Hi there!
unfortunately, there is no such thing as a "quantum theory of hawking", refering to the physicist stephen hawking.
Quantum mechanics is a field of theoretical physics where everything in the universe is treated just like a wave and a particle at once. this means that nothing in the universe is located in any single spot (rather it is spread out like a wave); and furthermore, waves cannot posess a whole spectrum of energy values (rather, the energy of a wave will always be describable in terms of predictable, bitsized chuncks: hence, "quanta"). The theory of quantum mechanics has given us modern electronics, LED lights, transistors, and a whole host of other fantastic products! QUantum mechanics only seems to apply to the relm of the very small: so the size of an atom...
On the other side of theoretical physics, there is a theory called ""ëinstein's theory of general relativity", which is concerned with very large scales: stars and galaxies and the universe as a whole. This theory says that everything in the universe sits upon something called "spacetime", which is a smooth surface -like a rubber sheet- that massive objects warp. imagine a small ball rolling inwards towards the delfection in a rubber sheet made by a very heavy ball: this is Einstein's explanation for how gravity works (well... it's a very much oversimplified explanation... but this is intuitively how it works). Einstein's theory has predicted several interesting phenomena: that time slows down near very heavy objects (the earth's surface, or near a black hole, for instance).
One problem in modern physics is that Einstéin's theory and Quantum mechanics do not fit well together. they are based on some very fundamentally different assumptions. and furthermore, in-so-far as we can measure, both theories are correct.
So, one way of bridging the gap between the two theories is to study what would happen when we put the two together. the level of physis and mathematics to do so is very high, and so it is still kind of a wilderness: but some physicists have come up with some very interesting results.
Stephen hawking is one of them.
he showed that when you take a quantum field, and put it near a black hole, then someone sitting near the edge of the black hole will see radiation from the field. by this i mean, it will look as if the quantum field has nonzero energy; or alternatively, that particles are being created.
Hawking described this in a very intuitive way. a black hole has something called an "event horizon", which is a one-way barrier in space- things can go through it one way, but not the other. alternatively we can describe it as the point of "no return" past which gravity becomes too strong to escape the black hole. the deal is, what goes in can't go out.
Now, quantum mechanics predicts that particles are always being created and destroyed. an electron and an anti-electron will both pop-out of nothingness, and then cancel each other out. It's like radio static but for elementary particles.
Stephen HAwking put the two together, and said, "suppose an electron an it's anti-electron are created near an event horizon. then suppose the anti-electron crosses the event horizon, but it's pair does not. then... near the black hole's event horizon, you will see particles being created". In his honour, we call this phenomena "Hawking radiation".
another clever thing he noticed was that the temperature of the particles being created was related exactly to the diameter of a black-hole's event horizon. this discovery has introduced a field of study we physicists call "black hole thermodynamics".
good luck! hope this helps.
2006-07-21 21:48:53
·
answer #1
·
answered by BenTippett 2
·
0⤊
0⤋
I can only put it in this simple terms. In quantum theory, the physicists studies or theorize on particles such as light, electron, atoms, and molecular stucture of things. Quantum simply means to quantize or to make sense of things that can not be readily measureable by applying techniques of mathematical calculations so it can be broken down into understandable chunk via numbers. In order words, scientists are almost limited to come up ways to really observe or measure accurately what's going on at the molecular level. Molecular is a terminology, especially used in chemistry, if you have ever taken chemistry course before. But light light particle and electron are much smally in scale as compare to molecules. That's why physicists have to quantized things to better understand what's made out of light particle and electron.
2006-07-22 03:38:36
·
answer #2
·
answered by FILO 6
·
0⤊
0⤋
FILO is full of it, quantum physics is the science of change. take a current flow of 100 electrons per sec supplied by 100 sources of 1 electron/sec to reduce the current flow you must remove sources that supply 1 e/s. the smallest change possible is one electron per second so the Quanta is one electron per second. In the science of quantum physics a quanta is the smallest possible change.
Currently Mr. Hawking is very involved in the nature of gravity, I believe he has joined the scientific community that proposes that gravity is a force acting upon our universe from outside and is constantly pouring energy into our universe (The Begy Theory). The nature of this force can be best understood by investigating it at a quantum level.
2006-07-22 03:56:41
·
answer #3
·
answered by Sleeping Troll 5
·
0⤊
0⤋
American physicist J.A.Wheeler had a hobby:
He collected different interpretations of quantum physics.
Here is one more interpretation of the quantum theory.
www.socratus.com
2006-07-22 09:23:24
·
answer #4
·
answered by socratus 2
·
0⤊
0⤋
Do you understand particle physics?
2006-07-22 03:23:31
·
answer #5
·
answered by Anonymous
·
0⤊
0⤋
I don't think you would understand it, even if it were explained to you.
2006-07-22 03:20:39
·
answer #6
·
answered by Kivan 2
·
0⤊
0⤋
you mean stephen hawking?
2006-07-22 03:15:37
·
answer #7
·
answered by Anonymous
·
0⤊
0⤋