Could you tell me which path should I
take?"
"That depends a lot on where you want to reach," said the Cat.
"Do not know where ...", she began.
 "So, no matter where you are," interrupted the Cat.
"But I have to decide between two paths," said Alice.
"This is where you wrong," smiled the cat. "You do not have to
decide, you can take all the paths. Sure, I know that now. I especially tend
to do nine different things at once. The cats crawl anywhere, when not being
observed. Speaking of observation, "he said, hurry," I think I'm about to be
obs ... At this time, he disappeared suddenly.
"What a weird cat," thought Alice, "and that weird suggestion. He
should be referring to the superposition of states of the mechanic who spoke.
I think it's like the time we left the Bank. Somehow, I go in several
directions at the same time, then I think you should try to do the same thing
again. "
******
Status: Alice (A1)
Alice turned to the right, in plate, and continued by the winding
road, looking at the trees while walking. Had not gone far when it came to
another fork, this time the board had two arrows that said "1" and "2." Alice
turned to the right and continued.

While going, the trees were scarce and it was a road trails and steep
rocky. The slope was increasing, until it was up the slope of a mountain
alone. The trail led to a narrow path that a cliff edge, which in turn went
to a small lawn. Its front, the slope of the cliff, she saw an opening as a
mouth bocejante, and a passage, which took forward and down.
The passage was very dark, but to their own surprise, and she ended
up coming down. The floor and walls were smooth and went straight to the
front, a slight slope in the direction of a distant light and brightness. As
she walked, the light would gradually become stronger and more red and the
tunnel was getting warmer. Small clouds of steam and she passed it heard a
sound like that of a huge animal snoring in his sleep.
At the end of the tunnel, Alice spotted a huge underground. Just gave
to try to guess the dark vastness of the place, but close to his feet, she
saw a great brightness. A huge red and gold dragon slept deeply, with its
long tail coiled around him. Below him, serving him in bed, there was a high
pile of gold and silver, jewelry and wonderful sculptures, all bathed in red
light.
Status: Alice (A2)
Alice turned to the right, in plate, and continued by the winding
road, looking at the trees while walking. Had not gone far when it came to
another fork, this time the board had two arrows that said "1" and "2." Alice
turned left and continued.
As was walking, looked down and saw that the path followed by where a
trail had changed from the forest to a narrow street paved with yellow
bricks. She continued to follow through the trees until the forest is opened
in a large grassy clearing. It was very long, run to where Alice could see,
and the entire field was covered with poppies. The yellow brick road to
follow through the gates of the clearing up of a distant city. It was, Alice
could see that the high walls of the city were green and glowed, and the
gates were nail emeralds.
******
Status: Alice (B1)
Alice turned to the left of the plate, and continued along the
winding path. There was no remarkable to see yet. She turned a corner and
came to another fork, this time the board had two arrows that said "1" and
"2." Alice turned right and continued walking.
The vegetation was getting thicker and it was difficult to see
anything that was not very close, although the path itself, is still clear
and defined as followed by wind between the cerrado trees. Alice turned a
bend and suddenly reached an open space. In the center of the clearing stood
a small building with a sloping roof and a small tower with a bell in one of
its ends. The words "Copenhagen School" were deeply marked a plate of stone
above the door. "This must be the place where they said I should go," Alice
said to herself. "Just do not know if I even go to a school! I step in my
time quite! But perhaps the schools here are different from those to which I
am accustomed. I get to see!" Without knocking, she opened the door and
entered.
******
Status: Alice (B2)
Alice turned to the left of the plate, and continued along the
winding path. There was no remarkable to see yet. She turned a corner and
came to another fork, this time the board had two arrows that said "1" and
"2." Alice turned left and continued walking.
A little later, the road began to tilt and Alice began to climb a
morrote. At the top of the hill for a few minutes she stopped and looked in
all directions in the region - and that this region was curious! There were
many streams across the region from one side to another, and the floor was
divided into squares formed by living fences, which were of a stream to
another.
"Damn! The field is divided like a chessboard," Alice said to the
final.
He stopped and looked around with a satisfied air. "Thank you for
your work. It is very interesting," said the Master. "Anybody got any
questions?"
Alice had discovered that, yes. Perhaps the atmosphere of the school
were affected, after all. She raised a hand. "Yes", the Master asked,
pointing to her. "What is the question I would like to do?"
"One thing I do not understand," she said. (This was not the whole
truth, because there were many things she did not understand and that amount
would increase at an alarming rate. But there was one thing in particular
about what she wanted to ask.) "You say the world is strange that normally
mixture of different states, but it is reduced to a single condition where
you, as a conscious mind, the notes. suppose that anyone can become something
real in this way. What then happens to the mind of others ?
"We think we can not understand what you mean," replied the Emperor,
threatening, but at this time the Master interrupted.
"Maybe I can elaborate a little on top of the little girl's question.
We were talking earlier of electrons passing through two slits. Suppose I
could take a picture of an electron passing through one slit or the other.
According to what you said, and the picture could show the electron in either
of the two slits, would show that was in both. The film of the machine does
not have a conscious mind and would be unable to reduce the function of
wavelength, so he should file a superposition of two different images.
Suppose now that I did a number of copies of that picture without, of course,
look for them. You say that each of those copies would now also a mixture of
different images, each corresponding to different apertures through which the
electrons could have been? "
"Yes," replied the Emperor with all care. "We believe that this would
be the case."
"If it were, we believe that send the copies to different people. The
first to open the envelope and look at the photo would make images become one
of the real, causing the disappearance of the other?" Again, the emperor
agreed, cautious. "But in this case, the pictures that other people would
have received a reduction to the same image, even though they are in other
cities, the miles of distance. We know from experience that the copies of a
photo must show the same image as the original . Thus, when the first person
look at one of the copies of the photo, she would make a chance to become the
only real and therefore this act presumably affect all other copies, which
would have to agree with the first. So a person who looked for a picture in a
city would make all other copies in many different cities in the world
suddenly changed to show all the same. would as a kind of weird race, with
the first person to open the envelope setting other copies of images before
the envelopes were opened. I think that was a little girl wanted to say, "he
concluded.
"Naturally, this does not present any problem in our case," replied
the Emperor, "because nobody would dare to look at this picture before we
examine the. However, we agree that a situation should arise in this way to
people of lower orders . In this case, the situation would be that you just
described. "
Alice was so impressed to see this seemingly ridiculous argument be
accepted, nor understood that the Emperor returned to his seat and little
mermaid going to the front of the skirt. The siren was a little unbalanced,
since it had no feet. Therefore, the Master sat on the table and was shaking
its tail. The attention of Alice returned to the classroom when the siren
began to speak.
The Theory of the Little Mermaid (Many Universes)
"As you know," she began in a liquid voice and music, "I am a
creature of two worlds. I live in the sea and I am equally at ease on land.
But that is nothing compared to the number of worlds we all inhabit, as we
are citizens of many worlds - many, many worlds.
"The cabinet before me said that the quantum rules apply to the whole
world, except the minds of the people who inhabit it. I tell them that they
apply to the whole world, all things. There is no limit to the idea of
superposition of states. When an observer looks at a superposition of quantum
states, it is expected that he or she see that all the relevant selection of
states. That is the case, an observer sees all results, or better, the the
observer is also a superposition of different states and each state of the
observer sees the effect corresponding to that original state in the mixture.
Each state is simply expanded to include the observer in the act of seeing
that particular state.

"This is not how it seems to us, but that is because the different
states of an observer unaware of the existence of each other. When one
electron through a barrier where there are two cracks, it can go both by the
right as the left. What the observer can see is pure coincidence. You could
see that the electron was left, but there is another you will have seen that
the electron to the right. When you observe an electron, you can be divided
into two versions of itself, one to see each possible outcome. If these two
versions never meet, each will ignore the existence of another. The world is
divided into two, with two slightly different versions of you. It is clear
that when these their two versions begin to talk with others, you must have
different versions of these people too. What then is the division of the
world. In this case, it split in two, but for more complex observations it is
split into a greater number of versions. "
"But for sure this would happen very often," Alice could not avoid
and stop the flow of the explanation of the siren.
"Sometimes Always," calmly replied the mermaid. "Where there is a
situation where a measure can provide different results, all possible
outcomes will be observed and the universe is split in the number of
versions.
"Usually, the worlds remain separate and divided it away without ever
making it to the existence of each other, but sometimes they come together
again and present effects of interference. The presence of these effects of
interference between the different states shows that they and can exist
together. "
The siren ended his explanation and was seated there, combing the
endless threads of his long hair that fell side by side, but separately, over
their shoulders.
"This implies a large amount of universes. There would have to be as
many universes as there are grains of sand on the beaches of the Earth,"
Alice protested.
"Oh, no. There would have to be much more than that. Much more!"
mermaid replied, closing the subject. "Much, much more," continued, dreamy.
"Very, very, very ..."
"This theory," interrupted the Master, "has the advantage of being
very economical in relation to statements, but this is not the case with the
universe!" He called the next to present his theory. It was the Ugly
Duckling, who had to stand on the table in the master to be seen more
clearly.
The Theory of the Ugly Duckling (It's all very complicated)
The Duckling began his explanation and Alice realized that, besides
being very ugly, he seemed very angry too. His speech was so full of quacks
and chiados that was difficult to understand what he said. For just as Alice
thought she could see that he spoke to the superposition of states only
worked well for small systems with few electrons and atoms. He said they only
had to argue that the systems were often in a mixture of states because of
the occurrence of interference, as a lonely and single state would not
interfere with that.
He said he did not know the truth if the interference occurs with
objects that contain many particles. It is known that interference and
therefore the superposition of states exist for groups with few particles, so
it is assumed that the same applies to complicated things, like ducks. He did
not believe it for anything in this world.
A duck contains a bunch of atoms of duck, he continued, and before
any overlapping states could interfere, all the atoms in each state should be
separate exactly match with the appropriate atom in other states. Are many
atoms that would not be possible. On average, the effect is canceled and not
see any result set. Since then, he asked, you can be sure that the ducks are
always in a superposition of states? Answer me if this is so smart. All this
superposition of states works well for a few particles at a time, but stop
well before reaching a duck.

