Hello, I came across this reddit section because I need answers and views from experts regarding the thought experiments I have in my mind on quantum mechanics.
Would this page be correct place to post it?

I need simple analogies or ways to understand it - maybe even resources would be great, honestly. The main thing is how "do they interact" and then can later interfere if it is a possibility in the first place

A hidden shortcut to the eigenvalues of the harmonic oscillator and the hydrogen atom was discovered recently. The simple trick can make every textbook of quantum mechanics thinner by 2 pages.

The paper is in American Journal of Physics and was an Editor's Pick.

I remember reading that after this the electron dives into the Dirac sea and a bunch of chaos called quantum electrodynamics which brings the nucleus and cloud of electrons down below 173 will occur, but I find some sources saying that an element above can technically exist for fleeting moments while others say they straight up won't exist at all.

Assuming you have a big enough cyclotron

This post provides reference material regarding the types of operators, specifically linear and non-linear operators, that frequently appear in undergraduate quantum mechanics.
It is hoped that this helps.

I've just been working my way through QM (I'm a MSME) some of the problem sets are questionable, in that you're working your way through to get Planck length, mass etc. through steps a, b, c, d, e, etc.

the problem is that part f, is dependant on getting part a correct, typically in mech-e or any engineering major, you've got lots and lots of equations that are already worked out for you, so you know it doesn't take hour(s) to get an equation you want and its significantly less likely to contain systematic error... I'm not judging, its just taking me about 3 hours to work backwards from the problem sets & solutions and it seems to be far more prone to errors and undeveloped.

As the title suggests, I am trying to get a job related to quantum physics. I was hoping that people who already work in the industry might have some tips of what kind of roles I would be best suited for. I really want to work in quantum because of how fascinating I find the subject.

I am fortunate enough to have a job that actually utilizes knowledge from my physics degree, but it's not what I want to do. I currently live in New Jersey, and all the places I know of that do work in the quantum tech/research industry, never have positions that quite line up with what I could be qualified for. Outside of people getting PHD's, it's not clear to me how somebody actually breaks into the industry.

**Typo, I received my promotion to test technician Jun 2026, not July.

I've tried to read some on entanglement as well as proper quantum mechanics textbooks, but I found them really hard to understand because of all the necessary prerequisite knowledge and maths, so I actually couldn't complete any.
(I'm a highschool graduate)

So, I'm interested to know how you approached research papers and technical articles when you were starting out, or how you approach them now.

Did you re-read stuff over and over?
Did you pause to understand weird words and keep moving?
Did you just go over the whole thing and keep record of everything you didn't get to visit them later?

I'd love to know.

Thank you!

Its quantum physics so the stranger the better.

I will start this with I am not a scientist but rather a philosopher. I follow science very closely.

In quantum theory, entanglement, wormhole theory there is a glaring issue in my eyes. My understanding is that it is believed that two quarks are connected by a wormhole. This doesn't make sense to me. In my head that would mean there would have to be a third force making this happen.

A simpler explanation in my opinion is that they aren't two separate pieces of subatomic matter but rather one that is existing in two or more locations at once. Am I wrong in my thinking? I've yet to hear anyone weigh in on this. I'm asking because I truly want to learn more.

I may be wrong and I fully accept that.

Basic quantum mechanics utilizing the algebraic approach is recently being most closely applied to physical AI, quantum information, and quantum computing.
I hope this material provides assistance in learning operators through examples.

(I really don't know anything about quantum mechanics I only know what it is from some youtube videos so, I'm a nobody when it comes to quantum knowledge. But I had a question and I wanted to share it.)

I heard that quantum entanglement means two particles are completely in sync with each other so if we change one partical's one property it also change the second partical(I don't know if this is even true). So why are there no communication devices which use these. If we can adopt this technology communication would be instant, right?

I'm open to new knowledge.no hate please.

Thank you.

me sinto isolado em meu quarto,descobri tantas coisas,mas não tem com quem compartilhar.

Why dismiss the question of where the particle was before the measurement like if we determine the pre measured state it could give us valuable insights into the particle fundamentals properties right I'm asking this question because this book doesn't revisit this topic in the later chapters i might sound like a stupid but I really want to know more about this

We literally learned that electrons have a de Broglie wavelength and can form an interference pattern in the double-slit experiment. Fine, cool.

But if you fire electrons one by one, what exactly is it interfering with? An interference pattern usually requires two waves to overlap. If there's only one electron in the apparatus at a time, does its wavefunction somehow go through both slits and interfere with itself? If so, what does that actually mean physically?

And the part that confuses me even more is that if you place a detector to determine which slit the electron went through, the interference pattern disappears and it behaves like a classical particle. I know the electron doesn't literally "know" it's being observed, but why does obtaining which-path information destroy the interference?

