A mind-blowing quantum thought....

[calteacherguy]

From Schrodinger wave equation, probability functions for electrons orbits about nuclei can be developed. These are electron shells called probability densities or orbitals, clouds of probability as to where the electron might be or where it is forbidden to be. This is demonstrated in the above illustration, which shows the 2Px orbital and a probability wave corresponding to ian electrons likelihood of being found at some x-position. However, these are not hard shells, but rather soft shells of where a electron is eighty or ninety percent likely to be. Among the thought-provoking implications this brings is the possibility, however unlikely, that some given electron orbiting some given nucleus -- say one in the eye you are using to read this -- is some great distance away: the other side of the Planet, the outer edges of our solar system, some distant spiral arm of the Milky Way Galaxy...

http://online.redwoods.cc.ca.us/depts/science/chem/storage/Schrod/page3.htm

[MrScorpio]

1. What would his cat have say about this?

Inquiring mind want to know

[Kutjara]

3. "miaow"? n/t

[Kutjara]

2. Thats one of the great beauties of Quantum Theory.

I remember when I first read Feynman's lectures on chromodynamics, summing over histories and the rest. The slow dawning of the idea that reality is constructed from such majestic ephemera, and that particles can be/have been/will be everywhere and nowhere just before they are here (maybe), affected me deeply.

I was reading an article recently in, I think, New Scientist about how our four dimensional universe may be a "holographic" projection of a higher-dimensional reality. They're still working out the mathematics on this one, but it neatly explains a lot of the current imponderables about quantum theory and, more interestingly, gravitation. It also may just be testable.

Truly, we live in interesting times.

[rug]

4. I miss the lolcat threads.