He continued saying that he knew very well that means something and
when not seen. He knew that was not in a superposition of states and that no
one was for his chance. When he moved, he continued, determined, even changed
from one state to another determined. The change was irreversible and there
is no way back and recombining with other states. Nothing would interfere
with him, he concluded. At that point, his gaggle was so exalted that Alice
could not accompany him. She not surprised when he was so angry that fell
from the table, out of his field of vision.
There was then a pause and a moment of silence that was interrupted
when a long, graceful neck appeared behind the table, followed by a body
feather, white as snow. It was a swan.
"How beautiful!", Exclaimed Alice. "Can I pet you?"
The swan Chiou mad and hit the wings so scary. Alice noticed that,
despite its change is certainly irreversible, his temperament did not seem to
have changed much.
At that time there was an uproar in the back of the room, and Alice
heard a voice shouting, "Stop this farce! You are all wrong!" She looked
toward the sound and saw a figure tall and angry, standing in the space
between the tables. It was the classical mechanics. Its floor was seriously
compromised because it carries a pinball machine, like those that Alice had
seen in a cafe. (They are found most often in bars, but Alice was too young
to have seen them in places like this.)
The theory of classical mechanics (Wheels Within Wheels)
The classical mechanics went to the front of the room and put your
computer desk next to the Master. She had the form of a table in that way
inclined writing "Interceptor electrons. At the top there were two openings
through which the particles were fired and, below, was prepared a row of
alternately Caçapa marked with "win" and "not win". The surface of the table,
although painted with strong colors, strangely had the various obstacles and
pitchers that Alice had seen in pinball machines.
"You are only cheating themselves," announced the classical mechanics
with firmness. "Look carefully this unit, which is basically a normal
apparatus of interference of electrons with two slits, and I know what is
really happening."
Alice noticed that, despite all the striking decor, the unit was not
more than a smaller version of the experiment shown to her room in the
Mechanical Gedanken. The classical mechanics soon showed its operation,
firing a stream of electrons by the two slits. At least Alice assumed they
must have been, though not see through the cracks because they were the only
ones present, where the electrons were indeed until his arrival was marked
Caçapa in the lower part of the machine. As she expected, the electrons are
grouped into cells separated by intervals, where very few electrons were
found. Alice was intrigued to see that these intervals in the pattern of
interference coincided well with the Caçapa saying "wins."

"Seeing that the interference occurs, you argue that this shows that
the electrons moved in some way by the two slits, since the combination of
the amplitudes of each of them produces the interference pattern that we see.
I say to you that the electrons actually pass individually for just a crack,
so perfectly sensible. The interference due to hidden variables!
Alice found it difficult to monitor what exactly happened at that
point. The most that she saved that moment was that the mechanic pulled the
table something that seemed covered with a cloth and it was not there before.
No matter what happened, but now the surface of the table was covered with a
pattern of protuberances and deep channels leading to the two slits. "Look!
Hidden variables", exclaimed the mechanic.
"There are so well hidden," Alice pointed out, looking for strange
infidel area that is now revealed.
"My idea," began the classical mechanics, clearly ignoring the remark
of Alice, is that electrons and other particles so they behave perfectly
rational and classical as well as particles that are used in the World
Classic. The only difference is that, as well as normal forces acting on the
particles, they are also affected by a particular quantum force, or wave
pilot. And she is causing the strange effect that interpret as arising from
interference. In my statement with the pinball of electrons, each electron
actually goes in a slot or another, by moving on the table and so normal and
predictable. Any randomness in all of it originates from different initial
speeds and directions that the electrons will be initially. When the
electrons cross the rails you see here in the quantum potential, they are
deflected by the quantum force, and a bicycle wheel attached to a rail train,
which is why most of the electrons has been grouped. That is what produces
the so-called effects of interference. "
"Well," said the Master, "this is certainly a very interesting theory
- very, very interesting even. However, if you do not mind what I say, it
looks like you removed the difficulties they had with the behavior of
electrons at the expense of a strange behavior and the quantum potential.
"Because your strength is to produce quantum effects that give the
interference, it must be influenced by things that occur in very different
places. If a third slit was made on your desk, the forces on the quantum
particle is changed, even if no particle move it. It must be, because the
interference to three holes is different from that to two, and its strength
needs to play all those quantum interference effects that we know they occur.
Moreover, quantum potential, or network quantum forces, must be very
complicated. In theory, there is nothing similar to the reduction of the wave
functions that occurs in normal quantum theory, then its potential to be
influenced by all the possibilities of all things that could have happened -
in any occasion. It is like the theory of Many Universes, accordingly. In
theory, you say that what is observed depends on the trajectory that the
particle will have when they are affected by the pilot wave and the wave
itself retain the pilot information of all things that could have happened
and there is no avoiding it. The wave would have to be incredibly complex as
the sum of all the universes in the theory of many universities, even if it
does not affect the particles in most of the time .
"The pilot wave theory in its influences the behavior of particles,
but the way in which the particles move individually has no effect on the
wave. It depends only on the particles that could have done. There is no
symmetry of action and reaction between particle and wave pilot. As a
classical mechanics, this should be a hassle for you. You would not want to
contradict Newton's law which says that action and reaction are always equal,
would you like? "
At this time the quantum mechanics, which had followed the classical
mechanics into the classroom without saying anything, went to the front of
the room and he's got the arm. "Come with me," he said. "Surely you do not
want to be accused of heresy by counteracting the classical laws of Newton.
All this academic discussion on what the electrons are no longer or do not
for guys like us. We are Mechanical. As Mechanical, my main concern is
Quantum laws that work and work well. When calculating the amplitude of some
process, it tells me what is likely to happen.

There are many "answers" to the problem of the measure, but none is
universally accepted. In practice, quantum mechanics is usually used to reach
the amplitude and the various probabilities to give a physical system. Then,
these probabilities are used to predict the behavior of large sets of atomic
systems without too much concern about what would happen with a single
system. The results for the sets can be compared with the action, again
without much concern about the way in which these measurements were made.
The practical answer to this problem is "close your eyes and
calculate." The interpretation of quantum mechanics can be difficult, but
there's no denying that it works well.
She gives me the probability of different results and is accurately
and reliably. It is not my job to be worried that the electrons are doing
when I'm not looking for them, since I know what they are doing when I watch
them. That is why I pay. "
He took his silence in a corner, turned to Alice and asked, "I
learned everything I know about that monitors and measures?"
"Well," she began, "to tell the truth, I am more confused than when I
arrived here."
"Okay," suddenly interrupted the quantum mechanics. "I thought.
You've learned what you wanted. Come along and see some of the results of
quantum theory. Let me show you some of the attractions of the country of
Quantum."
Notes
1. The extent of the problem "is that the selection of a unique
opportunity and the reduction of all other amplitudes is quite different from
other quantum behavior and how that can happen is not obvious. The problem is
contained in its simplest form, the question "how is it possible to measure
anything?. The conventional view of quantum mechanics is that when there are
multiple possibilities, a range for each scale and total system is obtained
by the sum, or superposition of them all. For example, if several slits
through which a particle can pass, the magnitude of the system contains a
range for each opening, and there may be interference between the individual
amplitudes. Without external influences , the amplitude change is so smooth
and predictable. When you make a measurement on a system whose sum of
amplitudes corresponding to different possible values of the measured
quantity, the theory says you observe, with some probability, one or other of
these values. Immediately after the measure, the value is a known quantity
(because you just measure it) and then the sum of self-states (see box on
page 85) is reduced to one, only for the actual value measured by you.
The description of the measure in orthodox quantum mechanics has the
disadvantage that the measurement procedure does not seem at all compatible
with the rest of quantum theory. If quantum theory atomic theory is true, as
seems to be, and if the world is made of atoms, then presumably the quantum
theory should apply to the whole world and all things contained therein. This
includes the instruments of measurement. When a quantum system can result in
different values, its amplitude is the sum of states corresponding to each
possible value. When a measuring instrument is itself a quantum system and
there are several values that could be measured, he is not entitled to select
only one. He should be in a state that was the sum of the amplitudes of all
possible results that he could measure and no single observation could be
made.
The conclusion to be drawn is that:
a) I never noticed anything of truth
or
b) The quantum theory is a bunch of bullshit.
Neither of the two conclusions is sustainable (for the most tempting
option (b) may appear). We know very well that we look at things, but we can
not deny that quantum theory has been successful insuperability to describe
all the observations, while no other alternative theory does so well. We can
not abandon it lightly.
 Alice followed the quantum mechanics along the way that out of
school. While progress, the path would be extended gradually to become a flat
road.
"I think the most interesting thing you've shown me so far," said
Alice, "was the way those obtained interference effects even when there was
only one electron present. It is true then it makes no difference if we have
only one electron or many ?
"It is true that you can see the interference with one or more
electrons. But that does not mean make difference. Some effects are only seen
when you have many electrons. See the Pauli principle, for example ..."
"I heard of him," interrupted Alice. "The electrons told him that I
came here. Can you tell me what it is, please?"
"It is a law that applies when you have a bunch of particles equal -
completely identical in all respects. If you want to know more about it, it
is better to ask here, since we are close by. They are experts in the
behavior of many particles together. "
Mechanic's words made Alice look around and realize that, while
going, they had reached a high wall of rock that accompanied one side of the
road. Well ahead of them was a large gate. The doors were made of twisted
iron and is opened between two huge columns of stone, each with a painted
crest in the center. The right of the gate above the wall, Alice could see a
panel of wood which read:
Academy Fermi-Bose - For electrons and photons
In the center of the gate was an imposing figure, a wide and very
portly man who looked even more massive and heavy with academic gown and hat
of bachelor he used. His face was round and stained adorned by a large
mustache and sideburns. Firmly attached to one of his eyes had a monocle,
which hung a long black ribbon.
"This is the Principal Director, the Mechanical whispered in the ear
of Alice, who was nearest him.

