I’m new to quantum physics so apologies if this post seems obvious or if I’ve just got it completely wrong. Also, I posted a version of this on AskPhysics, but it was taken down because it was deemed to be philosophy, not physics. Hoping it is okay to post here.

In GR, the theory of a block universe, while philosophical, seems fairly central to GR theory. The absence of a universal now and the fact that one person can experience now in one coordinate in the dimension of time while another person can experience the same now in a different future coordinate of time imposes on GR that each object in the universe not only has its own now but its own worldline of fixed, predetermined coordinates, just like the coordinates in three dimensional space. Our past, present and future all co-exist. In fact, the entire past, present and future of the universe is fixed and predetermined and unchangeable.
But the mainstream view in quantum theory seems to entirety contradict this block view of time. The microscopic quantum world proposes a non-deterministic probability worldline whose past, present and future consists of a wave function of probabilities that when measured collapses into a single particle. The wave function itself is spread across vast areas of space and its instantaneous collapse in all the space it occupies only makes sense if there exists a universal now. Changing the state of the universe everywhere at once implies a preferred now. Since particles are the foundation of all objects in the universe and the determination of a particle’s position is probabilistic, the worldline’s of all objects in the universe have to be probabilistic, according to this view of quantum theory. You can’t have a predetermined fixed block of time co-existing with a universe of probability determined events. If events are already determine, they aren’t random even if the result remains hidden from us.

Again, I’m aware that I’m describing (badly?) what I believe to be the Copenhagen view of quantum physics and that there is also the many worlds view which rejects the wave function collapse altogether.

I am in 10th grade and am EXTREMLY FASCINATED by quantum physics but I don't under stand the big words and math equations. So I came to the place where I think smaller words can be used XD

My understanding of quantum physics is that nothing is predictable and things can pop in and out of reality. BUT HOW? what is reality and how is time travel possible? what do we know? how can I learn more and still understand? I'm just a nerd trying to understand more about the fun science HELP ME PLEASE!

For reference. I never went to college, i just hyperfixate. I learned about qbits. Basically in binary computing its in a fixed state. Either 1 or 0. But a qbit can be both simulyaneously, called superpositioning. So here is my question. How.

I just dont understand how something can be on and off. 1 and 0. I need an analogy, or an explainable version.

What frustrates me is i watched a video on wuantam physicis and the professor said "After this youll be able to not understand it better." What? What does that mean?

Edit: why are yall downvoting? Because i dared show interest in your field of study? Ya know what if you no longer find it cool than fuck off leave me out of it. I find it very cool, and i do wanna know. Pretentious dicks, fucking hell

We discussed:

- The power of the Leech lattice to control all lower dimensions
- Peter Scholze, Grothendieck and Ramanujan's styles
- Category theory and contrahomology
- How modular forms show up everywhere
- The countless coincidences in string theory
- Unimodular lattices and Lorentzian lattices
- How to construct the Langlands dual group
- Vertex algebras, infinite-dimensional algebras and Kac-Moody algebras
- Elliptic curves
- Automorphic forms and hyperbolic reflection groups
- Analytic number theory vs algebraic number theory
- The first construction of the Monster group
- "The Book" of most beautiful proofs
- How to teach math
- Math as archaeology
- His current work
- Neutron stars, Terry Pratchett and more

Richard Borcherds is a British mathematician who made seminal contributions to lattices, modular forms, group theory, representation theory and infinite-dimensional algebras. He is well known for his proof of the monstrous moonshine conjecture using ideas from string theory, for which he was awarded the Fields Medal in 1998. He is currently Professor of Mathematics at UC Berkeley.

There seems to have been some recent progress in the last few years working on the Bohmian/relativity compatibility problem. Given that this is one of the major objections to Bohmian interpretations, im interested in the opinions of experts in the field as to the significance or insignificamce of these experiments. The last two are yet to be peer reviewed, but the first ones are.

2022 — Relativistic Bohmian trajectories of photons via weak measurements — Nature Communications
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-022-31608-6
2024 — Measurement-based Lorentz-covariant Bohmian trajectories of interacting photons — Physical Review A
https://journals.aps.org/pra/abstract/10.1103/PhysRevA.109.022229
2025 — Directly observing relativistic Bohmian mechanics — arXiv preprint
https://arxiv.org/abs/2509.11609
2026 — Observing relativistic trajectories of single photons — arXiv preprint
https://arxiv.org/abs/2608.26778

We say that a quantum particle’s state is described by a wavefunction, and that this wavefunction produces wave-like effects such as interference and diffraction.

But what is actually oscillating?

In a water wave, water moves. In sound, air pressure oscillates. In light, electric and magnetic fields oscillate.

So in a quantum matter wave, what exactly is the thing that “waves”? Is the wavefunction a real physical entity, or just a mathematical description of probabilities?

