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- About 150 min
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Introduction to Quantum Physics: From Clockwork to Qubits
From Newton's clockwork to qubits: a beginner-friendly, hands-on journey through quanta, wave–particle duality, superposition and entanglement.
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28 steps · 3 quizzes · about 150 minutes · open any step
- Welcome: A Journey into the Very SmallStart hereEverything around you, your chair, your phone, the air, even you, is made of unimaginably tiny pieces called atoms. For centuries, scientists assumed that tiny things follow the same rules as big things: a grain of sand should behave like a small football.InteractiveHands-on · 5 min
- Two Rulebooks: Physics Before and AfterPhysicists talk about two big rulebooks for nature. Classical physics ("before") is the physics of Isaac Newton (1687) and James Clerk Maxwell (1865). It describes motion, forces, gravity, electricity, magnetism and light.InteractiveHands-on · 5 min
- Before: The Clockwork UniverseLet's start with the world as classical physics sees it. In 1687 Isaac Newton published simple laws of motion. They say that an object keeps moving the same way unless a force (a push or a pull) changes its motion. Gravity is one such force.InteractiveHands-on · 5 min
- Particles and Waves: Two Ways to TravelClassical physics says there are exactly two ways energy can travel from one place to another. Particles are little lumps of stuff: a grain of sand, a marble, a bullet. A particle is in one place at a time.InteractiveHands-on · 4 min
- The Superpower of Waves: InterferenceWaves have a trick that particles can never do: when two waves meet, they add up. If a crest (high point) meets a crest, they build a wave twice as tall. This is constructive interference.InteractiveHands-on · 4 min
- Light Is a Wave: Young's Double-Slit ExperimentIs light made of particles or waves? For a long time nobody knew. Newton himself believed light was a stream of tiny particles.InteractiveHands-on · 4 min
- The First Crack: The Glowing-Metal PuzzleBy 1900 many physicists believed their work was nearly finished. Only a few small puzzles were left. One of them turned out to be enormous. Heat a piece of metal and it starts to glow: first dull red, then orange, then yellow-white.InteractiveHands-on · 5 min
- Planck's Fix: Energy Comes in PacketsIn 1900 the German physicist Max Planck found a formula that matched the glowing-metal measurements perfectly.InteractiveHands-on · 5 min
- Light Is Made of Particles: Einstein's PhotonsWhen light shines on certain metals, it knocks electrons out of the surface. This is called the photoelectric effect.InteractiveHands-on · 5 min
- One Photon, How Much Energy? Exploring the SpectrumVisible light is only a tiny slice of a much bigger family: the electromagnetic spectrum. Radio waves, microwaves, infrared, visible light, ultraviolet, X-rays and gamma rays are all the same thing: light, with different wavelengths.InteractiveHands-on · 5 min
- Checkpoint 1: From Clockwork to QuantaLet's check the foundations before we go deeper into the atom.Quiz · 6 questions
- The Second Crack: Why Don't Atoms Collapse?In 1911 Ernest Rutherford discovered what an atom looks like inside: a tiny, heavy, positively charged nucleus at the centre, with light, negatively charged electrons around it.InteractiveHands-on · 4 min
- Bohr's Energy Ladder: Electrons on StepsIn 1913 the Danish physicist Niels Bohr combined Rutherford's atom with Planck's packets. His proposal sounded outrageous at the time: An electron in an atom can only have certain allowed energies, called energy levels. Think of them as the rungs of a ladder.InteractiveHands-on · 5 min
- Atomic Fingerprints: Reading the Light of StarsEvery kind of atom has its own unique set of energy levels. So every element gives off its own unique set of colours, called its spectrum. It works like a barcode or a fingerprint.InteractiveHands-on · 4 min
- Matter Waves: de Broglie's Bold IdeaSo far: light, which everyone thought was a wave, turned out to also behave like particles. In 1924 a young French PhD student, Louis de Broglie, asked the reverse question: if waves can act like particles, can particles act like waves?InteractiveHands-on · 5 min
