A Cyclist’s Life in Tenerife (Canary Islands)

 Over the next hour or so, I’ll be performing some website maintenance & updating some files. I just thought you’d like to know. Expect glitches.

Tags: News Reel by Dr. Leslie Brown
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The phrase “quantum leap” is most often used by people who know sod all about quantum mechanics. Usually what they mean to say is that whatever they’re talking about provides a huge step forward. If they knew anything, they would know that quantum mechanics is the study of subatomic particle interactions.

By its own definition, a quantum leap is a miniscule jump. The classic example is a single atom; when it absorbs a certain amount of energy, an electron orbiting the nucleus instantly jumps from a low energy state to a higher energy state. An excited electron can also fall back to a lower energy state while spontaneously emitting a photon in the process. These are said to be quantum leaps as they involve discreet, discontinuous energy levels. Ironically, I first heard the phrase “quantum leap” being used by an ignorant science tv show presenter.

In physics, a quantum leap or quantum jump is a change of an electron from one energy state to another within an atom….. In real physical systems a quantum leap is not necessarily a large change, and can in fact be very insignificant….. In the popular sense, the term is usually applied to mean a large or significant change, which is thus not strictly correct.

Tags: Science Simplified by Dr. Leslie Brown
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