1 00:00:01,860 --> 00:00:12,510 Know. This is a very special subject. 2 00:00:12,750 --> 00:00:20,790 Quantum mechanics is is quite unique in in your undergraduate training in the sense that is the piece of physics, 3 00:00:20,790 --> 00:00:23,940 which is it is the great intellectual accomplishment of the last century. 4 00:00:24,660 --> 00:00:31,260 It is the piece of physics which is least understood, relativity and so on. 5 00:00:31,890 --> 00:00:36,480 But is is perfectly clear and tied up. 6 00:00:36,480 --> 00:00:39,690 Of course there is the theory of everything or whatever on the frontier of the subject. 7 00:00:39,690 --> 00:00:49,079 But here we have a piece of undergraduate physics which is, it's universally agreed, is not properly understood in its deepest underpinnings. 8 00:00:49,080 --> 00:00:54,090 It's still fundamentally mysterious and it's also quite extraordinarily specific to physics, 9 00:00:54,810 --> 00:00:58,290 and yet it completely underpins it's absolutely fundamental. 10 00:00:58,410 --> 00:01:04,440 You cannot understand anything about your body, the table, the sun, anything. 11 00:01:04,620 --> 00:01:07,860 Everything is a manifestation of quantum mechanics in a very direct way. 12 00:01:08,820 --> 00:01:11,459 So so it's an extraordinarily exciting subject. 13 00:01:11,460 --> 00:01:19,440 And I think it's what's particularly exciting for you should be that there's that there's are pieces of this still to be put in place. 14 00:01:19,440 --> 00:01:21,719 There are mysteries here still to be resolved. 15 00:01:21,720 --> 00:01:28,890 And I think there's no reason why the person who does that or people who contribute to doing that should not be here in the audience today. 16 00:01:29,040 --> 00:01:30,779 I don't think it can be done by people of my generation. 17 00:01:30,780 --> 00:01:36,390 It's looks as if it's it's something that still needs to be done by people coming along with a fresh look at it. 18 00:01:36,840 --> 00:01:42,420 So it's extraordinarily worth working out. Physics isn't easy, and quantum mechanics is one of the hard bits of physics. 19 00:01:42,930 --> 00:01:48,120 This course isn't easy, but it's it's extremely well worth working at. 20 00:01:48,120 --> 00:01:51,209 And I would stress the importance of working on the problems. 21 00:01:51,210 --> 00:01:54,360 There are masses of problems, right? Too many problems. 22 00:01:54,510 --> 00:01:58,499 There may be you will think when you look at the problem sets, which you just some abstract to the problems. 23 00:01:58,500 --> 00:02:05,489 There are already too many problems but it is it is the way to learn and understand about physics is to is to 24 00:02:05,490 --> 00:02:11,010 work with with the apparatus and think about the meaning of the solutions that you get and so on and so forth. 25 00:02:11,010 --> 00:02:14,310 And so I really would urge you to work as hard as you can at those problems. 26 00:02:15,060 --> 00:02:21,810 And the reason for providing solutions to many of the problems is, is because you would even if you can solve the problem yourself, 27 00:02:21,810 --> 00:02:27,030 you might find it interesting to see how I solved the problem, you know, and develop your technique in that way. 28 00:02:27,230 --> 00:02:30,510 Of course, quantum mechanics has a very funny way of looking at the world. 29 00:02:30,660 --> 00:02:38,820 That's part of the problem. And it's by its it's by constant practice and and experience that you'll deepen that understanding. 30 00:02:39,870 --> 00:02:44,160 Okay. So Einstein, as everybody knows, didn't like quantum mechanics. 31 00:02:45,270 --> 00:02:53,339 But I think the reason why he didn't like quantum mechanics, which he expressed as God doesn't play dice, was not a good reason. 32 00:02:53,340 --> 00:02:57,240 Then maybe it may be that one shouldn't like quantum mechanics, but that's not a good reason. 33 00:02:57,360 --> 00:03:01,409 Let's just think about that for a moment. Quantum mechanics. 34 00:03:01,410 --> 00:03:07,650 Sorry. Physics is about predicting the future. It's about saying what's going to happen if you lean a ladder up against a wall. 35 00:03:08,070 --> 00:03:12,330 You would like to know if you try in a letter whether it it's going to slip and fall down, that kind of thing. 36 00:03:13,830 --> 00:03:23,790 And if the data on which we work are always uncertain and the systems with which we work and never isolated, 37 00:03:23,790 --> 00:03:30,779 and our theory crudely always applies to something which for which we physics is 38 00:03:30,780 --> 00:03:34,920 an apparatus where if you put in certain statements about what the system is, 39 00:03:36,480 --> 00:03:39,660 for example, with a ladder, what the roughness of the ground is, 40 00:03:39,660 --> 00:03:43,710 what the roughness of the wall is, what the weight of the latter is, and so on and so forth. 41 00:03:43,920 --> 00:03:49,860 If you describe the system accurately, then you will get a precise prediction out. 42 00:03:50,190 --> 00:03:56,159 But in the real world, not only can you not, there's always uncertainty in the in the data. 43 00:03:56,160 --> 00:04:03,149 You can't say exactly how rough the the floor is because the roughness on the floor varies from place to place. 44 00:04:03,150 --> 00:04:08,760 You're not quite sure where you put down the ladder and so on. So the data that you're working with are uncertain. 45 00:04:09,570 --> 00:04:15,630 So what you should really do the best that you can actually do if you really want to push yourself to the most precise results, 46 00:04:15,870 --> 00:04:23,069 is derive probability distributions. You can say that the probability of the ladder slipping from this position is such and such. 47 00:04:23,070 --> 00:04:25,770 The probability of that of slipping from that position is such and such. 48 00:04:26,190 --> 00:04:32,879 In simple cases, you have a very sharp you have you have a very narrow range of probabilities. 