Quiz Answer Key and Fun Facts
1. Once upon a time, a little electron named Ernie lived happily in an outer orbital shell of an important copper atom. The copper atom was important because it was part of a wire in the laboratory of the Department of Fiendish Physics of Subatomic University. The wire was frayed, and Ernie had a perfect view of the laboratory. One day, Ernie heard Dr. Max Plankton and the evil wizard physicist, Dr. J Robert Atomhammer, discussing electrons. He heard Atomhammer ask, "Are the little devils particles or waves, that's what I want to know?"
"Ooh, ooh! I know! Electrons are..." Ernie said. But his answer was drowned out in the hum of the machinery. (What did Ernie answer?)
2. "Did you hear something?" Plankton asked.
"Probably just the ether wind," answered Atomhammer dismissively.
"Let's have a look at the cat," suggested Plankton. Ernie had watched earlier as the two scientists constructed their evil, baleful box and placed their cat, Schroedinger, into it. The box had been calibrated so that there was a 50% probability that high-energy photons from a photon gun would pierce the walls. In the box with the cat, they placed a cyanide capsule that could be pierced by the photon. They closed the box, aimed the photon gun at the capsule inside the box and pulled the trigger. Afterward, they argued for hours about whether, inside that baleful box, there was a live cat or a dead cat. (Ernie could have told them. What would he have said?)
3. Ernie breathed a sigh of relief when the two men opened the box and pulled out a happily purring Schroedinger. They grilled the cat for hours, asking whether he had been alive or dead before they opened the box. Schroedinger meowed and purred contentedly at first, but eventually he became annoyed with their questions. He scratched out a single equation and stalked off, tail lashing angrily. They asked one of the other laboratory cats, Heisenberg, what he thought. Heisenberg drew out some boxes with figures in them. At first they thought Schroedinger and Heisenberg had given different answers, but when they analyzed the boxes, Heisenberg's boxes reduced to the same equation that Schroedinger had written. (Respectively, what were Schroedinger and Heisenberg's two formulations of quantum mechanics called?)
4. "These are interesting equations," conceded Plankton, looking at Schroedinger and Heisenberg's formulation of quantum mechanics.
Atomhammer's eyes gleamed wickedly. "We could, Atomhammer began, "put an innocent little electron into our box. We could make the walls impenetrable except by an infinitely powerful particle or by a wave that obeyed these equations. According to these equations, at times, if the electron is really a wave, the electron will be out of the box. If we open the box and the electron is gone, we know our cats are on to something."
"What if the electron is there every time we open the box? Plankton asked.
"If he's still there over and over again," Atomhammer grinned malevolently, "we'll annihilate him in the electron-positron collider." (Is there actually such a thing as an electron-positron collider (outside of a fairy tale)?
5. Ernie the electron's blood would have frozen, if electrons had blood. Those fiends! Ernie felt a tug. Suddenly he was ripped from the copper atom's electron shell. In a rush he hurtled down the wire, shot out into black space and then heard the sickening thud of a lid being shut. He was alone in a box delimited by extremely thin, but extremely high energy walls - by a factor of several googolplexes higher than Ernie's energy. Flash! For just an instant he was outside the box and then back in. These momentary escapes occurred repeatedly but not often. He was never out of the baleful box for more than nanoseconds. The odds of Ernie being out of that box when Atomhammer looked in seemed infinitesimal. (The box has seemingly unsurmountable energy walls. How can Ernie be getting out?)
6. If there is a probability, albeit small, that Ernie is outside the box, could that imply that Ernie might be anywhere in the universe at any particular time?
7. Flash! Ernie the electron was outside the box. He found himself right next to another electron. It was his old friend Pauli the electron. Suddenly, a stray alpha particle collided with them. (Of what does the alpha particle consist?)
8. Ernie was pulled toward the alpha particle. His friend tried to follow him, but something seemed to prevent them both from entering the orbital. He noticed that he and Pauli were spinning in the same direction and groaned. In an instant, a different electron was pulled into the orbital with Ernie, and Pauli bounced away. (Why couldn't Pauli be in the same orbital as Ernie?)
9. The alpha particle had gained two electrons. Ernie felt immense relief. He had escaped the box and was floating free in a stable orbital as part of an inert gaseous atom.
(Of what atom is Ernie part?)
10. Ernie's atom floated over Atomhammer and Plankton. Plankton opened the box and both peered inside. Ernie was gone! "Oh my," exclaimed Plankton, "electrons are waves not particles."
"Unless electrons are both," Atomhammer mused. "And", he added, "if they are waves, they must have wavelength. But how can a point particle have a wavelength?" (Which of the following is true about electrons?)
Source: Author
uglybird
This quiz was reviewed by FunTrivia editor
crisw before going online.
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