Quantum Theory Cannot Hurt You

by Marcus Chown

  However, we know that if we locate which slit a bullet goes through, it destroys the interference pattern on the second screen. This is straightforward to understand from the wave point of view. We are as unlikely to see one thing interfere with itself as we are to hear the sound of one hand clapping. But how do we make sense of things from the equally valid particle point of view?

  Remember that the interference pattern on the second screen is like a supermarket bar code. It consists of vertical “stripes” where no bullets hit, alternating with vertical stripes where lots of bullets hit. For simplicity, think of the stripes as black and white. The key question therefore is: From the bullet’s point of view, what would it take to destroy the interference pattern?

  The answer is a little bit of sideways jitter. If each bullet, instead of flying unerringly towards a black stripe, possesses a little sideways jitter in its trajectory so that it can hit either the black stripe or an adjacent white stripe, this will be sufficient to “smear out” the interference pattern. Stripes that were formerly white will become blacker, and stripes that were formerly black will become whiter. The net result will be a uniform gray. The interference pattern will be smeared out.

  Because it must be impossible to tell whether a given bullet will hit a black stripe or an adjacent white stripe (or vice versa), the jittery sideways motion of each bullet must be entirely unpredictable. And all this must come to pass for no other reason than that we are locating which slit each bullet goes through by the recoil of the screen.

  In other words, the very act of pinning down the location of a particle like an electron adds unpredictable jitter, making its velocity uncertain. And the opposite is true as well. The act of pinning down the velocity of a particle makes its location uncertain. The first person to recognise and quantify this effect was the German physicist Werner Heisenberg, and it is called the Heisenberg uncertainty principle in his honour.

  According to the uncertainty principle, it is impossible to know both the location and the velocity of a microscopic particle with complete certainty. There is a trade-off, however. The more precisely its location is pinned down, the more uncertain is its velocity. And the more precisely its velocity is pinned down, the more uncertain its location.

  Imagine if this constraint also applied to what we could know about the everyday world. If we had precise knowledge of the speed of a jet aeroplane, we would not be able to tell whether it was over London or New York. And if we had precise knowledge of the location of the aeroplane, we would be unable to tell whether it was cruising at 1,000 kilometres per hour or 1 kilometre per hour—and about to plummet out of the sky.

  The uncertainty principle exists to protect quantum theory. If you could measure the properties of atoms and their like better than the uncertainty principle permits, you would destroy their wave behaviour—specifically, interference. And without interference, quantum theory would be impossible. Measuring the position and velocity of a particle with greater accuracy than the uncertainty principle dictates must therefore be impossible. Because of the Heisenberg uncertainty principle, when we try to look closely at the microscopic world, it starts to get fuzzy, like a newspaper picture that has been overmagnified. Infuriatingly, nature does not permit us to measure precisely all we would like to measure. There is a limit to our knowledge.

  This limit is not simply a quirk of the double slit experiment. It is fundamental. As Richard Feynman remarked: “No one has ever found (or even thought of) a way around the uncertainty principle. Nor are they ever likely to.”

  It is because alpha particles have a wavelike character that they can escape the apparently escape-proof prison of an atomic nucleus.

  However, the Heisenberg uncertainty principle makes it possible to understand the phenomenon from the particle point of view.

  GOING WHERE NO HIGH JUMPER HAS GONE BEFORE

  Recall that an alpha particle in a nucleus is like an Olympic high jumper corralled by a 5-metre-high fence. Common sense says that it is moving about inside the nucleus with insufficient speed to launch itself over the barrier. But common sense applies only to the everyday world, not to the microscopic world. Ensnared in its nuclear prison, the alpha particle is very localised in space—that is, its position is pinned down with great accuracy. According to the Heisenberg uncertainty principle, then, its velocity must necessarily be very uncertain. It could, in other words, be much greater than we think. And if it is greater, then, contrary to all expectations, the alpha particle can leap out of the nucleus—a feat comparable to the Olympic high jumper jumping the 5-metre fence.

