Quantum mechanics is fucking insane.

[freechus9]

I'm studying this shit for the first time and it's the most rediculous thing ever. Does it get easier or am I fucked forever?

[elipsesjeff]

a^2 + b^2 = c^2

[Irisheyes]

nah its E=mc^2

easy as.

[PAnimal]

I'm studying this shit for the first time and it's the most rediculous thing ever. Does it get easier or am I fucked forever?

I graduated as a chemical engineer.

I took this class in a physical chemistry series.

I would have to say that this class was the hardest non specific major class I took.

I spent a good 6 to 12 hour over 2 days doing one HW assignment (weekly) with a small group of friends and that wasnt even counting the endless reading.

The whole class builds up so if you dont know the stuff you learn in week 1 by week 12 your done for.

It was hard for me to keep up in that class and I spent alot of energy just to get a C+ and I was a 3.2 GPA in major and 2.8 cummulative with a good work ethic in school.

All QM is trying to prove a bunch of crazy shit by using statistics, it is sick. Wanna walk through a wall, you can prove it! Travel time, yes that too! Shrink things, it is possible!

If you how to calculate poker statistics from scratch, how to do diffrential equations, have a basic understanding of physics, and can think logical...you should be set, lol.

Good Luck!

[a500lbgorilla]

I skipped most my qmech classes and got an A-

[PAnimal]

I skipped most my qmech classes and got an A-

Nice, I wouldnt go to class beucase it was only offered 7:30 AM.

So I stayed home and read and got notes form friends, but that didnt help me.

I bombed my test in that class fairly bad, some of the questions on the test I didnt even know what to do.

I would just write down equations and solve for things I knew were realted and ended up getting about average if not slightly below on the exams.

I did well on the HW and quizes though.

Probly one of my worse showings for any class in college for exams.

[a500lbgorilla]

I should probably take this opportunity to say that I got a B- in chem for engineers as a freshman and don't even have to pretend to take qmech. Lucky me.

[PAnimal]

I should probably take this opportunity to say that I got a B- in chem for engineers as a freshman and don't even have to pretend to take qmech. Lucky me.

lol, I actually had a chem for engineers teacher who was so hard she got fired for giving to many low grades. Not jokeing.

I got a B and C+ in her classes I had and I found out out of the 150 kids in each class and the average grade turned out to be a C- (i belive almost half or less got that grade) and I thought I did horrible. She was put on probation and it happened again the next quarter in the second part of the class and she was released from her job.

Sucks so much I had her for the first and second series of classes, but was glad to find she was released before the 3rd one. So screwed my GPA as a freshman from one of my strong points.

[™]

You know whats insane? Your avatar...

[DaNutsInYoEye]

I should probably take this opportunity to say that I got a B- in chem for engineers as a freshman and don't even have to pretend to take qmech. Lucky me.

lol, I actually had a chem for engineers teacher who was so hard she got fired for giving to many low grades. Not jokeing.

I got a B and C+ in her classes I had and I found out out of the 150 kids in each class and the average grade turned out to be a C- (i belive almost half or less got that grade) and I thought I did horrible. She was put on probation and it happened again the next quarter in the second part of the class and she was released from her job.

Sucks so much I had her for the first and second series of classes, but was glad to find she was released before the 3rd one. So screwed my GPA as a freshman from one of my strong points.

Grades are generally way over-inflated anyways. She should be applauded for making people work instead of handing out A's.

[Blinky]

Quantum mech, I don't know.

Did take two course in quantum chem though... not particularly useful in the real world but definitely something that you can plop in front of some liberal-arts student and say "Read this muthaf*cka!"

A few years later all the wave equations that stretch across a page and a half still look damn impressive. Just don't ask me what they mean.

[samsonite2100]

lol, I actually had a chem for engineers teacher who was so hard she got fired for giving to many low grades. Not jokeing.

Surprise, surprise. I didn't think they were even allowed to give lower than B+'s these days. College is such bullshit.

[Lukie]

nah its E=mc^2

easy as.

You would be thinking of special relativity there...


Speaking of which, anybody care to relate special relativity with quantum theory for me, and explain how they both work correctly together? First person to do so gets $100 in their pokerstars account from 'Lukieplaya'.

[donnybaker]

Speaking of which, anybody care to relate special relativity with quantum theory for me, and explain how they both work correctly together?

relativity = real fast
q-mech = real small
that's about all i know

[kingnat]

I'm currently getting my PhD in Physics... so I have a little insight for you.

The first time I took quantum in undergrad, it was incomprehensible. Studying it in physics (it might be slightly different in PChem), you really need to be handy with Diff EQ and linear algebra... and I'm fairly certain that anything you study in Diff EQ class (in the math dept) is highy "concrete operational" knowledge and nearly impossible to transfer any ideas from it to QM. So you need to learn to do all your basic ODE's over again... utitilizing parity and other such things that make large integrations simplify done to a couple of terms.

