Quantum Mechanics Music Video

Music video for the song "Ode to Quantum Mechanics" by Casual Entropy. Below are the lyrics. Enjoy!

Oh, it starts with James Clerk Maxwell and his laws we know so well
From lines of flux to waves of light and everything is swell
Then along comes guys like Schrodiner, Dirac and Fermi, too
And say goodbye to every thing you might have thought was true

Quantum Mechanics!
It might have several quirks
but no one can deny the fact that quantum theory works

Well quantum really ain't so tough as long as one can chew
on a second-order, complex-valued partial diff-e.q.
The secret to an understanding of duality
The only that's "waving" is the probability

Quantum Mechanics!
It ain't so tough you'll see
It's just a bunch of particles acting stochastic-ly

Uncertainty is not so odd as long as we're aware
position and momentum are a Fourier transform pair
So anything that tightens our precision on the one
means certainty about the other value gets undone

Quantum Mechanics!
It's strange and we agree
but at least it's much simpler to learn than relativity!
Quantum Mechanics!
It might have several quirks
but no one can deny the fact that quantum theory works

Category:

Education

Tags:

• physics
• music
• funny
• song
• quantum
• mechanics
• video
• casual
• entropy
• comedy

[tombombadil10000]

SIMPLER THAN RELATIVITY?! I DON'T THINK SO!!!!!!!!!!!!

[nageljr]

@tombombadil10000

Haha! Most of QM requires a good understanding of partial differential equations and linear algebra. Relativity requires tensors. So really, its a question of which upper-level mathematics you're more comfortable with. For me, it was the former. Some people probably think the latter is easier. Although special relativity is certainly the winner since it only needs algebra.

[skotrachelandriley]

Are the lyrics posted somewhere?

[nageljr]

Read the video description.

[kieszta]

Nice video, but what does diffraction of *light* by a slit have to do with quantum mechanics (being quite a nice home-makeable proof for wave nature of light though)?

[nageljr]

Great question.

The demonstration is assuming you already believe that light consists of photons, and is not really a continuous wave. The thing we really wanted to show is that a stream of discrete photons distributed in a sinc-squared pattern (the little red-dot animation) produces a nearly identical pattern to the one you see with the laser interference. So really, I guess we should call it a "correspondence" demo, but whatever. It still looks cool, right? :)

[sciencoking]

omg! this is awesome!

[c3zarr]

@nageljr I just wanted to criticize the former. but i'm glad it's already straight. love that stuff man.

[mlerma54]

@nageljr The math complexity is probably similar, but the concept of a curved space-time is far simpler than physical states represented by elements of a Hilbert space and observables by self-adjoint operators... not to mention the paradoxes of every interpretation fo QM I have heard of (Copenhagen, Many-Worlds...)

[TheChronichler]

Hmm. I think there is a slightly misleading statement in the song. Wave-particle duality is not related to the wavefunction, which is a complete, probabilistc mathematical description of a system. De Broglie waves and particles actually (co-)exist, but the particle can be forced to become either depending on how we observe it.

[PeaceLenah4]

This is almost my new favorite song

[TheSteady0]

Why is Carl Sagan singing in the chorus? He's a cosmologist as far as I know and has no connection to QM. It might be because he's a popular science figure.

[alamIbbar]

You are awesome!

[phantominhell]

@nageljr i dont understand the half you say but i agree xD

[xXxStRyK3RxXx]

0:21 to 0:27 should be reconsidered, the conservation of probability is not given in this schema O.O ok let´s stop being cocky, great song :D *****

[ScalarPhotonZ]

Why isn't Einstein among those singing the chorus?

[mphello]

@nageljr I totally agree with you. I have never gotten comfortable with tensors.