Can you simply explain to me what quantum is?

Question

I can't find a simple answer for this question?

Answer 1

A quantum (pl. quanta) is the smallest discrete amount of something that can exist, especially energy. If something can be quantized, that is, divided into quanta, then it is not a continuum.
For examples, the quantum of electrical charge is 1.6 x 10^-19 C, the quantum of time is 5.4 x 10^-44 s, and the quantum of energy is a photon.

Answer 2

In physics, a quantum (plural: quanta) refers to an indivisible entity of energy. For instance, a "light quantum", being a unit of light (that is, a photon). In combinations like "quantum mechanics", "quantum optics", etc., it distinguishes a more specialized field of study.

The word comes from the Latin "quantus", for "how much".

Behind this, one finds the fundamental notion that a physical property may be "quantized", referred to as "quantization". This means that the magnitude can take on only certain numerical values, rather than any value, at least within a range. For example, the energy of an electron bound to an atom (at rest) is quantized. This accounts for the stability of atoms, and matter in general.

An entirely new conceptual framework was developed around this idea, during the first half of the 1900s. Usually referred to as quantum "mechanics", it is regarded by virtually every professional physicist as the most fundamental framework we have for understanding and describing nature, for the very practical reason that it works. It is "in the nature of things", not a more or less arbitrary human preference.

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Answer 3

Quantum is the word to describe a discrete amount of something.

Ever since it was discovered that energy arrives in packets no smaller than a certain size (later called photons), Quantum Physics because the study of physical behaviour for events at the scale of this tiny particle.

Answer 4

Just like the atomic theory divides matter up into discrete particles called atoms (quantum matter), quantum theory divides energy up into discrete particles of energy called quanta.

If you are dealing with light the quanta are called photons.

This was made possible by the early work of Albert Einstein on the photoelectric effect, which he won the Nobel Prize for in 1905.

It is generally recognized that matter (particles) have wave (energy) properties and that energy (waves) have particle (quanta) properties. In fact, what is really there (reality) is something that is neither just particles or waves and the only difference between matter and energy is that matter has mass.