The Hop Towards Quantum-Mechanics

Sudhanva Arunkumar
Personal Tutor: Jay Farihi
Mathematics resonates within each and every physical phenomenon: be it
Mechanics, Thermodynamics or Electromagnetism. The development of
Physics constantly hinges on the tools provided by it and Mechanics
provides us with the opportunity to view one such development. But what
is Mechanics?
Mechanics is the area of applied Mathematics that deals with motion and
the forces producing motion. For years since Newton enunciated his laws,
classical mechanics was the major area of Physics at play: the study of the
motion of bodies using Newtons principles of motion. It thrived because of
its accuracy in the prediction of physical phenomena at a macroscopic
scale. The motion of projectiles could be described meticulously due to it
and, by using Keplers laws of motion alongside Newtons laws of motion,
the orbital period of an orbiting body could be predicted to a very good,
accurate value.
As we come out of the macroscopic world however and delve into the subatomic world, the many rules laid down by classical mechanics are
disobeyed.
Through time, there has always been a debate due to the nature of light:
whether it was a particle or whether it was a wave. Huygens labelled light
as a wave while Newton theorised it as a particle. The possibility of light
being a wave was backed up very strongly initially through experimental
data. The Youngs Double-Slit experiment sided with Huygens. Collimated,
monochromatic (using only one colour/wavelength of light) light was
shone towards an opaque sheet with two slits. This then produced
interference patterns (a pattern of light and no light in bars) on the screen
where the light can be seen a wave-like property. This was caused by the
difference in the distances travelled by the wave to the screen.
A black body is an ideal body that absorbs all radiation incident upon it.
Although its an ideal object, many physical objects behave as black
bodies. When the emission of light radiated by black bodies was measured
for different temperatures, it was found that the light energy absorbed and
emitted cannot be done so continuously it had to be done in discrete
packages of energy. Light energy was also found to cause the emission of
electrons from a metal (as part of the photoelectric effect), but the funny
thing was that, the intensity of the light did not change the number of
electrons emitted from the metal, but the frequency of the light did. This
again led to the concept where light energy is not absorbed or emitted
continuously, but is done so in discrete packages. These discrete packages
of energy indicated that light should be considered as a particle.
The quantisation of energy, and the fact that light can behave as a wave
and a particle led to the need for quantum mechanics to explain and gain
a deeper understanding of these phenomena.