Re: The current state of things make me want to kick a puppy....

[A Wasted Life]

'ello thar

[Jack]

hi

[reichou]

hey

[A Wasted Life]

So uh, anyone gonna post an actual sentence? >_>

[momo]

no

[reichou]

negatory

[Jack]

yes

[reichou]

who?

[A Wasted Life]

o_O We haven't had this many people on at once in months!

And you people can't even conjure up a simple conversation. For shame.

[Jack]

him. XD

[Xeno_Predator]

You do not want me to conjure up a coherent paragraph.

[A Wasted Life]

Go on, give it a shot.

[momo]

that reminds me. Xeno and AWL dont get along very well btw

[A Wasted Life]

You just don't understand the bromance we've got going on here.

[Jack]

lol ok good to know

[Queen]

Hey all.

[Jack]

hiya

[A Wasted Life]

He have 8! Oh and hey queen! <_<

[Xeno_Predator]

Today's morning lecture was about utilising the Schrodinger equation to describe the behaviour of a particle in quantum terms in one dimension but disregarding the time factor (for now). Essentially we were looking at one part out of the whole equation, which concerns the wave function. The mathematical model demonstrated how when we know the position of the particle we cannot know it's momentum, and vice versa. "Position" in this case is the modulus of a solution to the wave function which consisted of a real number and a complex (or imaginary) number, which becomes a probability factor instead of one precise number. Incidentally the probability distribution, after linear combination of interfering waves, show a distinct pattern of particles (photons, for argument's sake and for them having no mass) which represent energy levels. On a side note, photons are totally awesome because they have no mass yet still has momentum (a concept explored in the use of "Solar Sails").
When applying the distribution pattern to an atom, the idea of electron orbitals became clear. The minima of the wave function represents 0 probability of electrons being present, while the maxima represents the highest electron density in the region. With a recurring pattern, different orbitals are derived in order of increasing energy. The energy levels are calculated by another part of the Schrodinger equation and can be observed that it changes according to an exponential factor, which was found to relate to Planck's constant and thus explains the photoelectric effect. In essence this effect describes how a surface can generate energy when a light of sufficient intensity is shone upon it. Practical application of this can be seen with solar cells. Any ways, I'm starting to seriously veer off on a tangent to the concept of proton behaviour according to the photoelectric effect here so I'll stop. A more related example would be diffraction of a laser beam by a grating smaller than the wavelength of laser used. This causes a diffraction pattern consisting of maxima and minima much like the aforementioned electron distribution pattern. The big point here is that electrons are particles. Photons are waves. Yet, they behave in the same way at the nanoscale. This demonstrates the wave/particle duality nature of matter.

[A Wasted Life]

Ugh wall of text.

Tl;dr please.

[reichou]

the dude totally missed it...

[Queen]

Hello to you too, Xeno.

[momo]

herro queen

[A Wasted Life]

I actually read through that and did a decent job of keeping up even though I haven't heard of more than a few of those terms. >_>

[Xeno_Predator]

Hi Queen.

TL;DR version: matter has a corresponding wave nature.

[Sponsored content]