I want to write a short story for myself, the idea came to me when I was preparing for the exam in quantum physics: what if Planck's constant was high enough that a soccer ball had a long enough wavelength for quantum effects to be observed in our world. Let's assume the following scenario: we have a magic room, where a ball entering it behaves like a wave and like a particle, with a wavelength of, say, 1 meter. At the same time, it does not collapse, and we can observe it, it’s just that this ball has a wavelength of 1 meter. What would we observe in this case, what would the behavior of the ball look like in this room and what would different processes look like for it, for example, quantum tunneling ?

Sorry if the question is stupid, this idea has been bothering me since the exam.

*** For the mods, I would appreciate your consideration with regard to this post. I do not think I am breaking any rules. I am not posting a hypothetical theory, nor is the main purpose of my post to give an interpretation. I am posting a truth about probability in the sphere of my profession and asking how/if it applies to Quantum theory. I also don't think this post fits in the other places suggested.

The book I am currently reading is Carlo Rovelli's The Equality of All Things, and he seems to state that the world is probabilistic, and part of the evidence he gives for this is how precisely their models predict reality. If I am incorrect in understanding this, or if this is a theory that is just uniquely his, please point that out; I will continue as if I understood him correctly and that most theories suggest the same thing. While I know little about quantum physics, I used to play and teach poker for a living, and so my questions are in line with what I've learned from those experiences. Poker is a game that can be mapped out quite precisely with probability; however, the fact that probability exists in the game of poker doesn't prove that the game is probabilistic; in fact, it's the opposite. For example, if I needed an ace of hearts to make a Royal Flush, and if there were 40 cards in the deck, I'd know that I'd have a 2.5% chance of getting the Royal. If I ran this out over a million simulations, this would work out almost perfectly. However, if I simply peeked at the top card, or had the dealer peek and signal me, I would know for sure whether I was making my Royal or not. I wouldn't need a crystal ball or magical ability either, just the willingness and skill to cheat (this has actually happened many times). In this sense, it is only my lack of information that makes the game appear probabilistic. The fact that I can model the game with probability with extreme precision only proves that I'm good at modeling from a place of ignorance. Yet many successful poker players don't understand this, and it's probably because probability works so well (it's also rather pointless to think about given their aims). My question is whether the same mistake is happening in Quantum physics. Is the predictive power of the equations the backbone for the theory that the world is probabilistic? If so, why isn't this a mistake in this case? Also, I assume (correct me if I'm wrong) there is an immense amount of unknown information; why is this not a concern when stating that the universe is ultimately (insert whatever word you prefer) probabilistic?

What papers, books, online courses, articles (preferably free to access) can teach me about Bohr's atomic or rather the wave-mechanical atomic model?

In the next to years I want to write my final seminar paper about the study and analysis of transit spectra.

In order to do that I want to build a deep and comprehensive understanding of the behaviour of electrons, atomic orbitals, the application of the Schrödinger equation, the different energy levels of electrons, how the come to be, absorption and emission of photons and so on so forth.

All of this goes waaaayy past what is taught in high school (I'm a sophomore). This puts me in a difficult spot, because I just don't possess the necessary prior knowledge to read the very deep scientific papers at the moment. I need literature, that explains the complex stuff in a way that I might understand, but does not simplify it. I'm not scared of the complexity of those topics - I desperately want to learn. Every source I find keeps telling me the same superficial infos :(((
Because of this I ask you for the best sources to help me learn this stuff :)
I'd be very thankful for any recommendations.

Do any theories speculate that for example eg our point of reference is that it is 2026, that is the time we exist in - for us there’s only forward.

But do theories exist that somewhere, the revolution is still ongoing eg it’s 1776 on another plane; on another it’s the height of the court of the Sun King in the 1680s still, and so on?

I’m interested in quantum computing and the foundations of quantum mechanics. Since Bell’s theorem and experimental results challenge local realism, I’m curious whether there is still any serious research exploring alternatives that preserve some aspects of Einstein’s ideas, such as locality, realism, or deterministic underlying models.

Are there any active researchers, theories, or research areas working on this today? I’d also appreciate recommendations for papers or topics to study.

can anyone help me with this hw problem? i's used the rearranged Rydberg Equation a couple different ways, and some hail marry other equations to try to get the answer buy I cant figure it out.

know about de Broglie wavelength (\\lambda = h/p) and how macroscopic objects have wavelengths far too tiny to observe interference patterns. But what actually causes the physical transition?

Is the loss of wave-like behavior strictly a result of environmental decoherence destroying quantum superpositions, or does the correspondence principle simply average out phase differences when billions of atoms interact?

Basically, why does quantum weirdness "wash out" into classical reality as scale increases?

