Quantum Mechanics | A Brief Explanation

Quantum mechanics  describes nature at the smallest scales of energy levels of atoms and subatomic particles.


It is known by many names such as:

• quantum physics

• quantum theory

• the wave mechanical model

• matrix mechanics.




Classical Physics  

The physics existing before quantum mechanics, that is Classical physics, describes nature at ordinary or macroscopic scale.

Most theories in classical physics can be derived from quantum mechanics as an approximation valid at large, or macroscopic scale.

Quantum mechanics arose from theories explaining observations that couldn't be reconciled with classical physics.



For example, Max Planck's solution in 1900 to the black-body radiation problem, and from the correspondence between energy and frequency in Albert Einstein's 1905 paper that explained the photoelectric effect.




WHO GETS THE CREDIT?

Early quantum theory was profoundly re-conceived in the 1920s by Erwin Schrödinger, Werner Heisenberg, Max Born and few others.

The Wave Function

This modern theory was formulated in some various specially developed mathematical formalisms.  One of them, a mathematical function called the wave function provides information about the probability, amplitude of position, momentum, and other physical properties of a particle.

Max Planck is considered the father of the quantum theory.




Max Planck made many contributions to theoretical physics, but his fame as a physicist rests primarily on his role as the originator of quantum theory, which revolutionized human understanding of atomic and subatomic processes.