"I mean the principle of Pauli", asked Alice excited. She had been
surprised by his grip of sudden appearance.
This is no problem for bosons, but for the férmions, which always have to
reverse its scope, this is not allowed. For such particles is the principle
of exclusion of Pauli, which states that two identical férmions can never be
doing exactly the same thing. They are in different states. "See footnote 2
at the end of Chapter
For bosons, as I said, this is not a problem. Their amplitudes do not
have to change when two of them change places, so they may be in the state.
In fact, they can go further: they not only can be in same as like to be in
the same state. Normally, when there is a superposition of states and amounts
to amplitude squared to obtain the probability of observing the individual
states in the mixture are high and contribute separately to the square more
or less the Similarly for the final probability. If there are two bosons in
the state, when it brings two to four square is obtained. Both contributed to
not twice, but with four times more. if three particles in the state, the
contribution would be even larger. The probability is much greater when you
have a large number of bosons in a state, so they tend to come all in the
same state, if it is possible. This is the name given to the Bose
condensation.
"And this is the difference between bosons and férmions. Férmions are
individualistic. Two of them never make the exact same thing, while bosons
are sociable. I love walking in gangs, where each is behaving itself in a way
that the other. As you will see later, is this behavior and this interaction
between the two types of particles that are broken that you are responsible
for the nature of the world. In a way, you are the rulers of the world. "
At that time, quantum mechanics took Alice out of the classroom.
"There it is," he said. "This is the principle of Pauli. Férmions He says
that two of the same type can never be doing the same thing, so you can only
have one in each state. The principle applies to férmions of all types, but
not bosons. This means, among other things, that the number of férmions
should remain the same. Férmions not appear or disappear when they give the
roof. "
"I really think not!" Said Alice. "That would be ridiculous."
"I do not know if it would be correct to say that, you know? Bosons
appear and disappear. A number of them never stays the same. You could say
that the number of férmions must be a defined number, if there is one and
only one in each state, as that a specific number of occupied states requires
the same number of férmions occupying them. The same idea does not apply to
bosons, because you can have the bosons you want in any state. In practice,
the number of bosons is never constant.
"If you look through this window," he said suddenly, while going,
"and see the difference between bosons and férmions."
Alice looked through the window and saw that a group of electrons and
photons was doing a test on the lawn of the Academy. The photons were going
very well, and turning to one side to another in perfect sync, with no
difference between any of them. The group of electrons, however, was behaving
in a way that, of course, left the sergeant in charge of the test completely
desperate. Some marched to the front, but at different speeds. Some marched
to the left and right, or even backward. Other pulavam up and down, some
planted a banana and was lying on the floor, staring at the sky.
"He is in the fundamental level," said Mechanic, looking over the
shoulder of Alice. "I believe that the other electrons want to join him in
that state, but only one can take this state. Unless the spin of the other is
in the opposite direction, of course - would be much difference between them.
"The difference between bosons and férmions clear here. The photons
are bosons and therefore easy for them to do the same thing. In fact, they
like to do the same thing others are doing so well march together. The
electrons, on the other hand, are férmions and the Pauli exclusion principle
to prevent two of them do the same thing. They have to do different things
from each other. "
"You talk a lot of states where the electrons are," said Alice.
"Could I explain what are these states?"
"Again," he replied, "the best way you learn is to attend a school
here. The Academy as world leaders, since it is the interaction of electrons
and photons that governs the physical world for the most part. If they should
be world leaders, of course we have to take lessons on how to govern. Come
and see me. "
He took Alice to a broad construction of one floor, the back of the
Academy. By entering, he saw that Alice was a kind of workshop. Electrons was
working on several benches. Alice approached to see a group that was too busy
raising a fence around one of the benches. She could see that there were
several structures on the bench and when the students moved about, all the
structures changed.
"What are they doing?" She said to his companion.
"They are building the conditions for control to the states. The
states are controlled largely by the limitations that surround. In general,
what you can do is governed by what can not be done and the restrictions
serve to define the possible states . Something similar to the notes that you
can take advantage of a sound. An organ is composed of tubes whose length
defines the notes to be drawn from each. Changing the length of a tube, it
also changes the notes that it leave. The quantum states are given by the
amplitude or the wave function of the system may have, which is quite similar
to the acoustic sound wave in a body.
"As you discovered, it is usually impossible to say what an electron
is doing, because watching him, you select a specific scale and reduce all
amplitudes to that choice. The only occasion on which they can really be sure
about its electron is when he has a single scale instead of an overlay, and
when your comment can give only one value. In this case, the probability of
achieving this value with its measure is 100 percent, and for any other value
is the probability of 0 per cent - simply impossible. In making the comment
you get the expected result. In this case, the reduction in amplitude to that
observed by you does not make any difference because you was in that state.
The state is not changed by their observation and this is called state. In
this class, the electrons are building state. "
Alice gave back the bench, looking at the states that the electrons
were building. For her, seemed boxes, eight in all. There was a very large, a
slightly smaller than the largest of all six pequenininhas and all more or
less the same size. Passing through one of the corners of the bench she was
surprised to see that the states had changed completely. Now seemed shelves
and shelves of cake, on high pedestals. Two of them were much higher than the
others, four had the same width but with pedestals successively larger than
the previous, and two were small. She went quickly to the side following the
bench. Now the area had become a board that was nailed to hanger covers.
There were two rows of three hangers and other insulated hangers on top and
bottom of the table. "My God, what are you going?" she asked the mechanic.
"The states are different depending on the direction of where I look at
them."
"But of course," he replied. "You're seeing different representations
of the states. The nature of a state depends on how you notes. The very
existence of a state depends on a remark for which he always produces a
result set, but a state can not give defined for all the comments you can do.
For example, the relations of Heisenberg prevent you from seeing the position
and momentum of an electron at the same time. Therefore, a state for an
observation is no longer state to another. The observations used to describe
the states are called its representation.

A state describes the condition of a physical system. It is the basic

concept of quantum theory - the best description that can have real world. In
general, the amplitude of a state gives the probability of various possible
results of any observation. For some states, there can be only one possible
outcome for a particular measure. When a system is in such a state, any
measurement of this quantity will make one and only one possible result.
Repeated measures reach the same result every time. Hence the name state, or
the frequently used German term eigenstate (self-state).
"The nature of a state may be very different, depending on how you
notes. In fact, even the identity of different states can change. The states
seen in an office may not be the same in another representation. As you may
have noticed, the only thing that should remain unchanged is the number of
states. If you put an electron in each state, you must have the same number
of states to sustain them, even if the individual states have changed. "
"And quite vague to me," Alice called. "And as if it were impossible
to know for sure what really is there."
"Okay", responded the Mechanical happily. "I had noticed yet? Can
speak with certainty of comments but what really is there to be seen is
another story.
 "Come with me. It is time for the night meeting of the Academy. You
will find very interesting."
The mechanic took her back to the main building, leading her across
the room with a bow at the ceiling. The floor was completely filled with
electrons, squeezed the maximum they could. At the top, a box surrounding the
entire room and it Alice could see the vague and distant figure of a few
electrons running for the exit. There was only a small space on the floor
near the entrance where they had been, and an electron that came behind them
went to occupy it and stopped immediately and prevented by the dense crowd
that blocks any progress. See footnote 3 at the end of Chapter
There are certain quantities that can not share the same state,
position and momentum are two examples. If you have a self-state that gives a
set value for the position of a particle, the measure of its momentum can
result in any value. This leads us to the relations of the Heisenberg
uncertainty. With a mixture of states corresponding to different values for
position, for the measurement position may result in any of the appropriate
values. The position became "uncertain", though now the dispersion of values
of momentum can be reduced.
This dispersion is not caused by poor techniques of measurement, it
is inherent in the physical state. 0 undefined value of a physical quantity
that can be inherent in a particular state, will allow effects such as
penetration of barriers, the exchange of heavy particles inside the nuclei,
photons in electric interactions and the existence of virtual particles in
general. Trading of virtual particles and particles are discussed in Chapters
6 and 8.

"Why is so full in here?", Alice asked, impressed by the scene before

you. "This is the level of strength," replied one of the helpful electrons.
"All the spaces are filled valence level because the level of valence
electrons is always full. None of us can move because there are states free
to go where we can."
"This is horrible!" She said. "How will be able to walk the hall to
get out that everything is so crowded?" "We can not," said the electron with
a certain resignation satisfied. "But you can if you want. You can walk
around at will, because there is no other room in Alice. This means that
several states of Alice free to occupy you. You will have no problem with the
Pauli Exclusion. " Despite finding it very strange, Alice began to force way
through the crowd and realized compact, and when the wagon had tried to enter
the crowded train station, which for some reason, she could move without any
hindrance.

Alice through the crowd of electrons toward a platform on the

opposite side of the room. On he was the Director, always impressive in his
dress and hat of BA. When approaching, Alice began to hear his soft voice
echoing through the crowded hall.
"I know you all had a busy day, but I need not remind you of the
important role you play in the world and to which they must be prepared. You,
electrons, each occupying its rightful state, form the substance of we know
of. Some of you are related to atoms and have to work in its various levels,
controlling all the details of chemical processes. Some of you may find its
place in a crystalline solid. There are relatively free of any connection to
any atom in particular and can move to where the Principle of Pauli and his
colleagues allow electrons. It may be that you are to compose a banda driving
where they can move freely and where their duties will be running from one
side to another , carrying their electric charges as part of an electric
current. Furthermore, it could end in a valence band in a solid. Perhaps you
feel stuck there, where no member free entry for you. It is not discouraging.
Not all electron can be in states of higher energy and, remember, the lower
states must also be met. " See note at end of Chapter 4
"Have you, the photons, are the leaders and agitators. Alone, the
electrons remain complacently on their due status and nothing is ever done.
It must interact with the electrons all the time and produce the transitions
between the states, the changes that make things happen. "
By this time the speech of the Director, Alice was brilliant account
of the forms of photons running through the crowd of electrons and the
occasional flashes from different parts of the room. She turned to see what
was happening. It was difficult to see very far, because she was surrounded
by many electrons.
"Damn!" Alice could not avoid the comment when faced with all the
pictures captive, trapped in fixed positions by the crowd that formed them.
"Will no one way to move?"
"Only if we are excited to a higher level," a voice replied. Alice
could not see who had spoken. "But that does not matter," she thought with
herself. "Since they are all the same, must have been the same ever spoke to
me." At this time a flash appeared next, and Alice has a photon came running
through the crowd and accept an electron in full. The electron was rising and
reached the cabin, which he left in for the fired output port.
Alice was paying much attention to the electron withdrawing than seen
in other photon running in his direction. There was a flash and felt that she
was floating. When you looked around, saw that was in the cabin, looking at
the mass of electrons down there. "It must be that what you mean by the
electron 'be excited to a higher level." I do not think that is so exciting,
but at least much more room here. " She looked down the hall and could see
flashes here and there, each followed by an electron that ran up to the cabin
where, after landing, he or she ran at high speed to the output port. One
landed in the cabin and close to where Alice was.
She looked down and saw a small hole in the shape of an electron at
the place where he was before levitate. Was visible and clear as the color of
the floor contrasted strongly with the mass of compressed electrons which
covered the entire surface of the room. Noting that space, she saw another
electron Clever occupied the space that had just been created, although not
able to move more away from where it was. In the place where that electron
was, however, now had another hole that was once occupied by another electron
which had recently arrived. "How curious!", Alice thought. "I used to see
electrons, but not expecting to see the presence of any electron so clearly!"
She noted with interest the movement throughout the cabin of the electron
that had been raised to create the original hole was offset by the movement
of the electron as a hole that gradually progressed toward the door through
which she had entered. See footnote 5 in the final chapter.

