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The word quantum is the neuter singular of the Latin interrogative adjective quantus, meaning "how much"."Quanta", the neuter plural, short for "quanta of electricity" (electrons), was used in a 1902 article on the photoelectric effect by Philipp Lenard, who credited Hermann von Helmholtz for using the word in the area of electricity.
Quantum mechanics is a fundamental theory that describes the behavior of nature at and below the scale of atoms. [2]: 1.1 It is the foundation of all quantum physics, which includes quantum chemistry, quantum field theory, quantum technology, and quantum information science. Quantum mechanics can describe many systems that classical physics cannot.
The quantum harmonic oscillator is the quantum-mechanical analog of the classical harmonic oscillator. Because an arbitrary smooth potential can usually be approximated as a harmonic potential at the vicinity of a stable equilibrium point , it is one of the most important model systems in quantum mechanics.
Quantum entanglement is the phenomenon of a group of particles being generated, interacting, or sharing spatial proximity in a manner such that the quantum state of each particle of the group cannot be described independently of the state of the others, including when the particles are separated by a large distance.
In the words of quantum physicist Richard Feynman, quantum mechanics deals with "nature as She is—absurd". [4] Features of quantum mechanics often defy simple explanations in everyday language. One example of this is the uncertainty principle: precise measurements of position cannot be combined with precise measurements of velocity.
In quantum computing, a quantum algorithm is an algorithm that runs on a realistic model of quantum computation, the most commonly used model being the quantum circuit model of computation. [ 1 ] [ 2 ] A classical (or non-quantum) algorithm is a finite sequence of instructions, or a step-by-step procedure for solving a problem, where each step ...
The result is a prediction for the system represented by the state. Knowledge of the quantum state, and the rules for the system's evolution in time, exhausts all that can be known about a quantum system. Quantum states may be defined differently for different kinds of systems or problems. Two broad categories are
The general definition of a qubit as the quantum state of a two-level quantum system.In quantum computing, a qubit (/ ˈ k juː b ɪ t /) or quantum bit is a basic unit of quantum information—the quantum version of the classic binary bit physically realized with a two-state device.