49 00:04:32,880 --> 00:04:37,560 The probability in certain positions is almost one that it won't slip in other places. 50 00:04:37,560 --> 00:04:40,320 It's almost one that it will slip. 51 00:04:40,320 --> 00:04:47,340 And so we can give a simple answer and we say, Well, the critical angle for it slipping is 43 degrees and 34 minutes or whatever else. 52 00:04:47,340 --> 00:04:50,040 But if you really, really, really want to know something accurately, 53 00:04:50,340 --> 00:04:56,430 if you really want to push your predictions to the to the to the extreme or to as hard as you can, 54 00:04:56,670 --> 00:05:00,960 you will have to calculate the probability distribution and calculating the probable distribution is hard. 55 00:05:02,310 --> 00:05:09,860 In classical physics, it's hard, and we will find that in quantum mechanics is actually rather easier to calculate, probably solutions. 56 00:05:10,110 --> 00:05:15,120 With a quantum mechanical apparatus than it is with the classical physical operations, which is just as well because in quantum mechanics, 57 00:05:15,240 --> 00:05:25,050 where we're we're working on the theory, it arose out of attempts to understand things that are so small that they are always seriously not isolated. 58 00:05:25,350 --> 00:05:33,810 So an electron carries a charge. Consequently, it is always in in contact with it's always interacting with the electromagnetic field. 59 00:05:34,350 --> 00:05:39,510 But the electromagnetic field is, it turns out, always, always quivering. 60 00:05:40,650 --> 00:05:43,250 It's so we never know what the electromagnetic field, 61 00:05:43,260 --> 00:05:48,809 even even under the most precise control of the electromagnetic field, you put your electron inside some resonant cavity. 62 00:05:48,810 --> 00:05:52,050 You call the resonant cavity as close to absolute zero as you can, and so on. 63 00:05:52,290 --> 00:05:57,240 No matter how hard you work, it turns out that electromagnetic field is in an unknown configuration. 64 00:05:57,280 --> 00:06:01,320 Consequently, your electron is subject to uncertain disturbances. 65 00:06:01,500 --> 00:06:03,780 Consequently, what the electron is going to do, 66 00:06:04,080 --> 00:06:11,010 the best you can do is predict probabilistically in the same sense that when the horses are racing at Sandown Park or whatever, 67 00:06:11,220 --> 00:06:17,260 the results are going to be probabilistic. You don't know what a particular horse is going to do on a particular day because of all the it. 68 00:06:17,460 --> 00:06:19,830 It's not an isolated system. It may have eaten something. 69 00:06:19,830 --> 00:06:26,730 It didn't approve of a breakfast that morning, etc. So so it is natural that we should be working with probabilities. 70 00:06:27,390 --> 00:06:29,370 It is natural that the calculation. 71 00:06:29,370 --> 00:06:38,910 So whereas in classical physics, when you're talking about a cricket ball or a a shell shot out of a out of a howitzer, 72 00:06:40,140 --> 00:06:48,150 you you operate under the fiction, which is a very good fiction that at every point in the trajectory, at every time, 73 00:06:48,960 --> 00:06:55,530 every precisely measured time, the shell central mass of the shell has a very precise coordinates. 74 00:06:55,530 --> 00:06:59,430 And these coordinates progress in a very accurately calculable way. 75 00:06:59,640 --> 00:07:06,150 You have only one number to count. Well, three numbers, I suppose the X, Y and Z coordinates of the shell to calculate it each time. 76 00:07:06,480 --> 00:07:09,750 Uh, you don't have to calculate a probability distribution. 77 00:07:10,500 --> 00:07:12,720 Well, in simple. In the simple case, you don't. 78 00:07:13,740 --> 00:07:21,450 What if you're considering what will happen when electron leads leaves an electron gun because of the quivering electromagnetic field, 79 00:07:21,450 --> 00:07:27,300 whatever uncertainty there was in the configuration of electron before it shot out of the gun and so on, 80 00:07:28,230 --> 00:07:32,250 it's inevitable if you're calculating a probability distribution for the electron is going to go, 81 00:07:32,610 --> 00:07:37,139 and calculating a probability distribution for every possible value of X is clearly 82 00:07:37,140 --> 00:07:41,070 going to be a [INAUDIBLE] of a lot more work than calculating one particular value of X, 83 00:07:41,460 --> 00:07:50,040 right? So that's that's why it's going to be mathematically complex and why it's going to involve probabilities. 84 00:07:51,390 --> 00:07:57,750 And let's just remind ourselves of some basic facts about probabilities, which I think is this correct, 85 00:07:57,750 --> 00:08:01,050 that in Professor Blondell this course, he's already talked about the laws of probability. 86 00:08:01,890 --> 00:08:08,640 Yeah. Good. So the things we need to we need to just remind ourselves, obviously, if we've got two independent events, 87 00:08:08,910 --> 00:08:21,710 the probability that we get, the probability that we get the event A and the event B is going to be the product of what's A and P. 88 00:08:22,620 --> 00:08:26,130 So we multiply the probabilities of independent events. 89 00:08:29,090 --> 00:08:40,550 Such as that. If you throw to dice the probability that one day comes up with number one and the other one comes up with number six. 90 00:08:40,850 --> 00:08:45,500 So might be the probability that the first die, the red one comes up with number one. 91 00:08:45,710 --> 00:08:49,640 And PB might be the probability that a black guy comes up with the number six. 92 00:08:49,880 --> 00:08:56,290 Then this is the probability that the red one comes up with one, which they say six, whatever. 