When both the electron and the hole was left of his field of vision,
Alice walked over to the cabin door of exit. She thought it had heard enough
of the speech of the Director. Through the small door, Alice was in a large
hall. Waiting for it beside the door, was the quantum mechanics. "Like?" He
asked.
"I really enjoyed, thank you," she replied, with education. That
thought was expected of her. "It was very interesting to see the director
leading the assembly."
"You say that," started the Mechanic, "but were the electrons that
were leading, since all were excited by the level of driving. All electrons
have an electric charge, as you know. So when we move, create an electric
current. The charge that carry is negative, which means that the electrical
current flow in the opposite direction to the movement of electrons, but it
is not so important. If all the states that an electron can reach is already
full of electrons as the level of valence, there can be no motion and you end
up with an electrical insulator. All the electrons and their cargo are stuck
in their positions and therefore there can be no electric current. In this
case, is only possible to obtain a current when the transfer of electrons to
the level of conduct which have very empty space to move freely. So you get
both a current produced by electrons in the holes they leave behind them. "
"But how can a hole to create a chain?" Protested Alice. "A hole is
something that is not there."
"First, you agree that when the electrons are all in the lower level
of strength they can not move and then there is this," said the Mechanic.
"The current would be exactly the same as negatively charged electrons were
not present. "
"Yes," agreed Alice. It seemed quite reasonable.
"So must admit that when an electron is the least, this looks like
the one that occurs when there is less than any electron. The hole in the
valence level acts as a positive charge. You saw the movement of the hole
toward the door was caused by electrons that gave a step forward in the
opposite direction. The electric current generated by negatively charged
electrons away from the door is the same as that produced by a positive
charge was driving to the door. Like I said, the photons produce a stream of
electrons both from the band that put on the driving holes they leave behind.
"
"The photons seem to be a huge nuisance to the electrons," said
Alice, wanting to change the subject now. "
"Well, they certainly are hyperactive, but at the same time are
naturally bright. It's like the director says:" Particles are always
particles! " Today some of them should be stimulating electrons in housing. "
"Excuse me," said Alice, but you do not mean thereby?. I am confident
that this was the word that I heard being used to describe trotes of
students. "
"It is causing or stimulating. Come and see."
They kept the corridor until you reach a door. The mechanic opened it
and entered, and the Alice followed. They were long in a room with bunk beds
lined up along the walls. Alice saw that many of the top of the bunk beds
were occupied by electrons, but the low was empty, mostly. "Sometimes it is
easier to see them on top of beds than in low," said the Mechanic. "This is
called inversion of population. Only when they are so that the laser
stimulation can occur."
It did not take long and a photon came running into the room. He went
to one of the bunks and crashed with one of the electrons that occupied a
high position. With a thud, the electron was launched for the low bed and
Alice is amazed to see that there were now two photons at the room. They have
fun with such synchronicity that seemed to be one. "This is an example of
stimulated emission," muttered the mechanisms within the ear of Alice. "The
photon has made the electron makes a transition to a lower level and the
other photon has energy released. See now as the laser stimulation."
The two photons ran from one extreme to the other room. One collided
with an electron and then there were three photons and one electron in the
lower level. Alice saw the photons interacting with more electrons, producing
even more photons. Time or another it was shocking by a photon with an
electron that was already in bed from a low of berths. When that happened,
the electron fired from up to bed and photon disappeared but, as from the
beginning there were very few electrons in the beds of down, a fact that was
not very frequent. See footnote 6 in the final chapter.
The room was soon taken by a horde of identical photons, all running
from one side to another in perfect sync. There were now many electrons in
beds of low as the one above, which was that the probability of an electron
is excited to a higher position, with the loss of one of the photons, they
were the same for a possible downgrade, with the creation a new photon. The
flow of photons inside the door at the end of the bed and walked the corridor
aligned and attached to a light beam current. Before you reach the middle of
the corridor, the photons are shocked with the large and heavy body of the
Director, who walked toward them.
He stopped immediately, making his presence felt full, and opened the
flaps of her gown, one for each side, showing his body and dense black and
completely blocking the corridor. The photons hit the dark material such as
ink and disappeared completely. The Director was a moment where it was,
cognate heat and wipe the sweat from his face stained with a handkerchief.
"I will not tolerate this behavior," bufou. "We have warned that any
photon to act in this manner will be immediately absorbed. It is hot work but
because the energy released has to go somewhere, and usually ends up,
transformed into heat."
"Excuse me," said Alice. "Could you tell me where were all those
photons?
"There were anywhere, my face. He was absorbed. There are no more."
"Damn, that tragedy," exclaimed Alice, feeling sorry for the poor
photons that disappeared so abruptly.
"None, none. It is part of the life of a particle not retained. The
photons are well. Easy come, easy go. They are always being created and
destroyed;. It's nothing serious."
"I bet that for a photon, must be," replied Alice.
"I would not so sure that. I do not think that makes much difference
to the time a photon is that it exists for us. They travel at the speed of
light because, after all, they are light. For anything that is moving at that
speed, The time for, actually. Thus, although the time seems long survived to
us, for them no time elapsed. The whole history of the universe would a flash
for a photon. I suppose that is the reason that they are never bored.
"As I said in the meeting, the photons have very important roles to
play Exciting electrons, making them move from one state to another, and
creating the interactions that give rise to the states, after all. For this,
they must be created and destroyed all the time. It is part of its function,
we could say. Create interactions, however, is more a function of virtual
photons. not deal much with them here. If you are interested in the states
and goes from one to the otherwise, you should visit the broker of states.
Your friend here will show you the way there. "

The Director followed up to the gates of the Academy. Walking down

the road, Alice turned and waved to the Director, he held firmly the space
between the gates in the same place where she had seen first.
Notes
1. If you have many particles, you have some kind of amplitude of
each and a total amplitude to describe the whole system of particles. If the
particles are all different from each other, you know (or can know) the state
in which each one is. The total amplitude is just the product of amplitudes
for each particle separately.
If the particles are identical to each other, things get a little
more complicated. Electrons (or photons) are completely identical. There is
no way to distinguish one from another. If you saw one, saw all. If exchange
between two electrons occupying the states themselves, not be seeing that
this happened. The total amplitude is, as always, a mixture of all the
amplitudes indistinguishable, which now include all the permutations in which
particles have switched states.
The exchange of states between two identical particles does not make
any difference with respect to the observation, which means that it makes no
difference as to the distribution of probabilities, which is obtained by
multiplying the amplitude by itself. This could also mean that the amplitude
does not change, or it could mean that the amplitude changes sign, passing,
for example, from positive to negative. It's like multiplying by the
magnitude-1. When multiplied by the scale itself to obtain the amplitude of
probability, this factor-1 is multiplied by itself, resulting in the factor
+1, which does not produce any change in probability. The move appears to
signal an academic detail, but has surprising consequences.
2. There is no obvious reason for a change of signal amplitude must
not only be shown because it is impossible, but Nature seems to follow the
rule that anything not prohibited is compulsory and must happen in all its
possibilities. There are particles in which the amplitude changes sign when
two of them are exchanged. They are called férmions, whose electrons are an
example. There are also particles whose amplitudes do not change when they
are never exchanged. Are bosons, and photons are of this type.
Is that really matters is the signal of an amplitude for a system of
particles or changes does not change when two particles change their states
between them? Surprisingly, it. And very important.
You can not have two férmions in the state. If two bosons are in the
same state and you do with that exchange of place between them, does not
really make any difference, you may not change the sign. These ranges are not
allowed to férmions. This is an example of the Pauli principle, which says
that two férmions can never be in the same state. Férmions are
individualistic ends; two of them never fully harmonize.
The Principle of Pauli is very important and vital to the existence
of atoms and matter as we know it. Bosons do not obey the Pauli Principle of
- quite the opposite, actually.
If each particle is in a different state and you raise the total
amplitude squared calculai a paw paw the probability distribution of
particles, each contribute an equal amount to the total probability. If two
particles are in the same state and you raise it to the square, you get four
times a contribution of only two particles. Each contributes proportionately
more, so that two particles in the state is a situation more likely than each
come in different states. Three or four particles in the state is a situation
even more likely, and so on. This increased likelihood of having many bosons
in the state gives rise to the phenomenon of condensation of bosons: the
bosons like to be together in the same state. They are easily led and
inherently Gregarious.
The condensation of bosons is seen, for example, in the operation of
a laser beam.
3. Electrical forces involving electrons may operate to hold atoms
together, as discussed in Chapter 7, but do not give rise to any force of
repulsion that can separate the atoms. Why then the atoms maintain a
reasonably uniform distance between them? Why are not the solid comprimíveis?
That atoms can not be pushed one into the other, causing a block of lead as
an object is too heavy for atomic size? Again, it is a consequence of the
Pauli principle, which says that two electrons can not be in the same state.
Because the atoms of a given type are all equal, each has the same
range of states. But that does not equal the electrons of each atom in the
state? And that is not prohibited? Indeed, the atoms are in different
positions and therefore the states are slightly different. If you could
superimpose the atoms, then the states would be the same, and the Pauli
principle forbids that.
The atoms are kept apart by what is called the Fermi pressure, which is
indeed a strong rejection of electrons from an atom to be the same as your
neighbor. The matter is incomprimível because of the extreme individualism of
electrons.
4. In a solid, the electronic states of individual atoms combine to
form a large number of electronic states belonging to the solid as a whole.
These states are grouped into bands of energy within which the energy levels
of the states are so close they are almost continuous. In correspondence with
the separations, higher, levels of energy in individual atoms, there are
breaks in the bands of energy in the solid. The lower bands are filled with
electrons from the lowest levels of the atom. The highest of these bands
filled with electrons is called the valence band, and above it, separated by
an interval of band that does not contain any state, is another band: the
band driving. This band is completely empty or, or, at most, partially
filled.
In the valence band electrons can not move. Any movement of electrons
requires that they change from one state to another, but there are no empty
states for which they can go. When an electrical potential is imposed on some
substance, it applies a force on the electrons of the valence band, but they
can not move. If no electrons in the conduction band of the substance act as
electrical insulation.
5. If given enough energy for an electron in a full valence band, or
by collision with a photon or by an occasional concentration of thermal
energy, the electron can overcome the gap between the bands and penetrate the
conduction band. Because there are enough empty states in band, the electron
can move at will, and would conduct an electric potential. Moreover, there
would be a vacant space in the level of valence, where the electron was.
Another electron could occupy this hole, and so on. An area would be opened
in the valence band, which was full before, and he moved in the opposite
direction to the movement of electrons. This hole or empty space, it behaves
like a particle with positive charge.
This is the description of the behavior of semiconductor materials
such as silicon, widely used in electronics. The electrical current is
carried by both the level of conduction electrons as holes in the valence
level.
6. When a photon with certain energy interacts with an electron in an
atom, it can produce a transition from one energy level to another, as
described in Chapter 6. In most cases, the transition will be a lower energy
level to a higher, since usually the lower levels are all filled. The photon
is also capable of producing a transition from a higher to a lower, if it is
empty.
If, by chance, a substance has many electrons in a high and a lower
level is mostly empty (a condition known as inversion of the population), a
photon can then do with that one electron is transferred from a more high to
a lower. This change releases energy and creates a new photon, besides that
which caused the transfer. This photon can, in turn, induce more electrons to
move to lower levels.
In a laser, the light produced is reflected from one side to another
by mirrors placed at the ends of a cavity, producing more emissions of
photons in each time through the substance. A little of that light escapes
through the mirrors, which are not perfect reflectors, producing an intense
beam of light and narrow: the laser light. Because the photons are emitted in
direct response to the photons already present, the light is all "in the bar,
or on stage, and has unique properties to produce interference effects on a
large scale, as seen in holograms. (Not all laser hologram needs, but it
helps.)
 3

