{"id":585,"date":"2007-07-28T07:58:17","date_gmt":"2007-07-28T06:58:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/wordpress\/?p=585"},"modified":"2007-07-28T07:58:17","modified_gmt":"2007-07-28T06:58:17","slug":"whats-the-most-complicated-thing-in-the-world-to-understand","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/?p=585","title":{"rendered":"What&#8217;s the most complicated thing in the world to understand?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Dear reader &#8211; I give you: <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Quantum_mechanics\">quantum mechanics<\/a>.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Do I accept the <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Copenhagen_interpretation\">Copenhagen interpretation<\/a>?\n<li>How is it that light is both a wave and a particle (the <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Wave-particle_duality\">wave-particle duality<\/a>)?\n<li>How can <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Schr%C3%B6dinger%27s_cat\">Schr\u00f6dinger&#8217;s cat<\/a> be both alive and dead?\n<li>How is that the physical universe is probabilistic rather than deterministic (Heisenberg&#8217;s <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Uncertainty_Principle\">uncertainty principle<\/a>)?.<\/ul>\n<p>Now, some 40 years ago, I did study A Level Physics, so I&#8217;m not totally unfamiliar with the behaviour of sub-atomic particles. On my reading pile is <a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.co.uk\/Search-Schrodingers-Cat-John-Gribbin\/dp\/0552125555\/ref=pd_bowtega_1\/203-6208294-0335959?ie=UTF8&#038;s=books&#038;qid=1185573349&#038;sr=1-1\">&#8220;In Search Of Schr\u00f6dinger&#8217;s Cat&#8221;<\/a> by John Gribbin. In the meanwhile I&#8217;ve started to watch the three-part BBC4 series <a href=\"http:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/bbcfour\/documentaries\/features\/atom.shtml\">&#8220;Atom&#8221;<\/a> presented by Professor Jim Al-Khalili. It&#8217;s tough going &#8230;<br \/>\nAs <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Niels_Bohr\">Niels Bohr<\/a> said: &#8220;And anyone who thinks they can talk about quantum theory without feeling dizzy hasn&#8217;t yet understood the first thing about it.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Dear reader &#8211; I give you: quantum mechanics. Do I accept the Copenhagen interpretation? How is it that light is both a wave and a particle (the wave-particle duality)? How can Schr\u00f6dinger&#8217;s cat be both alive and dead? How is that the physical universe is probabilistic rather than deterministic (Heisenberg&#8217;s uncertainty principle)?. Now, some 40 [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-585","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-science-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/585","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=585"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/585\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=585"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=585"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=585"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}