93 00:08:56,300 --> 00:08:59,840 This is the probability of that particular configuration. Okay. 94 00:09:00,350 --> 00:09:01,790 And you get you get a product. 95 00:09:01,790 --> 00:09:14,660 And the other rule that's important for us is that the probability of A or B is equal to A plus P, B if they're exclusive events. 96 00:09:16,310 --> 00:09:26,600 So that's the probability that if I throw a single die, that I get either a one or a six because I can't get both a one and a six simultaneously. 97 00:09:26,600 --> 00:09:27,950 Either get a one or I get a six. 98 00:09:27,950 --> 00:09:34,520 So these are exclusive events, and the probability that I get either a one or a six is just the sum of these two probabilities. 99 00:09:36,140 --> 00:09:44,600 So those are the and following on from that, if we have an X is a random variable. 100 00:09:46,490 --> 00:09:56,510 So that's something like what happens when we like the number we get when we throw a die and then we define the thing called the expectation of X. 101 00:10:04,670 --> 00:10:12,920 To be the sum of the probability of the if outcome times the value that X takes on the outcome. 102 00:10:13,460 --> 00:10:20,300 And it's sort of roughly speaking, it's often called the average of X, but that is to say if you make a number end of trials, 103 00:10:20,300 --> 00:10:23,690 work out the average values that you get of X, you're hoping to get a value. 104 00:10:23,690 --> 00:10:30,560 You should get a value which is close to this. It will never really agree with this, but the idea is that as you do more and more experiments, 105 00:10:30,570 --> 00:10:38,960 the average that you of all those experiments will converge in a rattle in a narrow or narrow range around this expectation value. 106 00:10:39,680 --> 00:10:47,870 And we have a few simple rules that if we have to random variables and add their results and then take the expectation value, 107 00:10:48,110 --> 00:10:52,550 then that is the expectation value of X plus the expectation value of Y. 108 00:10:54,590 --> 00:11:00,680 That's always the case whether the events or the variables are independent or not. 109 00:11:02,210 --> 00:11:15,340 So. And zillions of branches of of science use probabilities. 110 00:11:15,340 --> 00:11:21,670 Right. It's a major feature in medicine, major feature in the in the financial markets. 111 00:11:22,910 --> 00:11:26,049 And they they use probabilities in just the same way the physicists do. 112 00:11:26,050 --> 00:11:30,430 But physicists have a unique way of calculating probabilities, which nobody else uses. 113 00:11:30,430 --> 00:11:39,880 And I think this is a central mystery. And that's because in quantum mechanics, we calculate these probabilities through amplitudes. 114 00:11:45,420 --> 00:11:48,450 That's to say every probability that we're interested in. 115 00:11:49,320 --> 00:11:55,170 P is the mod square of some complex number. 116 00:11:55,920 --> 00:11:59,490 It's amplitude. It's probability amplitude. 117 00:12:01,860 --> 00:12:05,909 So we never calculate this directly. We always calculate a probability amplitude. 118 00:12:05,910 --> 00:12:09,000 And having got it, we take it, which is a complex number. 119 00:12:15,340 --> 00:12:18,850 And we interpret the mod square of that complex number as the probability. 120 00:12:20,530 --> 00:12:24,990 And so, so all of quantum I've got the purpose. 121 00:12:25,000 --> 00:12:30,150 My purpose in the next few lectures is to persuade you that all of quantum mechanics and all its strangeness follows from this. 122 00:12:30,160 --> 00:12:34,479 From this business here, which nobody else uses this. 123 00:12:34,480 --> 00:12:35,950 There's no other branch of knowledge. 124 00:12:35,950 --> 00:12:42,819 You know, there are people in the city who talk about the quantum mechanical or even people who name their hedge funds, quantum, 125 00:12:42,820 --> 00:12:46,809 etc. They like to have a connection with, with, with quantum mechanics, 126 00:12:46,810 --> 00:12:50,260 but it's completely bogus because they never calculate probabilities in this way. 127 00:12:52,360 --> 00:12:59,830 Okay. Now the consequence of this is that the probability of supposing something could happen by two routes, right? 128 00:13:00,640 --> 00:13:12,459 So let's, let's be specific. Let's suppose that we have an electron gun and we have a double slit arrangement. 129 00:13:12,460 --> 00:13:17,620 Perhaps I draw drawing drawings. Never. Very good. Something like this. 130 00:13:18,130 --> 00:13:22,360 And we're firing electrons out of here, sort of in scatter pattern. 131 00:13:23,050 --> 00:13:30,520 And some of them go through holes and then hit our detector off screen over here centilitre, 132 00:13:30,580 --> 00:13:34,059 photographic plate, whatever you want to use and others bounce. 133 00:13:34,060 --> 00:13:39,010 Oops. And then so we'll call this s and we'll call this T. 134 00:13:39,010 --> 00:13:48,790 There are two. If we focus on a particular place X here on the screen, there are two ways in which an electron can arrive there. 135 00:13:48,790 --> 00:13:54,729 It can go through the top hole or the bottom hole and we'll call the the path through the top hole, 136 00:13:54,730 --> 00:13:57,520 the path s and the path through the bottom hole, the path T. 137 00:13:59,110 --> 00:14:05,590 So if you what we're interested in calculating is the probability that we get the electron arriving at X. 138 00:14:08,230 --> 00:14:14,950 So the probability of arriving at X should be calculated from some amplitude. 139 00:14:14,950 --> 00:14:22,839 And the rule is that that amplitude is the amplitude to take the path s plus the amplitude to take the path. 140 00:14:22,840 --> 00:14:28,780 T And then, of course that gives us the amplitude to arrive there regardless, right? 