The quantum mechanics led Alice down the road until an iron gate that
guarded the entrance of a beautiful park, where they entered. Beautiful beds
with an incredible variety of flowers, lined on both sides of the road,
produced a nice effect while Alice and her companion passed under a summer
sun that shines strong, spreading its light on the idyllic scene. Along the
way, colorful butterflies passing through flashy buttons and a small bubble
on a stream bed of round pebbles, which here and there the way water is
poured into a miniature waterfall. Alice found it very nice and was delighted
to watch his back when he saw someone approaching on the road.
The newcomer was clearly another girl, but there was something
strange in it. Somehow, she seemed the very Alice, but was more similar to
the figures that Alice had seen the negative of your photos. Alice thought
she had seen antielétrons of the Bank. To her surprise she noticed that
although the girl is coming to them, she was looking in the opposite
direction and walk back.
Alice was so absorbed by the remarkable similarity of this strange
girl who did not assess the speed with which the two were approaching. Before
you give, they collided. Appeared a gleam cegante that has no meaning. Back
to you, she surprised herself by walking a path where he had been another
girl. Looking back, she saw the girl-reversed away, even going back in the
path where the original had been Alice. Now, however, she was accompanied by
another figure that walking in negative amicably back to his side. This
second figure seemed his former companion, the quantum mechanics.
Looking around, Alice was surprised to find that the landscape has
also changed dramatically. Everything seemed to be reversed. In the sky, the
sun shone dark, suckin the light of the scene below. Along the way,
butterflies colorless passed through dark buttons and a small brook ran
unlike on a bed of round pebbles, here and there where the water course rose
to the top of a waterfall in miniature. Alice had never seen anything like
it.

She was so fascinated by the incredible scene that again saw a girl
not reversed fast approaching. Alice turned and the time when the two
collided, producing another flash cegante. When recovered, Alice saw that the
girl was moving on the path from where it had come. Realized that the
landscape was back to normal. "More and more curious," said Alice to herself.
"The first collision was with which everything is reversed, while the second
put everything back to normal. I have no idea how this could happen. How
could my shove with that girl, for it has been more violent, have affected
the stream and the sun? makes no sense. " Alice continued discussing with
herself the meaning of that last experience. Had been so impressive that she
barely paid attention when he heard a bang and saw the turn, then, a very
energetic photon run through it.
She had not yet reached any satisfactory explanation for his
experience as the way out of the park led to a broad plain. There was nothing
in it, unless a large commercial building, whose entrance, a little ahead,
was turned towards Alice.
When approaching, she saw that there was a poster in front of the
building, right in the middle of the facade, a bit above your head. On one
hand, the poster said "of the broker and the other," Virtual Affiliated to
the Association. " In front of the building had a door and a small window,
full of warnings.
Real REDUCTIONS IN SETTLEMENT OF AMPLITUDE
Great Features Periodicals
 Properties located in coveted bands of Energy
Attractive prices for immediate transition
As Alice did not see anyone outside, opened the door and entered.
Behind the door had a small desk, and behind him, a large hall, empty except
for rows of shelves that stood in the midst of the shadows in the distance.
In the center of the room, if only by a single individual sitting behind a
desk, talking on the phone. To see Alice, he got up and came running.
He put his hands on the counter and opened a smile full of teeth, a
very sincere way. "Between, between," he said, ignoring the fact that Alice
had already entered. "What can I have the pleasure to show you? Maybe you
planning to move to its first state? I'm sure that I can offer you any
satisfaction."
"To tell the truth," began Alice, resisting the temptation to lie, I
am not looking for anything. I said you could tell me something about how
electrons and other particles move between states. "
"You come to the right place. For a long time that we established in
the business of transition of particles. If you come with me to one of our
rentals, try to clarify the situation to your complete satisfaction."

Alice thought about that he explain something. Passed across the

counter and followed the man to a series of shelves, or whatever they were.
Or were too far and were too great, or maybe she and the broker to shrink
when approached. As it was, she saw that he was now approaching, they
appeared as a large block of buildings. There was a poster that said:
Mansions Periodicals
The shelves were well open in front and Alice could see the electrons
are moving at each level.
"There is a good example of the states of quality built in levels of
energy well spaced. Each is occupied by the allowed number of electrons, to
the highest occupied level. Above it there are several vacant states, but
currently there is no room for more electrons at the lower levels. When an
electron is a former tenant there is, of course, room for another electron.
Normally, if anyone meddles, the electron does not have any inclination to
leave a state since the occupation. But if we wait a bit, may be forced to
see a movement. "
Alice waited, looked at the building, and soon after, saw a photon
enters at the front door. There was a restlessness and an electron in the
lowest level rose and disappeared from view. Alice looked around to see where
the photon was coming. Parked near the building had a small truck with the
following words painted on the side:
CHANGES Fóton
We do all the work of Transition
"What luck," exclaimed the content of the broker. "A photon has
donated their energy to an electron to the lower level and the excited states
led to a vacant from upstairs. There is always a change that occurs at the
fundamental. This creates a wave and attractive. I must take action
immediately."
He ran out and returned soon after with a poster that he preached a
stake in the ground fincas. The poster said:
PROPERTY VAGA! - Great State in Primary
Mal had he put the poster in place, and one of the electrons in the
second level has a cry and fell to the floor from below. Once there, he is
quiet and continued as if nothing wrong had happened. When he fell, Alice has
a photon running out. Because the electron had not fallen much, the energy
contained in the photon is much smaller than that in the photon that hit the
first electron.
 The broker of the sighed, took a brush that had brought the bucket
with the sign, began to cover the words "Primary" and write "Second Tier" in
place. The ink had barely dried when Alice heard another squeal. An electron
of the third level had fallen to the vacant space of the second. The broker
of the curse and changed the poster again writing "Third Level". Threw the
brush into the bucket and looked at the building.
Another squall. An electron from the top of the building had fallen
to the third level. The broker of the cutting off of the poster, threw him
down and began to trample it. See footnote 1 at the end of the chapter.
"Excuse me," said Alice, hesitating to stop this show of emotion.
"You had said that the electrons remain in their states indefinitely if left
alone, but these seem to have fallen spontaneously."
"So it may seem," said the broker, is pleased to entertain some of
your momentary attack of nerves. "In fact, all the transitions of electrons
were stimulated by photons, but you do not understand because they are
virtual photons. Virtual photons have a very important role in all
interactions of electrons. They not only cause these seemingly spontaneous
transitions between states but also help to create the states. The same
particles that have one electron in its steady state are also those that
force the electron to leave him.

"Before I will talk about virtual particles, we take a look into

normal particles, those that are not virtual. They are commonly known as real
particles. What distinguishes it is that there is a close relationship
between their masses and individual energy and momentum that may be. This is
what that warning. "
The broker pointed to a small sticker, printed in phosphorescent
green paper, which had been placed at the entrance of the building. Was
written:
Real particles do everything in Layer Mass
"I can see that everyone likes a lot of posters here," Alice thought
with itself. "That sounds quite suggestive, but I must admit I do not
understand what he says."
"A layer of pasta," said the broker, as if responding to his
thoughts, "is the region where energy and momentum are related to a specific
need for real particles. It is the path straight and narrow particle tracks
by conventional and inflexible.
"If you want to have force in the community and can move things
around here, you must be able to transfer momentum. If you want something to
move the place where you, or you want to prevent something away, you must
transfer momentum. In either case, you are dealing with motion and movement
means momentum. It matters little if you want to start a movement or impede
movement. These are the changes in momentum objects that deviate from their
paths and make things change. And also, is the control of the momentum that
makes particles take a certain path.

