Technology

Today I’m driving up to Duluth to register for college with my mom and it made me realize how much I don’t really talk to her. She asked me what I’m doing in school and I told her about physics and how interesting it is. In Physics Mr. Howard is teaching us about quantum mechanics and quantum theories; it really baffles me how people of modern physics think. For example, what was Einstein thought process when he was wondering what it was like to travel next to a beam of light? Or what’s a modern physicist do? Physics is definitely the most interesting and intriguing science class and almost everything relates back to it. Mr. Howard told us today that back in chemistry we were actually learning about physics and quantum theory and how chemistry is just an extension of physics.

Quantum physics is pretty crazy because these genius physicists don’t even know exactly how it works and particles at the atomic level behave completely different. We just learned how when you shoot protons at a double slit the proton splits into two and then it gives a pattern on the sensor that would be just like a wave. But when a device is watching the protons, the protons behave just like they’re supposed to, quantum physics is crazy!! We watched a video about Hugh Everett, a famous physicist, who created the theory of a parallel universe. If an atom can split, and were made out of atoms, can we split too? Who knows? Crazy stuff!

Last week the physics class took a trip to Chicago and we went to see Fermilab, a place where physicists do a bunch of stuff. But what this place is known for is its particle accelerator, where they accelerate protons around a 4 mile track and then collide them. I won’t get too deep into that because I fear I might just lose you guys. But soon Fermilab will be overtaken by a more sophisticated accelerator or in Switzerland called the CERN hadron collider. CERN has a much larger accelerator and the intensity of the beam is also much stronger. This collider is looking for what physicists call the “God” or the higgs particle, which is the basis of everything and could lead to much better technology or even other dimensions, these scientists don’t know what’s going to happen with this accelerator.

My mom and I then got into talking about what the future is going to look like and how much technology has changed and it has. She mentioned what the technology will be like when I’m her age and what kind of things we will be able to do. It’s pretty crazy to think about the technologies we will have such as, traveling and possible living on the moon or how communication will advance. I can’t wait to see what happens and am amazed how our generation will be leading this technology movement.

Photos from: http://www.blacklightpower.com/theory/DoubleSlit.shtml http://www.djibnet.com/photo/atlas/the-large-hadron-collider-atlas-at-cern-2046228644.html