141 00:14:28,780 --> 00:14:33,640 So this is like the probability rule up there, P, A or B, 142 00:14:33,970 --> 00:14:41,320 this is the probability that it got there by either route S or route t is the sum well up there. 143 00:14:41,320 --> 00:14:42,879 It's the sum of two probabilities. 144 00:14:42,880 --> 00:14:50,470 But the rule here is this the sum of the amplitude for is just the sum of the amplitudes, and the probability is the square of this. 145 00:14:51,600 --> 00:14:59,380 What does that give us? That gives us because we now undertake the mod square of two complex, the sum of two complex numbers. 146 00:14:59,770 --> 00:15:19,000 This is a mod squared plus a t squared plus a s a t complex conjugate plus a s complex conjugate a t. 147 00:15:19,930 --> 00:15:27,400 So that stuff follows just from the ordinary rules for taking the complex, the amplitude of sum of two complex numbers. 148 00:15:27,910 --> 00:15:40,390 But this, we know, is the probability that it got there through S so that's P that it took root s plus P that took root T plus this stuff, 149 00:15:41,620 --> 00:15:51,009 which can be this stuff here can be written as twice the real part of as a star 150 00:15:51,010 --> 00:15:59,860 t so the probability that something happens when it can happen in two mutually 151 00:15:59,860 --> 00:16:03,849 exclusive ways because it either goes through the top or it goes through the bottom 152 00:16:03,850 --> 00:16:08,860 hole is the probability that it is the sum of the probabilities that it took, 153 00:16:09,070 --> 00:16:17,709 i.e. the root, plus this funny stuff down here that's a consequence of calculating probabilities, using amplitudes, 154 00:16:17,710 --> 00:16:24,970 and this fundamental principle that if something can happen by this way or by that way, then you add the amplitudes. 155 00:16:24,970 --> 00:16:31,150 You don't add the probabilities. Nobody knows why that's the right rule. 156 00:16:32,470 --> 00:16:35,500 You should reasonably ask me. So how do I know that's the right rule? 157 00:16:36,340 --> 00:16:43,419 And the answer, I think the proper answer to that question is that this is the the fundamental cornerstone of quantum mechanics. 158 00:16:43,420 --> 00:16:46,360 And our civilisation, quite simply depends on quantum mechanics, 159 00:16:46,360 --> 00:16:52,600 because we're all busy communicating with each other using electronics that has been designed using quantum mechanics. 160 00:16:52,870 --> 00:16:58,629 So it's of course, there are Kong there are particular specific experiments that one could one could talk about. 161 00:16:58,630 --> 00:17:05,650 But really, it's not as persuasive as the as as the point that without this, quantum mechanics would make no sense. 162 00:17:05,650 --> 00:17:08,710 And without quantum mechanics, our civilisation would fall apart. 163 00:17:17,160 --> 00:17:23,180 Yeah. Okay, so. So let's think a little bit more about this. 164 00:17:24,050 --> 00:17:30,390 Um, what do we think that these individual probability distributions look like? 165 00:17:30,390 --> 00:17:37,500 In other words, if you, if you covered up one of these things and we're just firing your bullets through one hole, what would you imagine? 166 00:17:37,500 --> 00:17:41,250 Well, of course, you know, your electrons, your bullets, your particles through one hole. 167 00:17:41,460 --> 00:17:48,180 What we would imagine was that the majority that that that the that the probability will be largest on the place 168 00:17:48,180 --> 00:17:55,890 which was formed by a straight line from the centre of the the muzzle of the gun through the hole to the screen. 169 00:17:57,180 --> 00:18:04,600 So you would expect. That piece looked like. 170 00:18:05,080 --> 00:18:11,650 Um, so I wanted to draw a plot of this is going to be X, I guess I better put this is X is nought. 171 00:18:12,400 --> 00:18:20,320 I would expect that look something like this, some kind of vaguely Gaussian, you know, so it's most likely to arrive. 172 00:18:20,360 --> 00:18:24,939 This is the point which is the geometrical is the intersection of the straight lines through the middle of the muzzle, 173 00:18:24,940 --> 00:18:30,309 in the middle of the whole right. And there's some width because the slit has some width of the muzzle, 174 00:18:30,310 --> 00:18:37,780 has some wit some width and doesn't far it doesn't fire bullets exactly in one direction, but in some spray of directions. 175 00:18:40,030 --> 00:18:46,750 And we would expect that P of T correspondingly was the same thing on the other side of the origin. 176 00:18:48,730 --> 00:19:02,950 Right. Um, so if these Gaussians are very narrow, we're expecting that P but P of X at some location here, 177 00:19:02,950 --> 00:19:11,920 say if we chose this place, we'd find that T was about equal to zero P of p of s was some number here. 178 00:19:12,190 --> 00:19:20,590 So this vanished, this amplitude would vanish because because this is the mod square of whatever complex number it is that sits underneath. 179 00:19:21,370 --> 00:19:25,419 And so this term would disappear and we would find, guess what, surprise, 180 00:19:25,420 --> 00:19:31,030 surprise that the probability of arriving in X was indeed, indeed equal to the probability of arriving through S. 181 00:19:31,900 --> 00:19:33,860 But suppose these these things, 182 00:19:33,880 --> 00:19:41,440 and now we're interested in the more interesting case where these are these are really broad distributions and this is a really broad distribution, 183 00:19:43,330 --> 00:19:46,600 but very broad distribution. Okay. 184 00:19:47,260 --> 00:19:52,360 Then there will be places where there's a non-negligible amplitude coming from both sides. 