Electrons can be stimulated by photons to make transitions in either

direction, causing stimulated absorption or stimulated emission. Electrons
have been excited to higher energy levels just dropped to a lower state, if
any available, even if apparently no photons present. The so called
spontaneous decay. The Quantum Mechanics says that any transition is caused
by something, they do not happen without any reason. The apparently
spontaneous falls are actually caused by photons, but not real photons. They
are stimulated by virtual photons: quantum fluctuations of vacuum.
Around all electrical charge is a cloud of virtual photons, which
interact with other charged particles creates an electric field. By
assembling the electric field, these virtual photons are always present in an
atom and can produce seemingly spontaneous falls of electronic states.
"In the layer of pasta, you can not have momentum without the kinetic
energy of the body you have. A particle with high mass, which has already
invested much energy in your body at rest, does not need much additional
kinetic energy to it provide a certain amount of momentum as a particle would
need more light. All real particle must have a certain amount of energy if
they want to have momentum. This applies even to the photons, which have no
mass at rest. "
The broker put his hand in his pocket and took a bunch of documents.
"The conditions are quite specific. If the particles obey the real, are free,
free of any debt energy. They can move as you want, how you want. They are
free to come and go. You should have seen the rule 'What does not is
prohibited is compulsory. "
"I saw, yes," replied Alice, anxious to show their knowledge. "It was
the Bank Heisenberg, the manager told me about momentum e. .."
"There is another rule," continued the excited broker, without even
stopping to hear the answer to Alice, "which says: 'What is forbidden to be
done quickly." This is the rule followed by the virtual particles. They are
not discussed in polite society and classic, but have a very important role
for the world. The virtual particles are behaving in a way that the classical
laws they not be allowed. "
"How can this be?" Alice asked, somewhat naively. "Certainly, if
something is forbidden, no particle can do it."
The broker heard and answered: "They are the quantum fluctuations
that allow that to happen," he said. "If the Bank has been, will remember
that the particles may require energy loaned for a short time. The more
energy, less time, of course. You've heard the expression: 'The difficult we
do now, the impossible takes a little longer. " Well, in quantum mechanics
not the impossible takes a little longer, but lasts a bit less. Virtual
particles can enjoy all the benefits of energy that do not have, for a short
period of free experimentation. This includes being able to transfer
momentum. "
"Must be a very short period," said Alice, pensive.
"And it is. But it is free. So all want. You'll have a better
appreciation of where the virtual particle has seen."
"But I can not see them," demanded Alice. "The question is this."
"You can not see them now," the broker replied sharply, "but will put
my helmet when virtual reality." He started walking quickly toward where
Alice had been twisted and that he had not offended. Was relieved to see him
back, carrying a helmet that seemed highly technological. Had a transparent
display that covered the entire front, and a long wire that was attached to a
plug in the back. The wire run all the way from where they had come to
disappear from view.
In quantum theory, the concept of a particle is not as precise as in
classical physics. Charged particles and energy transfer in a "quantized" in
discrete packages. In many cases, they have defined mass, which distinguishes
them clearly from other particles and allows them to carry specific amounts
of other quantities such as electric charge. Photons have zero rest mass
(which is also a set amount). Real particles, those with long duration of
existence, have strict relations between the values of mass, energy and
momentum. Where the particles are created and destroyed and have an ephemeral
existence, they do not comply with such strict rules, and quantum
fluctuations in its energy can be large. This is especially true for those
particles that are exchanged to promote interaction between other particles.
All the energy of such particles is a quantum fluctuation. They are literally
created from nothing. The vacuum is not an absolute vacuum, but rather a
structure of such a dazzling short-lived particles.
"Here," he said, triumphant, "a marvel of modern technology. Just ask
and you will see the world of virtual particles."
Alice was a little nervous looking at the helmet. It was great and
seemed quite complicated and even, she thought, a little sinister. But since
it would reveal the world of virtual particles that either she had heard,
that there was no try. She put the helmet on your head. Was very heavy. The
broker moved into something and made some adjustments on the side of the
helmet, where she could not see. The view through the viewfinder was blurry
dots with bright e. ..

When your vision clear, everything had changed dramatically. Alice

also via the electrons in its various levels, but now, rather than appear to
be inside a tall building, the way it positioned in a network of lines that
connected an electron to another, as if they were flies trapped in the bright
wire a giant spider web. Looking more closely to the wire, she realized that
they were made of photons, but photons very different from those she had seen
at the Academy.
All photons that she had known until then moved with great speed, but
at least moved normally. They began in a somewhat later and were in a new
position. Even if those positions were not well defined, in the range between
one and another, the photons passed by all points intermediaries. Alice never
thought it would be possible to travel in some other way, but some of these
virtual photons seemed to do exactly that. Looking at them, Alice was very
hard to tell in which direction they were going, or even whether they were
really moving the normal way. One particular thread of the web, representing
the behavior of a photon, seemed the same time the positions of the two
electrons it interconnected, without apparently being normal way of moving
from one side to another. That link disappeared, while others appeared in
other places of the great web of photons which linked the electric charges of
all electrons.
It was a beautiful and unusual sight. The virtual photons are moving
in every possible way, while a few photons appeared to have mastered the art
of travel from one point to another without really need to pass the time
between the two events.
Alice looked concerned as the strange scene, she began to hear a
noise in the helmet near his ear, which was immediately followed by a
"click". The vision that she had to go wobbly again and have the mundane
aspect that was before she put the helmet. Alice claimed that table top by
losing fascinating. "Excuse me," said the broker. "Unfortunately there is a
mechanism built into the mechanism of time. My idea was making it work with
coins."

In quantum theory, particles exhibit properties classically

associated with continuous waves. In parallel, the fields of force are
composed of classical particles. The electrical interaction between two
charged particles is caused by any exchange of photons between them. These
photons have a short existence, which means they are well located in time and
therefore their energy is indefinite. Are virtual particles, whose energy and
momentum may float away from values that would be normal for a particle of
long duration.
Alice was still too impressed by the vision to give some attention to
the broker and attempted to apologize to describe what he had seen. As all
people know that Alice had strange world, he began immediately to give a
lengthy explanation.
 "This is just another example of how a virtual particle is a particle
normal things that can not do. It's a bit like the penetration of barriers. I
think you should have already seen a case of penetration of barriers."
"I said yes," replied Alice, with care. "I saw someone crossing a
door so I came here and told me he could do this because its wave function to
spread into and through the door, creating a small probability that it is
observed on the other side."
"It's true. This part of the wave function of allowed his friend
penetralia a barrier that would have held a classical particle." He had
enough energy to cross the barrier. Therefore, crossing the door he was a
kind of virtual condition. A few particles, if there was one, which is
entirely real. Almost all have some things online, though some are more
virtual than others. The photons of exchange that you were watching is almost
entirely virtual.
"The rule says that virtual particles do not obey the rules but still
can not escape them for long. That means they can do things for which they
have not enough power. These virtual particles exchanged, as the photons that
you see , produce interactions between other particles. They can penetrate
through the barriers that hold a classical particle, and that includes the
barrier of time. They move on a type-space, while particles can only be real-
time type. This means that despite a real particle can remain in the same
position as time passes, she is unable to remain at the same time as its
position changes. A virtual particle can do both. It can move sideways in
time, if they choose. "

