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I was a ripe 16 when I first heard the word "Quantum" at my University in 1959, a whole year after I heard "sex".
We were a dozen students (the dirty dozen) in our B. Sc. (Hons) Physics class, chosen among about 2500 aspirants. And we felt bewildered coming from mofussil colleges to the portals of the vast University at Vizagh. And in our first year we were practically strangers to one another, attending the pass course subjects along with 120 students of other branches.
In our second year we got into Physics in a wee way and felt exclusive, sort of. There was one HRS among us who was rather poetic and dreamy about high science and philosophy...while I was trying hard to make sense of our class room physics. And it was boring...stuff like sound, heat, elasticity, surface tension, and viscosity.
One evening HRS collared me and told me that Quantum Mechanics was the pinnacle of physics. And I asked him what it was and why. He replied that there was a chap called Heisenberg who was God. And I asked him why. And he said that Heisenberg discovered Uncertainty Principle. And I asked him what was great about it...my life till then was highly uncertain in every sense and I was struggling with it all the while...you know....if and when the next Money Order would arrive from home.
And HRS said that Heisenberg liberated physics from determinism and gave free will a chance. It didn't make much sense to me. We did hear about Free Will and Destiny in our Philosophy lectures but that was wooly. HRS felt so happy with Heisenberg since he was no longer bound by Fate. That was the type of introduction I had to QM. Poets are dangerous folks.
It was only in our 4th year that we were taught Bohr theory of hydrogen atom and that had the word 'quantum' in it alright. I simply loved the Bohr theory since that was the first time I put numbers for e, h, c, pi, and m and got, lo and behold, the Rydberg constant. And felt that modern physics was ok. But that was all the QM we learned then.
It took a year to disillusion me. In our Final Year M. Sc. we had a whole paper on QM. And it was taught by a well-meaning good-humored senior professor of Experimental Spectroscopy who would write down long equations bristling with Psis and smile disarmingly if anyone tried to ask him any question. I still recall his charming smile which said:
"You leave me alone and I shall leave you alone, ok?"
He didn't mention Heisenberg or his Uncertainty. It was after I joined IIT KGP that I was told that Schiff was the book that one should master if one wants to learn QM. And I bought that book which was also bristling with Psis but I made no headway. And I asked a senior of mine, senior by a decade, if he could explain to me the crux of QM. And he smiled and said he was worse than me since he was a man of Experimental X-ray Diffraction and all that he remembered of QM was the "Trishul". I asked him what THAT was. And he wrote down on the blackboard:
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I was a ripe 16 when I first heard the word "Quantum" at my University in 1959, a whole year after I heard "sex".
We were a dozen students (the dirty dozen) in our B. Sc. (Hons) Physics class, chosen among about 2500 aspirants. And we felt bewildered coming from mofussil colleges to the portals of the vast University at Vizagh. And in our first year we were practically strangers to one another, attending the pass course subjects along with 120 students of other branches.
In our second year we got into Physics in a wee way and felt exclusive, sort of. There was one HRS among us who was rather poetic and dreamy about high science and philosophy...while I was trying hard to make sense of our class room physics. And it was boring...stuff like sound, heat, elasticity, surface tension, and viscosity.
One evening HRS collared me and told me that Quantum Mechanics was the pinnacle of physics. And I asked him what it was and why. He replied that there was a chap called Heisenberg who was God. And I asked him why. And he said that Heisenberg discovered Uncertainty Principle. And I asked him what was great about it...my life till then was highly uncertain in every sense and I was struggling with it all the while...you know....if and when the next Money Order would arrive from home.
And HRS said that Heisenberg liberated physics from determinism and gave free will a chance. It didn't make much sense to me. We did hear about Free Will and Destiny in our Philosophy lectures but that was wooly. HRS felt so happy with Heisenberg since he was no longer bound by Fate. That was the type of introduction I had to QM. Poets are dangerous folks.
It was only in our 4th year that we were taught Bohr theory of hydrogen atom and that had the word 'quantum' in it alright. I simply loved the Bohr theory since that was the first time I put numbers for e, h, c, pi, and m and got, lo and behold, the Rydberg constant. And felt that modern physics was ok. But that was all the QM we learned then.
It took a year to disillusion me. In our Final Year M. Sc. we had a whole paper on QM. And it was taught by a well-meaning good-humored senior professor of Experimental Spectroscopy who would write down long equations bristling with Psis and smile disarmingly if anyone tried to ask him any question. I still recall his charming smile which said:
"You leave me alone and I shall leave you alone, ok?"
He didn't mention Heisenberg or his Uncertainty. It was after I joined IIT KGP that I was told that Schiff was the book that one should master if one wants to learn QM. And I bought that book which was also bristling with Psis but I made no headway. And I asked a senior of mine, senior by a decade, if he could explain to me the crux of QM. And he smiled and said he was worse than me since he was a man of Experimental X-ray Diffraction and all that he remembered of QM was the "Trishul". I asked him what THAT was. And he wrote down on the blackboard:
And took me to the window where our Kanta Rao's cow was grazing the unkempt physics lawn and showed me the Trishul branded on its back. We both went to the canteen and I stood him tea and fags. It is so soothing to have company in ignorance.
By and by I had to teach QM myself.
And just when I thought that I understood Quantization, a young research scholar told me that he was working on:
"Second Quantization"
This sounded skulduggery to me...it sounded exactly like the Second Coming. You spend a couple of decades to learn Quantization and then a brat speaks of a higher version of it.
Pretty soon I started hearing Quantum as a fancy adjective that could go before all branches of physics that I had learned earlier the hard way:
Quantum Optics, Quantum Electrodynamics, Quantum Statistics, Quantum Electronics, Quantum Fluids....
and finally a book titled:
"Quantics"
Quantum is a buzz word by now...it can take on any noun and exalt it:
"Quantum Biology" has 142,000 hits
"Quantum Computers" has 816,000 hits
"Quantum Finance" has 33,100 hits
"Quantum Gravity" has 1,330,000 hits
"Quantum Consciousness" has 226,000 hits.....
I read the other day the fascinating news that Quantum Consciousness has finally been understood as a consequence of Quantum Gravity which, by the way, is still not understood.
HRS would have loved that news item...because:
"Quantum Destiny" has a mere 2,080 hits, most of them dubious.
Even "Quantum Dentistry" has 226 hits...Ouch!
Finally here is this news item from DC:
"If we deregulate, the diesel price will have to be raised by Rs. 9.60 per liter, which is not the case. Only a small quantum of change has been permitted (Rs.0.45)..."
said the petroleum secretary...
"Quantum Bureaucracy" has just 23 hits....
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1 comment:
Sir, it is exalting to read this....if someone like you had the same struggles as me, I might have some chances after all
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