185 00:19:52,360 --> 00:19:58,540 And in fact, by symmetry it's evident that at the origin, in the in the geometrical middle of the screen, 186 00:19:59,170 --> 00:20:03,760 there will be equal amplitudes coming from the equal probabilities expected from both sides. 187 00:20:05,170 --> 00:20:15,580 So in this neighbourhood we're expecting that that that this number is about equal to this number. 188 00:20:15,850 --> 00:20:22,360 And these two numbers have comparable magnitudes. 189 00:20:22,600 --> 00:20:35,499 So let's in fact write a of as is equal to model A, let me put a subscript on it. 190 00:20:35,500 --> 00:20:40,460 Model S E to the I phi s okay. 191 00:20:40,480 --> 00:20:44,410 So this is a complex number. That's, that's a funny quantum mechanical thing. 192 00:20:44,800 --> 00:20:52,230 So it has a it has an amplitude in the technical sense. So this is a quantum amplitude, but it has an amplitude in the sense of complex numbers, 193 00:20:52,240 --> 00:20:56,530 a modulus sitting in front here and then it must have some phase up there. 194 00:20:56,800 --> 00:21:08,110 Similarly, we'll write that a t is equal to a t, e to the i, i t and both. 195 00:21:08,920 --> 00:21:12,940 And everything here will be a function of position down on the screen. 196 00:21:12,940 --> 00:21:16,900 Right? This this amplitude depends on where you are on the screen. 197 00:21:18,410 --> 00:21:22,870 This does and we expect that this does we expect all of these bits of the complex number depend on position. 198 00:21:23,230 --> 00:21:28,750 But when we're in the middle here so near centre of screen. 199 00:21:33,590 --> 00:21:45,020 We are expecting that the modulus of ACE is about equal to the modulus of 80 because this is the square root of the 200 00:21:45,020 --> 00:21:51,110 probability of getting there and this is the square root of the probability of getting there through only this route only. 201 00:21:51,110 --> 00:21:57,019 And we can't see any difference between the two. So what does the combined probability look like then? 202 00:21:57,020 --> 00:22:07,760 P of x is on the order of it's about equal to two times the probability of getting through shall we. 203 00:22:08,510 --> 00:22:14,000 Through through s because it's about equal to yes. 204 00:22:15,020 --> 00:22:27,980 But now we're going to have plus twice we're going to have a s mod squared. 205 00:22:29,460 --> 00:22:36,270 But you know what we. Right. 206 00:22:36,270 --> 00:22:42,560 Because. Because we're saying that that up there, we've got a of's times a start. 207 00:22:43,380 --> 00:22:48,040 But we're saying that the modulus of ace is about equal to the modulus of 80. 208 00:22:48,060 --> 00:23:03,300 So I can just put in a, uh, that price just becomes this times e to the I try to three times the real part of e to the I phi is minus five t. 209 00:23:06,210 --> 00:23:09,420 But this we recognise is the probability piece. 210 00:23:09,750 --> 00:23:15,780 So this is about equal to two piece, one plus. 211 00:23:15,990 --> 00:23:20,570 And the real part of this of course is the cosine bias minus five t. 212 00:23:22,860 --> 00:23:26,880 So this is what we're expecting only it's only an approximate relation and it's only valid near the middle. 213 00:23:27,300 --> 00:23:38,340 But, but the conclusion of this, the implication of this rule for adding for adding the amplitudes is that the probability 214 00:23:38,340 --> 00:23:42,620 is a function of position near the centre is going to be what you would naively expect. 215 00:23:42,630 --> 00:23:51,470 So this is the classical result. Right. The classical result is the probability of arriving. 216 00:23:51,470 --> 00:23:59,630 There is twice the probability of getting there through either one of the slits, because each slits contribute in the same probability. 217 00:23:59,960 --> 00:24:08,390 But this is now being multiplied by one plus cosine of this totally quantum mechanical bit. 218 00:24:12,590 --> 00:24:15,830 And this bit is called the quantum interference term. 219 00:24:20,010 --> 00:24:31,649 And the extra. So so the prediction is since this cosine so this difference will calculate well this difference between the phases is later on. 220 00:24:31,650 --> 00:24:35,030 We can't we can't put a number on it at the moment but. 221 00:24:35,580 --> 00:24:39,300 But we do expect fire and fight to be functions of position. 222 00:24:40,080 --> 00:24:45,000 And so by default, we have to expect that that this thing is varying with position. 223 00:24:45,000 --> 00:24:50,670 And as the cosine is the argument, the cosine varies with position through, you know, go through not to pi and so on. 224 00:24:51,000 --> 00:24:55,110 The cosine is going to go from from 1 to -1. 225 00:24:55,120 --> 00:25:03,030 And this probability of arrival is going to go from nothing to four times the classical sorry to twice the classical probability four times. 226 00:25:04,350 --> 00:25:16,320 So what we're expecting is that, is that at the end of the day, P of X is going to do some kind of oscillation. 227 00:25:19,530 --> 00:25:25,980 This is only valid in a small region of X, but it is it is an unexpected. 228 00:25:27,570 --> 00:25:32,550 It is surely a surprising result. So this is two times classical. 229 00:25:35,290 --> 00:25:50,679 Probability and this is zero. So that's that's the phenomenon of quantum interference is a is an inevitable consequence of this ordinary rule for 230 00:25:50,680 --> 00:25:55,600 adding amplitudes and calculating probabilities from the sum of the amplitudes rather than adding the probabilities. 231 00:25:56,230 --> 00:25:58,630 That is what makes quantum mechanics special. 232 00:25:58,810 --> 00:26:04,510 And that is something is a phenomenon which doesn't see and nobody else uses probability encounters the need to do this. 233 00:26:04,810 --> 00:26:08,470 Only physicists encounter this need. That, I think, is the real mystery. 