Upon hearing the ted talk, Making Sense of Visible Quantum Objects featuring Aaron O’Connel, I became intrigued by the topic of quantum mechanics. Quantum mechanics is one of the parts of physics that many people don’t necessarily understand. Basic high school physics mainly focuses on kinematics, magnetism, and electricity. Quantum, on the other hand, appears very esoteric and is barely touched upon. This talk gives a great introduction to the world of quantum physics. Although O’Connel didn’t explain exactly what quantum physics was, he went over one of the theories generated by quantum mechanics. What made this talk stand out was that he explained it all in a simple way that anyone could comprehend. He definitely picked the correct medium because he had the occasional diagram or picture that helped make sense of the many ideas that he passed on. What I found very cool was the fact that he took the ideas of quantum physics and brought it to larger scale objects. Quantum is only applied to lone particles, and since these particles are impossible to see, there are many complications. For many, there is this whole ‘seeing is believing’ idea that can hold us back. His experiment brings these things we can’t see to larger items, and his interest and care about this specific theory was made apparent through this talk. The main idea he focused on was the fact that an object can only be in one place at one time. This, however, is false when we look deeper into quantum physics. O’Connel creates an item and apparatus to perform this experiment made for single atoms and applies it to visible objects. He didn’t end up showing his data but instead dictates it to the audience. The way he ended the talk was astounding. By connecting this theory to human life, he brought a whole new aspect to the theory. He brought up questions about what would occur if humans were put in these same conditions and appear in multiple places. It was something that didn’t even occur to me. This talk captured my interest in quantum physics, and I intend to pursue research on this topic.
The first talk led me to want to find out more about quantum mechanics, so I watched Einstein Hated Quantum Mechanics. Brian Greene And Alan Alda Discuss Why. I expected it to be more about theories, but it turned out to be more about the life of Albert Einstein. Most of the information pertained to physics, but they always brought it back to Einstein. This talk seemed to me to be targeted to Einstein aficionados. A lot about the age at which he discovers everything came into play when they spoke about his theories. One of the more captivating moments of the talk was when Greene performed an experiment to give us a little more insight into the way in which Einstein thought. Apparently, going into free fall is a way to get rid of the force of gravity. Although this is only a matter of perspective, I recognize his standpoint. If two objects fall together, since they are experiencing the same force, it would appear that they are outside of the effects of gravity. While this was one of the more exciting moments of the talk, the rest appeared very mundane. A lot of the conversation explained why Einstein wasn’t a fan of quantum. All the explanations were not scientific but a matter of preference. This led me to question how they speculated on Einstein’s thoughts. Overall, I thought that this would have been better if they focused more on Einstein’s work rather than the history involved in it.