- The Most Beautiful Experiment: Electrons Through Two SlitsNow we combine everything. Take Young's double-slit experiment from step 6, but instead of light, fire electrons, and fire them one at a time, with long pauses in between. Each electron hits a detector screen that records a tiny dot where it lands.InteractiveHands-on · 5 min
- Peeking Changes Everything: The Measurement ProblemThe obvious next question: which slit does the electron really go through? Let's put a detector next to the slits to catch it in the act. Each time an electron passes, the detector flashes "top" or "bottom".InteractiveHands-on · 4 min
- Checkpoint 2: Atoms, Matter Waves and the Double SlitYou have just met the strangest experiment in physics. Let's make sure the main ideas are clear.Quiz · 7 questions
- The Wavefunction: A Map of PossibilitiesWe now know electrons travel as waves and arrive as particles. But a wave of what? In 1926 Erwin Schrödinger wrote down the equation that describes how this matter wave moves. The wave is called the wavefunction, written with the Greek letter ψ ("psi").InteractiveHands-on · 5 min
- Superposition: Being in Two States at OnceThe double slit showed that an electron can take both paths at once. This is an example of a general quantum rule called superposition: If a quantum system can be in state A or in state B, it can also be in a combination of both at the same time.InteractiveHands-on · 5 min
- Collapse: What a Measurement DoesWhat happens to a superposition after you measure it? Suppose a qubit is in a superposition of 50% A and 50% B, and your measurement gives A. If you measure the same qubit again straight away, you get A again, every time. The superposition is gone.InteractiveHands-on · 5 min
- The Uncertainty Principle: You Can't Know EverythingRemember the clockwork universe from step 3? To predict the future exactly, you needed to know where something is and how fast it moves, both at the same moment. In 1927 Werner Heisenberg showed that quantum physics forbids this.InteractiveHands-on · 5 min
- Why Energy Comes in Steps: Waves in a BoxWe have met energy levels (step 13) and matter waves (step 15). Now we can connect them and see why energy is quantised. Think of a guitar string.InteractiveHands-on · 5 min
- Electron Clouds: What an Atom Really Looks LikePut the last few steps together: an electron in an atom is a trapped wave (so its energy is quantised) described by a wavefunction (a map of where it might be found). So the real picture of an atom is not tiny planets on neat circular orbits.InteractiveHands-on · 5 min
- Quantum Tunnelling: Walking Through WallsRoll a ball towards a hill. If the ball doesn't have enough energy to get over the top, classical physics gives a simple answer: it rolls back. Always. There is a 0% chance of finding it on the other side.InteractiveHands-on · 5 min
- Spin: The Quantum Compass NeedleElectrons (and many other particles) behave like tiny magnets. Physicists call this property spin. You can imagine a tiny spinning ball of charge, although the real thing is stranger, as you are about to see.InteractiveHands-on · 5 min
- Entanglement: Linked Across Any DistanceNow for the quantum effect that troubled Einstein most. Two particles can be created together in a shared state, for example a pair of electrons whose spins must add up to zero.InteractiveHands-on · 5 min
- Quantum Physics in Your PocketQuantum physics can sound like pure philosophy, but it is one of the most practical theories ever discovered. A huge part of modern technology simply could not exist without it. Every idea you have met in this lesson is at work somewhere around you right now.InteractiveHands-on · 4 min
- Before and After, RevisitedAt the start of the lesson you saw six cards comparing the two rulebooks. Now you have seen the experiment behind every one of them.InteractiveHands-on · 4 min
- Final Challenge: The Quantum WorldTime to put everything together. These questions cover the whole lesson.Quiz · 9 questions
- Your Quantum Journey: Recap and Next StepsCongratulations! You have travelled from Newton's clockwork universe all the way to entanglement and quantum computers. Here is the path you followed: Classical physics is smooth and predictable, and treats particles and waves as completely different things.InteractiveHands-on · 6 min
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