234 00:26:10,240 --> 00:26:15,960 How are we doing? Okay. 235 00:26:18,120 --> 00:26:25,560 Of course. We have to ask, why is it that this. 236 00:26:29,200 --> 00:26:35,590 If you farm machine gun bullets through slits and stuff, we're not expecting to find that there's a safe place to stand. 237 00:26:37,030 --> 00:26:45,220 Every every yard or every millimetre or any or any distance in these places where no machine gun bullets are going to arrive, we don't believe exist. 238 00:26:47,380 --> 00:26:52,270 And you have to ask the question, why not? And the answer we will we will calculate the answer later on. 239 00:26:52,270 --> 00:27:00,310 But the answer is going to be that as the mass of the particles, your firing goes up from the mass of an electron up to the mass of the bullet, 240 00:27:01,870 --> 00:27:06,850 the pattern, this pattern stays the same, but it gets more and more and more and more compressed. 241 00:27:06,970 --> 00:27:12,190 There's this distance between places where it's safe to stand, 242 00:27:12,220 --> 00:27:17,980 get smaller and smaller and smaller and smaller until it becomes ludicrously small in the case of machine gun bullets. 243 00:27:18,970 --> 00:27:23,260 And and when you make any measurement, when you make any measurement with machine gun bullets, 244 00:27:23,500 --> 00:27:27,700 you inevitably average over the places where the bullets are extremely likely to arise, 245 00:27:27,700 --> 00:27:32,830 twice as likely to arise as in classical physics and the places where it's safe to stand. 246 00:27:33,130 --> 00:27:41,709 So you inevitably average over these places and you end up with this average found that you're not able to measure anything. 247 00:27:41,710 --> 00:27:46,630 But this average, nobody has figured out a way to measure this anything but this average in the case of things like machine gun bullets. 248 00:27:46,810 --> 00:27:48,670 So that's how we recover classical physics. 249 00:27:48,880 --> 00:27:55,480 But quantum mechanics is asserting that there really are these places where it is safe to stand if you were small enough. 250 00:27:59,950 --> 00:28:05,200 Okay. So now let's have a slightly let's talk about quantum states. 251 00:28:13,030 --> 00:28:17,350 So my claim is that essentially everything follows from what we've already covered, 252 00:28:18,670 --> 00:28:24,820 that it's all a consequence of this interference business through using probability amplitudes instead of probabilities. 253 00:28:25,980 --> 00:28:35,310 So but now we have to have some apparatus. So we have got some we we have in a lab, some system, something that we're trying to investigate. 254 00:28:35,320 --> 00:28:40,000 So in this case, it would be a particle spin this particle. Let's fantasise about spin this particles. 255 00:28:40,000 --> 00:28:43,450 That's particles which do not have any they don't that aren't gyros. 256 00:28:44,580 --> 00:28:45,760 Let's fantasise about them. 257 00:28:45,760 --> 00:28:54,820 Although it turns out that spineless particles are very red things like electrons and neutrons and protons, even our little gyros. 258 00:28:55,780 --> 00:29:00,069 So if we had to spin this particle, we could. It's a it's a system. 259 00:29:00,070 --> 00:29:05,230 It's a dynamic system. And you can ask yourself, So how do I characterise the state of this particle? 260 00:29:05,410 --> 00:29:11,739 Well, there are things used to characterise it state of course by measuring something and what, what can you measure? 261 00:29:11,740 --> 00:29:18,910 You can measure the X, Y and Z coordinates, you can measure the X, Y and z momenta. 262 00:29:19,030 --> 00:29:23,439 You could measure its energy, you could measure its angular momentum. These are all things that you could measure. 263 00:29:23,440 --> 00:29:25,210 So there's a range of things that you could measure. 264 00:29:25,510 --> 00:29:28,870 And in quantum mechanics, these measure, these things, you could measure a rule called observables. 265 00:29:31,510 --> 00:29:42,220 Then you characterise the system by saying what results you would get if you made these measurements now in quantum mechanics, remember? 266 00:29:42,700 --> 00:29:48,370 Or you could you we've accepted that there's a probabilistic aspect, 267 00:29:48,370 --> 00:29:55,870 so we don't expect to be able to say that if I measure X, I will get the value 3.1415963 whatever. 268 00:29:55,870 --> 00:30:01,149 Right metres. I expect to have to come clean and say well I don't know, there's a probability distribution. 269 00:30:01,150 --> 00:30:06,070 I think it's about round here. That's, that's just how life is going to be. 270 00:30:07,240 --> 00:30:15,400 So what do you do? What you do of course is you specify the quantum amplitudes to obtain certain results of measurements. 271 00:30:16,330 --> 00:30:19,720 So we characterise the system. 272 00:30:24,400 --> 00:30:44,670 The state of our system. By measuring, by giving quantum amplitudes. 273 00:30:55,010 --> 00:31:03,840 Two possible outcomes of measurements. Comes. 274 00:31:13,030 --> 00:31:23,810 I think that's pretty reasonable. And it turns out in quantum mechanics that the possible outcomes are sometimes but not always restricted. 275 00:31:23,830 --> 00:31:28,510 So if you have an electron which is free to wander the universe, 276 00:31:28,990 --> 00:31:34,870 then the possible outcomes of its x coordinate can be values from minus infinity to plus infinity. 277 00:31:34,870 --> 00:31:45,160 All real numbers are on and the range of possible values or what are called the spectrum so that the possible outcomes. 278 00:31:51,670 --> 00:31:59,580 The numbers you can get. They formed the spectrum. 