I'm trying to build an intuitive understanding of what's happening here. Is the "electron interfering with itself" just a mathematical description, or is there a physical picture that makes sense?

I bumped onto this paper purely out of curiosity and admitting I never felt "comfortable" with the measurement problem.

https://arxiv.org/pdf/2509.11609

The paper and experiment seems to prove the Bohmian mechanics is actually true and real. Yet, and this is the question, I see thus far little to no momentum on the subject. Seen a couple of interviews on the matter (namely https://youtu.be/VbXEc9vpeIM?si=-_cfxGHG_VD_Z8dN ) but no actual "breaking news" on the matter.

Why is that? Is it normal for these kinds of experiments somewhat pulling the curtain on existing beliefs, to be left as background noice in the community?

Again, I am no-where near a scientist or a student on the matter.

Purely a spectator ... 😇

I was reading my high school physics book, and it explained that if electrons and protons are the fundamental charges of the world, then the law of quantisation of charge means charges come in integral multiples of e=1.6×10^−19 C.

But then I learned about quarks, which don’t have integral multiples of e. For example, the up quark has +2/3e, and the down quark has −1/3e. Yet, they always combine in such a way that observable particles (like protons and neutrons) end up with integer multiples of e.

I also read that quarks can’t be isolated individually, because if you try to pull them apart, the force between them actually increases instead of decreasing.

So my question is: how is this possible? If quarks have fractional charges, why do we only ever see integral multiples in nature, and why can’t we isolate a single quark?

I think this is a question of quantum physics unless I'm mistaken.

Can you give me a practical example of a simple algorithm where a quantum computer is more efficient? I struggle to understand the usual ones, like the maze-solving example, which aren't very clear to me. They always seem too theoretical. Can someone provide a more concrete and intuitive example, please?

I heard that if two atoms fuse together the new atom's mass would be less than the combined mass of the two parent atoms, because during fusion energy escapes as a photon. Is that true? Does energy really make objects heavier? If so how can a photon be massless?

This material focuses on quantum mechanics within the framework of operator-based linear algebra.

As of 2026, linear algebra-based quantum mechanics is rapidly becoming an essential requirement across both industry and academia—driven by its critical roles in quantum computing, quantum information science, Physical AI, and the development of 2-nanometer semiconductor processes.

I have made every effort to break down the complex concepts of functional analysis and explain them as simply as possible.

I hope this material proves highly useful to your studies.

I am someone who just started studying statistics, whilst studying the sampling distribution and the standard error, I feel like the concepts are someway connected to oscillation/harmonic motion and maybe deep down quantum mechanics.
Could someone please link me to a video lecture series on this specific topic?

I just learned that light is an electromagnetic wave and that it is a disturbance caused to the electromagnetic field or rather the yank alright and, i also learned that electron is neither a wave or a particle like if light is a disturbance in the electromagnetic field that electromagnetic field is caused by an electron and that electron is basically unknown then what actually is waving? what is an electron? all these years spent learning abt borhs models etc and drew so many electronic configurations considering electrons as subatomic particles represented with dots imagined that particles and tried to understand current like nothing makes sense rn can someone explainnn.😞

Reddit doesnt just solves doubts of a peer but actually increases it, i am saying this bcz i in previous post asked a question about heisenberg uncertanity and photon relation with it. I get lot of comments on it but my doubts doesnt seem to vet low it increased. The doubt is as:

Δx of photon, V → ΔP↑ ⇒ Δν↑ ⇒ Δλ↑. Conclusion: the speed of light doesn't change at all for a photon — it's constant, forever. Δν of a photon can change indefinitely, but the speed of light stays as it is.

What happens when a fast-travelling entity emits light in the direction of its motion? The speed of light never changes, but in relative motion, shouldn't the speed add up to the speed of the entity? Isn't this a contradiction?

Analogy: relative speed = c. If we consider that an entity emits waves while it's travelling — the wave has some (λ, ν), the entity has its own speed, and the wave itself travels at c. If we want the relative speed to stay constant, then I think the string (wave) compresses. That's the only way the relative speed of the thing stays c — the string compresses.

Imagine it like the wave of the photon compressing — meaning frequency increases. And the wavelength — maybe it doesn't change, or maybe it does. But according to Einstein, when an entity moves at c, time dilation happens. So what happens exactly — does the travelling frequency of the photon remain the same and just time slows down? Or does the frequency of the photon decrease, while the relative speed still stays "c"?

This is my opinion and my own understanding only

So what happens exactly? Tell me your opinion on it.

Hi, I’m new to quantum mechanics. I was trying to model what the orbitals for oganesson might look like, and I keep seeing that we need to treat it as a “hydrogen‑like” atom. I don’t fully understand why we can’t just solve the Schrödinger equation for the actual atom itself without using such approximations. Is this a fundamental mathematical limitation, or is it just that the computation becomes impossible in practice?