I took Undergrad quantum when I got to grad-school concurrently with graduate quantum. So all told 5 semesters worth of quantum,... then I spent two summers studying about 40-60 hours a week for a once-a-year ball-busting PhD qualifying exam. That was about 1/4 quantum... truth be told, after you have a chance to really study the topic... any problems that are asked at an undergrad or graduate level are cake. So there is a light at the end of the tunnel, but don't feel bad if you don't get it the first (or second) time out. It's a bitch.

If you have a few specific questions feel free to PM me and I'll try to help out.

[kingnat]

nah its E=mc^2

easy as.

You would be thinking of special relativity there...


Speaking of which, anybody care to relate special relativity with quantum theory for me, and explain how they both work correctly together? First person to do so gets $100 in their pokerstars account from 'Lukieplaya'.

I'm not really sure what you mean by "how they both work correctly together". But for $100, I'll spend 5 minutes typing some stuff out. (warning: this is just going to be off the top of my head, so I might say something that's not 100% correct and I might be touch loose and fast with my definitions... honestly, most of physics courses doesn't deal with explaining crap, it's almost all problem solving)

Three of the more important ideas in QM are 1) particles are confined to discrete levels of energy (classical Mech says particles can have any energy they want), 2) Heisnberg's uncertainty principle, which essentially states that you can't know everything about a particle to high precision; this is also a nice door opener to the idea that particles positions (for instance) exist as a probability curve since you don't know where it is inside a box or something... which is the kinda the idea behind the Cat.. is it alive or is it dead... kind of a sexy way of saying "we don't know where the particle is inside the box" 3) Schroedinger's eqn isn't a completely independent thing from the previous two, but it's usually thrust to the forefront since it looks crazy and all. It's essentially the tool used most often to solve for the energy of a particular particle in a particular potential. All the cool stat stuff that comes out is pretty amazing.

To be honest, I've done lots of problems involving special relativity... such as, Johnny flys a space ship at .8c and shoots a rocket at .9c, how fast is the rocket going compared to the ship, etc... and I took a class in High Energy Physics, which could be another name for Special Relativity, since relativistic particles are moving very fast, and if they are moving fast they have high energy. High Energy Physics is also called Particle Physics, since they're also interested in particle decays and shit like that. Nuke Physics people are interested in "radiation decays", particle physicists are interested in proton decaying to other particles. A lot of study is done of these particles in accelerators where they ramp particles (protons, electrons, etc.) up to 0.999...c and crack a couple together.. and the energy of the collision creates tons of new particles.

All of these particles, all the interactions, etc. can all be studied using quantum mechanics... granted the only type of problems you might do in undergrad or graduate courses involve fairly simple stuff... you can calculate cross-sections, use QED, QCD, etc... High energy has lots of specific techniques for studying their stuff, but it ALL fits under the umbrella that is quantum mechanics.

So basically they work together correctly, because almost anything that is relativistic is going to be sufficiently small that it must be studied using quantum mechanics; Classical mechanics won't suffice.

If you need more info I can hit ya back, but that's all that I got for now...

[a500lbgorilla]

relativity = real fast
q-mech = real small

OMG CUZ YER GURL WAS ALL LIKE "IM GONNA NAME IT QMECH AND TELL EVERYONE ABOUT IT'S UNIMAGINABLY SMALL SIZE AND PROBABILITY THAT IT IS IN TWO PLACES AT ONCE!

[pgil]

i was always under the impression that they didnt work together, and that this was one of the big mysteries that all physicists were working on, a grand unified theory of everything. perhaps one reason they don't work together is that relativity treats time as a thing, and not as a concept, which it is. 'time' doesnt exist, it is a measure of change, nothing more. to reify it, as in space-time, clearly creates many theoretical problems.

[Miffed22001]

/geeks

[Lukie]

kingnat.. good reply.. it sounds like you have a good understanding of the theories and I enjoyed reading your response.

A lot of study is done of these particles in accelerators where they ramp particles (protons, electrons, etc.) up to 0.999...c and crack a couple together.. and the energy of the collision creates tons of new particles.

correct, and this fascinates me. I took a physics class last year where the professor explained this process in detail and gave many, many examples of such. It was one class where I can actually say I enjoyed.

---

i was always under the impression that they didnt work together, and that this was one of the big mysteries that all physicists were working on, a grand unified theory of everything.

correct. I guess I should have made the disclaimer that the person would have kept the $100 if I got to keep the nobel prize.....

[Lukie]

/geeks

dont hate