279 00:32:03,980 --> 00:32:09,600 The spectrum. Observable. 280 00:32:11,710 --> 00:32:26,130 So the spectrum of X. Just generally minus infinity to infinity, which is not a very interesting. 281 00:32:26,150 --> 00:32:37,040 I mean, so there's no interesting restriction there. Similarly, the spectrum of X, the momentum in the X direction is usually the same, 282 00:32:38,300 --> 00:32:42,830 but the spectrum, for example, of the Z component of angular momentum. 283 00:32:43,340 --> 00:32:51,409 Jay Z Uh, turns out to be only discrete values. 284 00:32:51,410 --> 00:32:56,450 It turns out that will show that that is the case, that you can have numbers like dot, dot, 285 00:32:56,450 --> 00:33:09,950 dot, comma, k, minus one, h, bar k, h, bar k, plus one h, bar k plus two h, bar and so on. 286 00:33:10,190 --> 00:33:18,080 Where K is equal to either for for a particular particle, it's either equal to nought or it's equal to a half. 287 00:33:19,760 --> 00:33:27,049 So the spectrum can be discrete set of numbers or it can be a continuous set of numbers. 288 00:33:27,050 --> 00:33:40,670 This is a property of the observable. The spectrum of the energy is is often a discrete set of numbers, not always e0e what e to, 289 00:33:40,850 --> 00:33:46,249 but you have to calculate by hard grind and we'll spend a great deal of time calculating the spectrum of h. 290 00:33:46,250 --> 00:33:50,690 It's a very it turns out to be a key to find out what that is for a particular system. 291 00:33:52,100 --> 00:33:59,780 So all these observables have spectra and how you would characterise the state of 292 00:33:59,780 --> 00:34:04,009 the system if you were talking about its energy is you would give the amplitude. 293 00:34:04,010 --> 00:34:10,040 So so we could give, we could possibly specify the state of our system. 294 00:34:14,110 --> 00:34:21,020 By giving. The amplitude to get e one. 295 00:34:21,110 --> 00:34:27,710 Sorry, e zero. The lowest energy. The amplitude to get the energy, the next energy above the amplitude, etc. 296 00:34:29,900 --> 00:34:33,590 So let's call these. Let's call this a zero. 297 00:34:34,130 --> 00:34:37,620 A one. Etc. 298 00:34:39,750 --> 00:34:45,930 So if you the idea here is that that for some systems, if you know the complex number, 299 00:34:45,930 --> 00:34:52,650 a zero whose mod square gives you the probability of if you would measure the energy that you've got, the possible value is zero. 300 00:34:52,980 --> 00:34:58,650 And you also knew this number, a one whose mod square is this probability, and if you knew this number, 301 00:34:58,800 --> 00:35:03,170 whose mod square was the probability of getting the energy level and so on, right? 302 00:35:04,080 --> 00:35:10,950 In general, there'll be an infinite number of these. If you knew all of these amplitudes, you would completely know. 303 00:35:10,950 --> 00:35:17,800 You would have completely specified the nominal state of that system. What do I mean by that? 304 00:35:17,830 --> 00:35:29,200 What I mean by that is if I knew all of those amplitudes, I could calculate the amplitude to find any other amplitude that you might inquire about. 305 00:35:29,200 --> 00:35:33,490 For example, I could find the amplitude to find my system at the Place X, 306 00:35:34,120 --> 00:35:41,649 which or I could calculate from those amplitudes, I could calculate the amplitude to find that the momentum is the value. 307 00:35:41,650 --> 00:35:47,590 P So we have the concept here of a set of amplitudes. 308 00:35:47,590 --> 00:35:59,800 It's clear, I hope it's clear that you will need a set of amplitudes to define the state of a system in quantum mechanics, in classical mechanics. 309 00:36:00,070 --> 00:36:08,830 What do you need to know? You need to know for a particle. You need to know X and p, x and x, y and z and p, y and Z. 310 00:36:08,830 --> 00:36:13,239 Because then you've pin down where the thing is and how fast it's moving and when you know 311 00:36:13,240 --> 00:36:17,830 that build all done six numbers down because from that you could calculate the energy, 312 00:36:17,830 --> 00:36:21,370 you calculate the angle, momentum, you know that. But in quantum mechanics, 313 00:36:21,370 --> 00:36:31,749 it's not life isn't going to be so simple because we've agreed that you probably don't know what X is and you probably don't know what is. 314 00:36:31,750 --> 00:36:35,110 The best you can hope to know is what these probability distributions are. 315 00:36:35,680 --> 00:36:42,430 And we've agreed that these probability distributions are for reasons that nobody understands going to be defined in terms of these complex numbers, 316 00:36:42,430 --> 00:36:45,520 the quantum amplitudes whose modes square give the probabilities. 317 00:36:47,020 --> 00:37:01,300 So knowing, specifying complete set of information is a is a matter of writing down a long list, unfortunately, of quantum amplitudes. 318 00:37:02,800 --> 00:37:07,840 The good news is that you don't need to know all possible. 319 00:37:07,840 --> 00:37:11,020 You don't need to write down all possible amplitudes, quantum amplitudes, 320 00:37:11,320 --> 00:37:17,380 because there are rules which we're going to develop for calculating from a complete set of quantum amplitudes, 321 00:37:18,670 --> 00:37:29,280 all other quantum amplitudes that might be of interest. And we'll do a concrete example probably next time. 322 00:37:31,590 --> 00:37:35,530 Maybe we already. Maybe we do have time to just do this. Yeah. 323 00:37:35,570 --> 00:37:36,890 Okay, so let's have a look at this. 324 00:37:38,300 --> 00:37:54,470 So I said that electrons and protons and neutrons and quarks, a huge number of an elementary particles have a gyros. 