  Alpha particles emerge into the world outside their prison as surprisingly as the Ferrari emerged into the world outside its garage. And this “tunnelling” is due to the Heisenberg uncertainty principle. But tunnelling is a two-way process. Not only can subatomic particles like alpha particles tunnel out of a nucleus, they can tunnel into it too. In fact, such tunnelling in reverse helps explain a great mystery: why the Sun shines.

  TUNNELLING IN THE SUN

  The Sun generates heat by gluing together protons—the nuclei of hydrogen atoms—to make the nuclei of helium atoms.1 This nuclear fusion produces as a by-product a dam burst of nuclear binding energy, which ultimately emerges from the Sun as sunlight.

  But hydrogen fusion has a problem. The force of attraction that glues together protons—the “strong nuclear force”—has an extremely short range. For two protons in the Sun to come under its influence and be snapped together, they must pass extremely close to each other. But two protons, by virtue of their similar electric charge, repel each other ferociously. To overcome this fierce repulsion, the protons must collide at enormous speed. In practice, this requires the core of the Sun, where nuclear fusion goes on, to be at an extremely high temperature.

  Physicists calculated the necessary temperature in the 1920s, just as soon as it was suspected that the Sun was running on hydrogen fusion. It turned out to be roughly 10 billion degrees. This, however, posed a problem. The temperature at the heart of the Sun was known to be only about 15 million degrees—roughly a thousand times lower. By rights, the Sun should not be shining at all. Enter the German physicist Fritz Houtermans and the English astronomer Robert Atkinson.

  When a proton in the core of the Sun approaches another proton and is pushed back by its fierce repulsion, it is just as if it encounters a high brick wall surrounding the second proton. At the 15 million degrees temperature in the heart of the Sun, the proton would appear to be moving far too slowly to jump the wall. However, the Heisenberg uncertainty principle changes everything.

  In 1929, Houtermans and Atkinson carried out the relevant calculations. They discovered that the first proton can tunnel through the apparently impenetrable barrier around the second proton and successfully fuse with it even at the ultralow temperature of 15 million degrees. What is more, this explains perfectly the observed heat output of the Sun.

  The night after Houtermans and Atkinson did the calculation, Houtermans reportedly tried to impress his girlfriend with a line that nobody in history had used before. As they stood beneath a perfect moonless sky, he boasted that he was the only person in the world who knew why the stars were shining. It must have worked. Two years later, Charlotte Riefenstahl agreed to marry him. (Actually, she married him twice, but that’s another story.)

  Sunlight apart, the Heisenberg uncertainty principle explains something much closer to home: the very existence of the atoms in our bodies.

  UNCERTAINTY AND THE EXISTENCE OF ATOMS

  By 1911 the Cambridge experiments of New Zealand physicist Ernest Rutherford had revealed the atom as resembling a miniature solar system. Tiny electrons flitted about a compact atomic nucleus much like planets around the Sun. However, according to Maxwell’s theory of electromagnetism, an orbiting electron should radiate light energy and, within a mere hundred-millionth of a second, spiral into the nucleus. “Atoms,” as Richard Feynman pointed out, “are completely impossible from the classical point
of view.” But atoms do exist. And the explanation comes from quantum theory.

  An electron cannot get too close to a nucleus because, if it did, its location in space would be very precisely known. But according to the Heisenberg uncertainty principle, this would mean that its velocity would be very uncertain. It could become enormously huge.

  Imagine an angry bee in a shrinking box. The smaller the box gets, the angrier the bee and the more violently it batters itself against the walls of its prison. This is pretty much the way an electron behaves in an atom. If it were squeezed into the nucleus itself, it would acquire an enormous speed—far too great to stay confined in the nucleus.