"Very curious," said Alice. "I am not surprised to know that real
particles can not do that and move only in the past toward the future." See
footnote 2 at the end of Chapter
"Actually, not quite," said the broker, as an excuse. "Certainly it
is true that the majority of particles moving in time, as you thought. Most
of the particles, however, it is a little virtual occasionally, during a
collision, for example. This means that a real particle is capable to change.
At a time is moving forward in time, so obedient and respectful. In another,
discovers that it reversed its path and is moving backward, toward the past.
It may be surprising, but is allowed that a real particle to behave this way.
"
"Oh," cried Alice, scaring the broker, which continued with its
careful description. "I think that is what happened to me earlier. I could
not imagine what would have been with me when I was walking by the park and
saw everything around me was reversed, but now I know that was not the stream
or the butterflies that were going back was that I was going back in time! "
Alice said to his companion managed to remember everything about what
happened and he agreed with the interpretation of it. "Certainly I think a
typical case of antiparticle production," he said.
"Antiparticle", exclaimed Alice. "I did not know it had to do with
antiparticle. I remember having seen them in the Bank Heisenberg, but do not
understand what they may have to do with what happened here."
"I would say that obviously," said the broker, even though Alice does
not find anything obvious. "You do not see that when a particle moving
backward in time, it appears to the observer as something completely
opposite, advancing in time the normal way. See the case of the electron, for
example. He has a negative charge. When you move the past to the future, the
normal way, he takes this negative charge in the future. Moreover, when it
moves the future to the past, it leads to negative charge of the future to
the past, which is a positive charge moving the past to the future. In any
event, it is making the general cargo of more positive future. To the
observer, is as a positron, or antielétron.
 "What happened to you would like for the rest of the world as a
photon unusual high-energy releasing their energy to create an anti-Alice and
Alice. The anti-Alice move up a clash with Alice and the two are annihilated
to each other, converting their energy into photons again. "
"How can this be?" Alice said amazed. "I see this as anti-Alice Alice
could find another with whom conflict. There is only one of me and I
certainly was not annihilated," she concluded, challenging.
"But what I described is what seems to the rest of the world. For
you, what would happen is totally different. For you, the annihilation was
before the creation, of course."
"I see nothing to clear it," said Alice sharply. "How is that
anything can be destroyed before being created?"
"This is the natural order of things when you're back in time.
Typically, when moving in time, is expected to come before creation of the
destruction, is not it?"
"Of course it is," replied Alice.
"In this case, if you're going back in time, you naturally expect
that the creation comes after destruction. Ultimately, you are living the
events in reverse order. I hope you understand it myself.
"You were walking quietly to the side of quantum mechanics when
suddenly collided with the anti-Alice. In view of his companion, you and
Alice were both anti-destroyed its mass and energy was carried by photons but
highly energized."
"My God! Poor Mechanic," exclaimed Alice. "He must be thinking that I
was destroyed, then! How can I find him to reassure him?
"I do not get too excited about it," said the broker, quieting her.
"Certainly the mechanic knows the annihilation of antiparticle and know that
you just came back in time. Without doubt, he is waiting to touch you at any
time, sooner or later, depending on how you went back. Anyway, the process
you become of annihilation in anti-Alice and you traveled to the past to be
created, along with Alice, a photon of high energy. This is what an observer
would have seen. The impression you have is that they stopped back in time
and again move forward, usually. You would not have seen the photon that
caused it. I could not see, because it no longer exists at the moment when
you reversed its crossing by the time. So far as Alice and as anti - Alice,
you were in a future that never reached the photon.
"You see now that, although any observer say that for some time
there were three of you, two and one anti-Alice Alice, they all actually you.
You have gone back in time, was living the same period in which it had been
when walking with quantum mechanics. When you return to the normal process of
creating peers, you lived the same period for the third time, again advancing
in time.
"That was part of his life as a zigzag road in the slope of a
mountain, rising to the east and making a sharp curve to the west before
rising again to the east again. If you go up the hill toward the north, you
might think that crossed three different roads, when in fact three times
through the same road. It is more or less what happens to the production of
antiparticle. The antiparticle is the road that goes to the other side. "
At this time the helmet started to make noise again and a green light
lit in the corner of the display. "I think the helmet is sufficiently loaded
for another demonstration," said the broker. "If you pay attention this time
will be able to see the effects of second order."
He adjusted his helmet and once again became blurred vision of
Alice ...
The image became clear again and revealed that the landscape was all
united by a network of lines of photons that permeated everything. When Alice
looked carefully for a region, she could see that some of the links were
interrupted bright. In the middle of a shoe-shining photons she saw a guy
back, where the photon in the middle of the road, turns into something that
she recognized as an electron and a positron, a antielétron. The two joined
up again, almost immediately, to form a cordon of photon that would bind to
an electron of truth.
Looking more closely, he saw another photon Alice timidly out of the
electron, in which the cord was around. Near the path of that photon, she saw
the faint outline of another round electron-positron. That photons emerged
further back and deleted if it looked good even up close, she could see
little laps set of electrons and pósitrons. See how far it was possible to
distinguish photons that create rounds of closed pósitrons and electrons and
electrons or pósitrons emitting photons that create more electron-positron
pairs. And it continued in a seemingly infinite variety, but everything was
becoming less defined at each stage of complexity. Alice was getting dizzy
from trying to force the eyes to see the end of that sequence. Finally, an
order is submitted. She heard the wheezing and "click" of the helmet, and it
disappeared from his face.
"I thought you had said that the electrons are joined by an exchange
of photons," she said in an accusing tone. "I'm sure you saw electrons in the
middle of virtual particles. Many of them, actually."
"Certainly. The real original electrons act as the sources of
electric field, although it is more correct to say that electric charges are
charged by electrons that produce the field. The photons do not care about
anything besides the electric charge, but where they there is a load of them,
there will always be a cloud of virtual photons around. If another particle
laden approaching, these photons are available to be exchanged and produce a
force between two particles. exchangeable particles should be created to be
exchanged and destroyed then, when caught. Their number is obviously not
constant. Therefore, they must be bosons.
"The relationship between photons and loads of works two ways. As
particulate laden produce photons, photons would like to create particles
with charge, but not only can produce a charged particle, because the total
electric charge can not be changed. Then we have a rule, and that does not
allow uncertainties. What photons can, however, is to produce an electron and
a antielétron or positron at the same time. It has a negative charge and the
other, positive, the total load in the universe not was changed. Is that what
you saw. The virtual photons produce pairs of electrons and virtual
pósitrons, which cancel each other and return to be a photon. During the
short life of the two, however, since both particles are loaded, they can
create more photons, which can in turn produce more pairs of electrons and
pósitrons, and so on.
"Damn," said Alice. "It seems very complicated. Where does it all
end?"
Not only photons can be created, but particles as electrons, which
must be produced in the company of its antiparticle to no change in the total
electric charge. It takes energy to create the rest mass of two particles as
such, but the energy required may be available for a brief period as a
fluctuation of energy. This fluctuation can occur even if no energy to this
principle, and the particles can be created literally from nothing. "Empty
space" is actually a seething broth of particle-antiparticle pairs.
"It ends. Keep it up forever and gets more complicated. But the
probability of a photon producing an electron or a photon producing an
electron-positron pair is very small. This means that the more complex
amplitudes are weaker, is sometimes too weak to be seen. You should have seen
it. "
 The head of Alice gave laps while trying to understand what she had
seen and heard. "I can only say that I have never seen anything like it
before."
"It's quite possible you've seen, yes," replied the broker. "What you
see is only the Nothing anywhere. But I am surprised to hear that you had
seen nothing before coming here."
"I would not say so," replied Alice outraged. "I can not be traveled,
but I know some things. Do not forget that."
"No doubt that is even," said the broker. "I am sure that you came
from a very pleasant, but it is relatively easy to see something. Hard to see
it is nothing. I do not know how you could see nothing without the help of my
helmet for virtual reality."
"One moment," interrupted Alice, who had begun to suspect that
something was up. "Maybe you could tell me what you mean by 'nothing'?"
"Certainly. I mean nothing: the complete absence of any real
particle. You know: the vacuum, the vacuum, where all things are
forgotten ... there is the name you give it."
Alice was wonder with the concept of negative. "And this is different
with the use of his helmet, I thought it seemed nothing with nothing, no
matter how you look."
"Of course it is. The vacuum can not be the best neighborhood, but
there are many activities secret. Come I show you."
The broker started walking with a step and accelerated the following
Alice through his office. It was increasingly difficult for her to believe
they were still within an office or a building, because everything seemed
very large. Walked for some time with Alice fighting with the weight of the
helmet and the cable, that would be stretching behind her. "I hope this
thread is very long," she said to herself. "I am sure that once I reach the
end of it."
The periodic Mansions, where Alice had observed the states of
electrons, were soon left behind, and they still continued to walk. Just as
Alice was about to beg for a stop to rest, she saw in front of you one thing
that seemed a lake or the beach of a sea very calm. When they came near, she
could see it was a very large lake, that is, if even a lake. He extended to
disappear from sight, a seemingly limitless expansion. But if it were a sea,
the sea would be more strange that she had seen. Everything was very calm,
not to be completely stopped by a tremor very subtle, almost imperceptible,
near the surface. It was not blue, or green, or color of wine or any other
color that Alice had heard used to describe water. Was completely without
color. It was like a night light, open skies, but without the stars.
"What's that?" Muttered Alice, thunderstruck by the vacuum that way
and that seemed to eat the eyes.
"Nothing," replied the broker. "This is nothing. It is the Vacuum!
"Come on," he continued. "Let me call your helmet, and you can see
the activity inside the vacuum."
He extended his hand toward the helmet and repeated what was done
before. The vision of Alice, his vision of Nothing, was diffuse e. ..
His clear vision and showed a scene very similar to last it through
the turns helmet. Again she saw a brilliant web of wires. This time, however,
the wires not finished in real electrons, which before seemed to be trapped
in the network, but which were actually their own source. Now there was no
real particles present, only the virtual. Create pairs of photons and
electrons pósitrons. Pósitrons produce more electrons and photons, as she had
seen before. The network, first, documents are the actual electrons, which
were its source and its anchor in the world of real particles. Where was the
source now? The pairs of electrons and pósitrons were produced by photons,
the photons were produced by pairs of electrons and pósitrons, which were
produced by photons. Alice tried to browse the rows of particles back to the
front to see if could find the source, but realized it was going in circles.
She felt that should have lost the thread of the skein and was trying to
follow the lines more carefully, when he heard the familiar noise and "click"
of the helmet, and the whole scene disappeared.
Alice again explained to the broker that he had seen and said that
this time she had been unable to decide which other particles created
particles. "I'm not surprised," said the broker. "They create one another.
It's like the story of the egg and the chicken. All are born and putting eggs
at the same time."
"And how is that possible?", Asked Alice. "There must be a source.
They can not come from nothing."
"It may come as" was the answer. "The only thing that prevents the
production of particle and antiparticle is usually the need to provide energy
to the rest masses of particles and virtual particles are not inhibited by
it. And all one big quantum fluctuation."
"And the truth, then?", Asked Alice. "All these particles are even
there?"
"They are, yes, and they are very real, even if not in the technical
sense of real particles. They are a part of the world as vital as any other.
I think you've seen the helmet everything that needed to know," he said,
taking the helmet of the head of Alice. "We will not need it now. I will
trigger the mechanism of retraction of the cable." He pressed a button and
the helmet began to wrap cable and was pulled by him, rolling in the
direction from which Alice and the broker had been, like a mechanical spider,
to disappear from view.
Even after the helmet has disappeared, the head of Alice was filled
with beautiful scenes that she had seen, which rake in silence as she walked
beside the broker of states along the beach in infinite vacuum.
Notes
1. Inside atoms, the states allowed for the electrons have very
spaced energy levels, and only those levels that the electrons can occupy. An
electron can only transfer from one state to another if (empty) and by doing
so, its energy has changed from a given quantity, the difference in energy
between the two states. An atom in its normal state, or fundamental, have
their lower levels of energy uniformly filled with electrons, but higher
levels are usually empty. When an electron is excited out of its original
position, it stops in one of these higher levels empty or abandoned entirely
the atom.
An electron has been excited to a higher level may fall back to a
lower energy level if there is empty space available. When the electron is
transferred to a lower energy level, he must get rid of surplus energy, and
emitting a photon does this. And so that the atoms emit light. Because all
the electrons occupy states defined within the atom, a photon that is emitted
may have an amount of energy equal to the difference between the energy
contained in the initial and final states of the electron. This opens a wide
range of possibilities, but still imposes a restriction on the energy that a
photon can have. The energy of the photon is proportional to the frequency
and hence its color. Therefore, the spectrum of light produced by an atom
consists of a set of "lines" of specific frequencies. The spectrum of a given
type of atom is always characteristic of him.
The classic has no physical explanation for these spectra.
2. Virtual particles have a vagueness, both in time and in energy.
This inaccuracy appears as fluctuations in energy, where the particles are
behaving as if they had more (or less) power than should. Another
manifestation it appears as an uncertainty in time. In a quantum system, the
particles seem to be able to be in two places at once (or at least have
amplitudes that are).
The particles can even reverse time. The physicist Richard Feynman
explains the antiparticle as "particles which go back in time." 4 This
explains how the properties of the antiparticle are opposite to those of
particles: a negative electrical charge carried back in time equivalent to a
positive charge is moving toward the future. In both cases, the positive
charge of the future is increasing, and a negatively charged electron moving
toward the past is seen as a positively charged positron, which is its
antiparticle.
All particles have their antiparticle, which was to be expected since
they are in practice the same particle is behaving differently.