325 00:37:54,470 --> 00:37:55,970 So they have an intrinsic spin. 326 00:37:56,600 --> 00:38:04,460 They are gyroscopes, they have an intrinsic spin, and they're called spin half particles for reasons that will become apparent in a moment. 327 00:38:06,800 --> 00:38:11,690 Let's just use this where we will develop a theory of this properly next term. 328 00:38:11,900 --> 00:38:16,700 But I want to use this as an example of a complete set of amplitudes and what it enables you to do. 329 00:38:19,340 --> 00:38:29,570 Okay. So the total angular momentum of these particles is always the same. 330 00:38:29,590 --> 00:38:36,670 They spin at a certain rate so that they have an angle momentum that's root three quarters of h bar where each bar is Planck's constant over two pi. 331 00:38:37,390 --> 00:38:42,219 So that's the amount of that's the amount of spin they have and they just have that spin and you can never change it. 332 00:38:42,220 --> 00:38:48,190 It's always the same. But what does happen is that this the direction that this angular momentum points in changes. 333 00:38:49,030 --> 00:38:56,889 So whereas the total angular momentum is this the Anglo mentum in some particular direction, for example, 334 00:38:56,890 --> 00:39:06,190 the Z direction, if you measure it, it turns out that you can only get two answers plus or minus a half of each part. 335 00:39:08,230 --> 00:39:16,280 So. And and moreover, there is an amplitude. 336 00:39:16,280 --> 00:39:20,100 A plus is the. 337 00:39:20,120 --> 00:39:21,800 So let this be the amplitude. 338 00:39:27,270 --> 00:39:43,080 Two measure Jay-Z equals plus a half H bar, and obviously a minus will be the amplitude to measure that Jay-Z is minus the half edge bar. 339 00:39:44,670 --> 00:39:50,190 Now, in an ordinary talk, what we say is what everybody says. 340 00:39:50,190 --> 00:39:52,650 And I will. You'll find me saying this, but it's immoral. I shouldn't. 341 00:39:53,010 --> 00:40:00,750 Is that if Jay-Z is plus a half edge bar, its spin is pointing upwards and you imagine it to be a little particle doing upwards. 342 00:40:01,230 --> 00:40:04,440 And when Jay-Z is minus one half bar, you say it's pointing downward. 343 00:40:04,440 --> 00:40:15,599 So this is a fundamental mistake because if you square, uh, a half h bar, you take the square root, you don't get that right. 344 00:40:15,600 --> 00:40:20,520 This three indicates that actually this particle has a quarter of a bar. 345 00:40:20,940 --> 00:40:25,170 Sorry, there's a half bar associated with the X and Y directions as well. 346 00:40:29,320 --> 00:40:35,830 So it's actually not a good idea to think of it as spin up as being having to spin, pointing upwards. 347 00:40:35,830 --> 00:40:39,639 The most that we can say is that really it's pointing sort of not downwards. 348 00:40:39,640 --> 00:40:43,110 It's pointing vaguely up and this one is pointing vaguely down. 349 00:40:43,120 --> 00:40:48,790 I don't really know which way it is in the X Y plane. So that's just a little a little word of caution. 350 00:40:49,060 --> 00:40:54,280 People get themselves into a real tangle by imagining that this means the spin is up and that means the spin is done. 351 00:40:54,310 --> 00:40:57,400 We all say that, and you'll find me saying that. 352 00:40:57,670 --> 00:41:03,549 But but just when you find yourself saying that, just have a little trip in the brain which says, hang on a moment, 353 00:41:03,550 --> 00:41:07,480 I mustn't take that too literally, because it does have angular momentum in the X and Y directions. 354 00:41:07,780 --> 00:41:12,820 Even though I've measured Jay Z and counted up Jay Z or Jay Z and I found it down. 355 00:41:13,660 --> 00:41:22,110 Okay, so the good news is that the set a plus, comma, a minus is a complete set of amplitudes. 356 00:41:22,710 --> 00:41:27,610 So what do I mean by that? 357 00:41:27,610 --> 00:41:34,120 What that means is, if I know those two complex numbers, if I know both those two complex numbers, 358 00:41:34,480 --> 00:41:42,639 I can calculate the amplitude and therefore the probability to find the particle with its spin in any direction that 359 00:41:42,640 --> 00:41:51,310 I want that you specify is either plus a half h bar in that direction or minus a half H bar in that direction. 360 00:41:57,870 --> 00:42:06,030 And we'll work that out in some detail. Yeah. 361 00:42:06,090 --> 00:42:09,390 So. So from these, we will. 362 00:42:10,470 --> 00:42:17,510 Maybe. Maybe I want to write the formula down. I'm not sure I went with the notes. 363 00:42:24,940 --> 00:42:27,220 No, I don't think we do yet. We're not ready to write that down. 364 00:42:27,820 --> 00:42:41,380 We just want to make that statement that that it's a complete set of approaches in the sense that we will derive rules such that we can calculate. 365 00:42:49,590 --> 00:42:57,990 B plus, which is a function of a plus and minus, which is the and this is the amplitude. 366 00:43:07,670 --> 00:43:14,210 To measure j in some direction theatre to be. 367 00:43:20,350 --> 00:43:25,120 And the theory consists. So what what the theory of quantum mechanics is about? 368 00:43:25,120 --> 00:43:32,520 It's about finding the rules which enable you to calculate the amplitude for an event that you, you know, 369 00:43:32,530 --> 00:43:39,040 somebody is you want to know what's the probability of something happening given your current state of information, 370 00:43:39,040 --> 00:43:43,540 which is a complete set of amplitudes, down to a complete set of amplitude for something else to happen? 371 00:43:43,840 --> 00:43:52,780 That's what the apparatus consists of and it's there to do. So I think that it probably is an appropriate moment to stop because the next section, uh. 372 00:43:56,410 --> 00:44:00,370 Requires a bit of space between which we shouldn't take. 373 00:44:00,370 --> 00:44:00,760 No.