  The Heisenberg uncertainty principle, which explains why electrons do not spiral into their nuclei, is therefore the ultimate reason why the ground beneath our feet is solid. But the principle does more than simply explain the existence of atoms and the solidity of matter. It explains why atoms are so big—or at least so much bigger than the nuclei at their cores.

  WHY ATOMS ARE SO BIG

  Recall that a typical atom is about 100,000 times bigger than the nucleus at its centre. Understanding why there is such a fantastic amount of empty space in atoms requires being a bit more precise about the Heisenberg uncertainty principle. Strictly speaking, it says that it is a particle’s position and momentum—rather than just its velocity—that cannot simultaneously be determined with 100 per cent certainty.

  The momentum of a particle is the product of its mass and velocity. It’s really just a measure of how difficult it is to stop something that is moving. A train, for instance, has a lot of momentum compared to a car, even if the car is going faster. A proton in an atomic nucleus is about 2,000 times more massive than an electron. According to the Heisenberg uncertainty principle, then, if a proton and an electron are confined in the same volume of space, the electron will be moving about 2,000 times faster.

  Already, we get an inkling of why the electrons in an atom must have a far bigger volume to fly about in than the protons and neutrons in the nucleus. But atoms are not just 2,000 times bigger than their nuclei; they are more like 100,000 times bigger. Why?

  The answer is that an electron in an atom and a proton in a nucleus are not in the grip of the same force. While the nuclear particles are held by the powerful “strong nuclear” force, the electrons are held by the much weaker electric force. Think of the electrons flying about the nucleus attached to gossamer threads of elastic while the protons and the neutrons are constrained by elastic 50 times thicker. Here is the explanation for why the atom is a whopping 100,000 times bigger than the nucleus.

  But the electrons in an atom do not orbit at one particular distance from the nucleus. They are permitted to orbit at a range of distances. Explaining this requires resorting to yet another wave picture—this one involving organ pipes!

  OF ATOMS AND ORGAN PIPES

  There are always many different ways of looking at things in the quantum world, each a glimpse of a truth that is frustratingly elusive. One way is to think of the probability waves associated with an atom’s electrons as being like sound waves confined to an organ pipe. It is not possible to make just any note with the organ pipe. The sound can vibrate in only a limited number of different ways, each with a definite pitch, or frequency.

  This turns out to be a general property of waves, not just sound waves. In a confined space they can exist only at particular, definite frequencies.

  Now think of an electron in an atom. It behaves like a wave. And it is gripped tightly by the electrical force of the atomic nucleus. This may not be exactly the same as being trapped in a physical container. However, it confines the electron wave as surely as the wall of an organ pipe confines a sound wave. The electron wave can therefore exist at only certain frequencies.

  The frequencies of the sound waves in an organ pipe and of the electron waves in an atom depend on the characteristics of the organ pipe—a small organ pipe, for instance, produces higher-pitched notes than a big organ pipe—and on the characteristics of the electrical force of the atomic nucleus. In general, though, there is lowest, or fundamental, frequency and a series of higher-frequency “overtones.”

  A higher-frequency wave has more peaks and troughs in a given space. It is choppier, more violent. In the case of an atom, such a wave corresponds to a faster-moving, more energetic electron. And a faster-moving, more energetic electron is able to defy the electrical attraction of the nucleus and orbit farther away.

  The picture that emerges is of an electron that is permitted to orbit at only certain special distances from the nucleus. This is quite unlike our solar system where a planet such as Earth could, in principle, orbit at any distance whatsoever from the Sun.

  This property highlights another important difference between the microscopic world of atoms and the everyday world. In the everyday world, all things are continuous—a planet can orbit the Sun anywhere it likes, people can be any weight they like—whereas things in the microscopic world are discontinuous—an electron can exist in only certain orbits around a nucleus, light and matter can come in only certain indivisible chunks. Physicists call the chunks quanta—which is why the physics of the microscopic world is known as quantum theory.