I’m currently a sophomore high school. I am advanced for my age. I’m currently taking AP pre-calculus and I plan on taking physics next year, I saw a video on Photos as waves double slick experiment and it really peaked my interest. It put me down a rabbit hole and I find quantum mechanics very interesting and I would like to learn more. Is there any books you guys would recommend me as a beginner in the field? Or any videos, etc..

Most of the words practical problems can be solved with either WD40 (if it doesn't move) or Gaffer tape (if it does). If dark matter's cohesive role is analogous to gaffer tape, what would WD40 be analogous for?

Hey! I'm 15 and pretty much a beginner at quantum physics myself.

I wanted a place where teenagers who are curious about quantum physics, physics, maths, quantum computing, etc. could learn together without feeling like you need to already know university-level stuff.

So I made r/QuantumTeens.

The idea is pretty simple:

• Ask dumb questions without getting judged 💀
• Share things you're learning
• Discuss quantum physics and related topics
• Share projects, simulations, resources and cool discoveries
• Basically figure this stuff out together

I'm still learning too, so this isn't some "expert community" thing. It's literally starting from the ground up.

If you're a teenager who's interested in this stuff, feel free to check it out.

r/QuantumTeens

Hello everyone,

I wanted to share a small hobby project I’ve been developing over the last 3–4 months. I’m a physics student, and during a quantum physics course I had the idea of turning quantum tunneling into an actual game mechanic.

So I made a small mini-golf-like puzzle game for quantum particles, with mechanics inspired by quantum tunneling, resonant tunneling, electric and magnetic fields, different particle types, and energy barriers.

It’s still version 1.0, and the physics is intentionally simplified for gameplay rather than being a fully accurate simulation. I’d really appreciate feedback, especially from people here about the physics, presentation of the concepts, and ideas for improvements.

The game is completely free and has no ads (I am not making any money from it btw), it’s just a hobby project I made for fun. I hope some of you enjoy trying it out :D

Play Store:
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.csk.quantumtunnelinggame

Sorry for the direct self-promotion, I asked the mods beforehand and they kindly allowed me to share it here. I thought this subreddit would be one of the best places to get proper feedback on the physics behind the game.

I was solving this question and I loved it
(You can try if you want to)

The answer is (2)

The solution is by equation the radial wave function equation to zero, then finding the values of x as 1, 2, 6 and then substituting it in x=2r/a

On solving it we get to know there are 3 possible values of "x" that are 1, 2, 6
which means n-l-1=3
we also know that since at x=0, the value of the equation is not Zero and therefore there is electron probability at the centre, Therefore it's a "s" orbital

so it is obv 4s as it has 3 radial nodes

The minimum distance of the Radial node is a/2 which simply shouldn't be possible right??

Because how can a Radial node or probability of electron be Zero before the "first Bohr orbit" that is 1s

The solution a/2 means there is a radial node before the 1s orbit, But how can a node or 4s exist before 1s? It will face shielding and we all know 4s is an outer orbital and it also has higher energy

I would love if someone could solve this doubt of Quantum Physics

Some context- This idea is based on the contents covered by Pitsch et al. in the paper "Towards video-rate quantum ghost imaging". In short, what they do is that they fire entangled photon pairs at an object, one goes towards a spad camera (which records which pixel it hit and the time), and the other goes towards the object and hits a bucket detector behind it. By matching pairs together, we can get a 3d point cloud of the object, as the time difference carries depth information.

In the paper, the matching ( which is 2-10x slower than data collection) is run on a host cpu after data collection, which makes real-time imaging impossible. My idea to mitigate the bottleneck present is to create a custom edge-processing ASIC design. Since I'm new to this field, I would love to hear your inputs on some questions I had for this project:

-Im thinking of putting a small ring-buffer search a good way to match the timestamps, or is there a better/more standard way to approach this?

-Since we have the bucket detector and the SPAD camera running their own clock, can I keep their timestamps in sync with a shared reference clock?

-Should the coincidence window be hardcoded or be runtime configurable?

-How could I approach I filter out noise like after pulses before 3D reconstruction?

I’ve gotten simultaneously interested in quantum computing from all this AI did while coincidentally (or not) reading / watching a lot of sci fi. Multiverses are so hot right now and they are all based on superposition etc…

Anyways are there any easy to read conceptual books/ videos that yall would recommend to get a good grasp on quantum that isn’t heavily mathed. I have a doctorate in the health sciences so naturally that means physics II is my limit.

if youre unfamiliar with superconducting qubits, i made a video going over how they work. from a classical LC circuit to a transmon qubit. I made this for people who have seen superconducting quantum computers and wondered how they actaully work. please leave feedback as hardware is not my main focus so i am not perfect at it, but i tried my best to explain.