This stuff is incredible!
I have always loved science, and quantum mechanics is particularly fascinating. I mean, it's like Alice in Wonderland- things don't work the way they do in normal reality- except it IS normal reality! Quantum effects are just normally way too small to see!
Now, I don't know the math, just some basic ideas.
One of the central ideas is the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle. It says that many things, especially speed/direction and position, are uncertain. You can only know them to a certain accuracy- never absolutely. And the more accurately you know speed and direction together as one unit, the less accurately you know position, and vice-versa. Also, the more massive something is, or the more energy a photon has, the smaller the uncertainties are. For a photon of visible light, the position/size uncertainty is around three feet wide!!!!!! (according to Professor Schumacher.)
This uncertainty is usually described as a flaw in how 'real' something is- it only 'pops' into reality when it hits a substance and is observed, like the Moon pops in and out of place when you are or aren't looking. By an amount too tiny to see, far smaller than an atom for the Moon. I always thought otherwise.
I always thought that these uncertainties ARE the realities- that the uncertainty IS the reality. That whatever the equations predict, whatever it is, is the property of the fluid-like substance that all matter and energy is made of. That the 'uncertainty' is the CERTAIN reality describing the substance that everything is made of, a 'quantum fluid', perhaps.
Then I watched Benjamin Schumacher's lecture series (I just finished lecture 6) on quantum mechanics, from the Teaching Company. His serieses on quantum mechanics and gravity are incredible, if you have any interest in science you will love them and will be blown away.
There are three philosophical interpretations of quantum mechanics, apparently- one that the probabilities are determined by something deeper and IMMENSELY complicated, one that each probability becomes a seperate universe, and one- the original one by Neils Bohr, the Copenhagen Interpretation, that quantum physics IS the reality and describes the probabilities that exist in ONE universe- ours.
My 'quantum fluid' obviously exists in Neils Bohr's interpretation.
Then, in Lecture 4, he described the Max Born principle.
Soccer (Futbol) has the Miracle of Bern, the greatest upset of all time. (along with US beating Spain in 2009, perhaps.)
(Futbol is the Latino spelling- I have many Mexican friends (and a sweet stepfamily!))
Now we have the Miracle of Born. (from before 1954's Miracle of Bern, though.)
The source of quantum physics is the idea that things are waves and particles at the same time.
Max Born determined that the strength of the wave at any one spot determins the probability of finding the particle there.
That's IT! That's my 'quantum fluid'!!!!!!!! But Max Born determined far more than that- he tells us the very NATURE of my 'quantum fluid'- and it's nothing less than an explination of what it means to be a wave and be made of particles at the same time!!!!!!!!!
I NEVER thought it could be explained how something can be a particle and a wave at the same time- much less so easily!!! A Miracle indeed!!!!!!!!!!
Then, in Lecture 6, Schumacher says that Heisenberg HIMSELF describes the 'Uncertainty' as an 'indeterminacy'- it is not an uncertainty at all- it IS the reality.
THAT'S IT!!!!!!!! That's my 'quantum fluid' idea!!!!!!!! He knew it all along!!!!!!!!
Heisenberg, Neils Bohr, and Max Born know far better that I do, of course!
This lecture series is a revelation.
Hope you enjoyed my observations!
David S. Annderson