  The innermost orbit of an electron in an atom is determined by the Heisenberg uncertainty principle—by its hornetlike resistance to being confined in a small space. But the Heisenberg uncertainty principle does not simply prevent small things like atoms from shrinking without limit—ultimately explaining the solidity of matter. It also prevents far bigger things from shrinking without limit. The far bigger things in question are stars.

  UNCERTAINTY AND STARS

  A star is a giant ball of gas held together by the gravitational pull of its own matter. That pull is constantly trying to shrink the star and, if unopposed, would very quickly collapse it down to the merest speck—a black hole. For the Sun this would take less than half an hour. Since the Sun is very definitely not shrinking down to a speck, there must be another force counteracting gravity. There is. It comes from the hot matter inside. The Sun—along with every other normal star—is in a delicate state of balance, with the inward force of gravity exactly matched by the outward force of its hot interior.

  This balance, however, is temporary. The outward force can be maintained only while there is fuel to burn and keep the star hot. Sooner or later, the fuel will run out. For the Sun this will occur in about another 5 billion years. When this happens, gravity will be king. Unopposed, it will crush the star, shrinking it ever smaller.

  But all is not lost. In the dense, hot environment inside a star, frequent and violent collisions between high-speed atoms strip them of their electrons, creating a plasma, a gas of atomic nuclei mixed in with a gas of electrons. It is the tiny electrons that unexpectedly come to the rescue of the fast-shrinking star. As the electrons in the star’s matter are jammed ever closer together, they buzz about ever more violently because of the Heisenberg uncertainty principle. They batter anything trying to confine them, and this collective battering results in a tremendous outward force. Eventually, it is enough to slow and halt the shrinkage of the star.

  A new balance is struck with the inward pull of gravity balanced not by the outward force of the star’s hot matter but by the naked force of its electrons. Physicists call it degeneracy pressure. But it’s just a fancy term for the resistance of electrons to being squeezed too close together. A star supported against gravity by electron pressure is known as a white dwarf. Little more than the size of Earth and occupying about a millionth of the star’s former volume, a white dwarf is an enormously dense object. A sugarcube of its matter weighs as much as a car!

  One day the Sun will become a white dwarf. Such stars have no means of replenishing their lost heat. They are nothing more than stellar embers, cooling inexorably and gradually fading from view. But the electron pressure that prevents white dwarfs from shrinking under their own gravity has its limits. The more massive a star, the stronge
r its self-gravity. If the star is massive enough, its gravity will be powerful enough to overcome even the stiff resistance of the star’s electrons.

  In fact, the star is sabotaged from both outside and inside. The stronger the gravity of a star, the more it squeezes the gas inside. And the more a gas is squeezed, the hotter it gets, as anyone who has used a bicycle pump knows. Since heat is nothing more than the microscopic jiggling of matter, the electrons inside the star fly about ever faster—so fast, in fact, that the effects of relativity become important.2 The electrons get more massive rather than much faster, which means they are less effective at battering the walls of their prison.

  The star suffers a double whammy—crushed by stronger gravity and simultaneously robbed of the ability to fight back. The two effects combine to ensure that the heaviest a white dwarf can be is a mere 40 per cent more massive than the Sun. If a star is heavier than this “Chandrasekhar limit”, electron pressure is powerless to halt its headlong collapse and it just goes on shrinking.

  But, once again, all is not lost. Eventually, the star shrinks so much that its electrons, despite their tremendous aversion to being confined in a small volume, are actually squeezed into the atomic nuclei. There they react with protons to form neutrons, so that the whole star becomes one giant mass of neutrons.

  Recall that all particles of matter—not just electrons—resist being confined because of the Heisenberg uncertainty principle. Neutrons are thousands of times more massive than electrons. They therefore have to be squeezed into a volume thousands of times smaller to begin to put up significant resistance. In fact, they have to be squeezed together until they are virtually touching before they finally halt the shrinkage of the star.