Alice went to the broker along the edge of the Vacuum, noting the
brilliant and subtle surface that continually buzzes with the activity of
virtual particles, born and died without anyone if this account.
A little away from the beach, Alice noticed a disturbance on the
surface, some kind of uniform circular depression in the surface. Further,
she could see other holes, and many of them were in clusters. Some groups
were very small and sometimes contained only a pair of circular objects.
Others gathered extensive collections. One of the groups that she saw was a
ring, with six of the objects forming a circle, while others have joined in
back, outside. The distance she could see large groups gathered around the
area. The largest contained many hundreds of things circular, whatever it be.
During their observation, Alice noticed that there were photons is
high and rising, as we did for one of the ways they were ahead. The photons,
with their bright colors seemed flags thrown vessels.
The broker followed the direction of her gaze. "I see you see swim
the atoms in a vacuum. In one way or another, the atoms are responsible for
most of our work in the business of electronic states. It is possible to see
the many molecular partnerships established between them. They range from
small companies from two atoms to vast conglomerates organic. Each different
type of atom has a characteristic spectrum of colors for emitting photons.
Therefore, the photons are like signs that help identify the different types
of atoms. " See footnote 1 at the end of Chapter
"I was thinking these things scattered around," Alice admitted
candidates. "I can not see them very clearly. You can get closer?"
"If you want the atoms look more closely, we will follow up to the
quay of Mendeleyev. There, you'll see every kind of atom to the shows with
all the various elements arranged in order."
The broker took Alice along the beach until you reach an extremely
long and narrow pier, which extended into the vacuum. Beside him, on the
beach, had an entry in arch, on top of which is read the following poster:
PIER PERIODIC
ownership of D.I. Mendeleyev.
Built in 1869
"Here we are," said the broker. "This is where the atoms contribute
before leaving to form different chemical compounds. Normally the call of
'Marina Mendeleyev' or 'Pier Atomic', although sometimes people call him
'Construction of the Universe." You will find all types of atoms represented
here. "
Together, they passed beneath the sign and moved up the edge of the
pier. Walked slowly along the anchor, while Alice looked a long line of atoms
anchored in sequence on one side. Each seemed a trumpet-shaped hole in the
smooth surface of the Vacuum. This form has to remember those small
rodamoinhos that form when you empty a sink or a bathtub, though, here, the
forms have not seen any rotation. The smooth surface sink into the hole and
still building around the hole. She sink with a slope almost imperceptibly at
first, but would increase to as close to the center. There were signs that
some activity occurred in the depths of the hole.
"Why this hole so deep", Alice asked, curious. "Since we are looking
for nothing, I thought it would be flat and without relief."
"This is a well of potential," was the reply.
"What kind of shaft is this?" Alice continued. "I know well in the
garden, where water flows, and oil wells. I also vaguely remember to have
read something recently on wells of molasses, but which is in a well of
potential?"
"The source of the potential is clear. You must have a source to
provide water from a well in the garden. Here, in the well of potential, an
electric charge is the source of electric potential. You should already know
what's in the well . It contains virtual photons. They provide the attraction
that makes the electrical potential energy of a negative charge becomes
increasingly below the vacuum that the fence, while moving toward the source
in the center of an atom. And the source creates the potential that well,
actually. "

The first well was very shallow, but Alice saw that the other would
become successively deeper as they moved away from the beach. The pier sumia
the horizon ahead of you, with atom after atom, all contributed to one side.
From each of them had a small sign marking the anchorage. The first said: 1H,
the second, 2He, the third, 3Li. Each position had a different poster. "All
these atoms will one day leave to combine and form groups like those on the
surface of the Vacuum", Alice asked.
"Most of them will, of course, but some not, as this one, for
example."
They stopped next to an atom whose poster said 10Ne. "This is a noble
gas atom. They are a group aristocrat, and that means refusing to participate
in any trade. They are very reserved. They are perfectly happy with the way
they lead their lives and do not want to mix with anyone else. When traveling
alone admirably. You never see those taking part in any compound. "
Walked a bit more and broker explained that, besides the hidden atoms
Noble, there was considerable variation in the enthusiasm with which the
different atoms are joined to the compound. "This, for example, is
particularly active," he observed, when the two approached a poster that
said: 17Cl.
Alice decided it was time to examine one of these atoms more closely,
and has one foot out of the pier. To their delight, it does not sink. His
foot was on the surface, causing a mild depression, as if some insects glide
over the surface of the water. When she tried to walk towards the atom,
however, found that there was friction in vacuum. The surface was extremely
slippery, and she could not get up. With a little cry, she slipped and fell
down slope into the well.
By fall, Alice realized she had enough time to look around them. The
sides of the well would become more likely and it is close. Alice soon
realized it was falling through the transparent outline a series of rooms
with very low right-foot. The first rooms were very low indeed, too low even
for a dollhouse, but the more she fell, the rooms were gradually getting
higher. In the beginning, were totally empty and deserted, but then she saw a
room that had a large round table surrounded by chairs. On the ground, saw
desks and shelves, as if through a kind of office.
The time passed and Alice was increasingly thunderstruck to discover
that continued falling, with no sign that would reach the bottom. Falling,
falling, falling, will drop that never came to an end?
 Alice gradually began to realize that his fall did not come to an
end. She had not reached the bottom of the hole, and more was coming down.
She was floating without any support in the center of the funnel, the level
of one of the rooms open. She looked around and realized it was not alone.
Near it were two electrons, immersed in intense and hectic activity. Around
them, she could distinguish the slight outline of a small, crowded office.
"Excuse me," she said. "Will could stop for a moment and tell me where I am?"
"There is no space, no space," they replied.

The states that electrons can occupy within an atom tend to be

grouped in sets of levels, separated by significant intervals of energy. If
an atom has its last level occupied completely full, then any extra electron
that is added will have to go to a state of higher energy. He usually has a
lower energy than would have been in their original state atomic. Atoms of
this type, whose outer layers are completely filled with electrons, form the
noble gases and does not interact chemically with anything as conventional.
"Excuse me, but do not understand," she claimed, without finding
meaning in the response it had received.
An atom is contained by the electric field generated by the positive
charge of its nucleus. This charge produces a potential well of the nucleus
around which in turn requires that states are available to receive electrons.
The selection of states is a vague form of the effect of interference,
similar to the range of notes that can be drawn from an organ or the sound of
a violin string. A tube of a body is possible only a few notes, those with a
wavelength fit inside the tube. Similarly, the electronic states available
fit within the well of potential. The states available to meet different
levels of energy. Any other function of wavelength that does not correspond
to one of these states is eliminated by destructive interference.
"There is no space here to reduce the activity, much less to stop"
they replied. "As you know, when the position of a particle is restricted,
the ratio of Heisenberg means that its momentum is large, and is so tight
here that we have no choice but to continue to move on. If we had so much
space as we higher levels, we could move more freely in, but this is
impossible. This is the lowest level and therefore it is expected that we are
always very busy. "
"Really?", Asked Alice. "What do you do that is so important?"

"Nothing special. Nobody cares which the electrons are the

fundamental level, provided that we keep moving."
"In this case, could you tell me where I am without stopping to
move?" She asked. "Because I do not know where I came. What prevents us from
continuing down into the pit?"
"You are at the lowest level of an atom of chlorine, as I said. Here,
we are so close to the source of the potential that there is very little
space. So we must move quickly to keep our momentum high. This means that our
kinetic energy is also very high. As you see, none of us is in a particular
virtual state. Electrons have secured positions in the atoms, with plenty
guarantee. Most atoms have been so much time and energy quantum fluctuations
are small. So for us, electrons, energy and momentum are connected properly.
"You probably know that when an electron or any other thing falls
within a potential, it depends potential energy that is converted into
kinetic energy," he continued.
"And I explained that the Bank Heisenberg," Alice agreed.
"Here, in this well of potential, the closer we come to the center,
there is less space, so we have more kinetic energy. If fell further to near
the center, be necessary to more kinetic energy than we can convert potential
energy, and therefore it is not possible for caiamos more. In fact,
paradoxically, we do not have enough energy to continue falling and we can
not get energy loaned as quantum fluctuations, as it be necessary for long.
"Only two states at this level and therefore there is only room for
two electrons, one in the spin-up and another in the spin-down. There are
more states available in the higher levels, and there you will find more
electrons . The next two levels can support up to eight electrons in each
level. In any atom the lowest levels, those with less potential energy, are
the first to be completed. The principle of Pauli allows only one electron in
each state. So that when all states of a given level have KaRen electron, an
extra electron has no choice except to go to a higher level. The levels are
filled from the bottom up until all electrons are accommodated. The highest
level that contains electrons is called for any level of valence. It is there
that do the valence electrons, even with very vague space up there in the
attic. The valence electrons to take all decisions and control the compound
that we atom can join. If you want to know how an atom works, it would be
better if you were there talking with them. " See footnote 2 at the end of
the chapter.
"And how do I get there?" She asked.
"Well, if you were an electron, would be expected to be excited to a
higher level by a photon that would give you the extra energy needed. In your
case, however, those who think there will be the porter of Escada. "
"You do not want to tell the porter of the lift, the lift", said
Alice. "I was in the elevator of a large department store and there was a
porter who took people to walk on deck, but I never heard of a ladder that
needed one."

To look around them, but Alice had a kind of ladder with rungs very
separated from each other. Beside it was a figure who could barely
distinguish. "May I ask who you are?", Alice asked, curious.
"I am the porter of Escada. I am not a creature material, only a
mathematical construction. My job is to transform a system from one state to
another lower or higher." He made a complicated operation that Alice could
not understand but that resulted in his carriage, step by step, until the
highest level.
In a certain moment, Alice reached the level where he had seen a
large round table. This level contains more electrons than the first. She has
run eight in all, but it was not easy. As all the electrons that she had seen
until that moment, they were fun quickly. Many gave laps on the table, some
in one direction, some in the opposite direction. Others clearly were not in
rotation, but they were still moving. None of them was sitting quietly in
chairs around the table, but jumping up and down, others up and down the
table without stopping. The electrons never stayed quiet though, at this
level, are not moving so frantically as the other to the lower level.
"Hi, Alice," they said, when she appeared. "Come and let us show you
how reliable an atom-sized. The way in which the Corporation conducts its
business Chlorine is decided by us, the seven levels of the valence
electrons."
"But you are eight!," Alice protested.
"This is because entering a society with another atom, the Union of
sodium, to form a molecule of sodium chloride. Working together in this way,
we like to think that we are the salt of the earth. An atom works with more
harmony when all levels containing electrons are completely satisfied. Alone,
we have only seven in the level of valence electrons, and Sodium has only
one, despite having room for eight. They only have to gain the level of
valence electron of sodium were sit with us on our level of valence and
complement our Board. And of course that means that we now have one more
electron, which makes our loading is negative. The sodium atom has one
electron less than normal, which means that the load is positive. The
electric force between these charges is that opposite holds two atoms
together. This is what is known as tonic connection between atoms, one of the
most common forms of corporate structure. "
"It seems that there is much cooperation between the two sides,"
agreed Alice, with diplomacy. "Which of you is the electron which has the
sodium atom?" She asked.
"It's me," cried all at once. For a moment, silent and looked all
have each other. "No, he is," said all in perfect unison. Alice noticed that
there were questions that tried to differentiate identical electrons.