with mr mackenzie
There’s a nice item on quantum tunnelling on the BBC News site.
Scientists at Peratech have developed “spikey” particles for use in the touchscreen of smartphones. The breakthrough is that the quantum tunneling effect means that the screen is pressure sensitive.
I found this video on quantum tunneling on youtube.
We’ve just started to look at the parts of unit 1 we left behind in November. The first of these is Quantum Physics. It’s a strange topic and you might want to stick your head in the sand of classical physics and seek refuge in waves. Luckily, Prof. Chad Orzel has come to our rescue with a blog post called Four things everyone should know about Quantum Physics.
Prof. Orzel is also the (co)author of a book called How to teach Physics to your dog. I’ve not bought it yet but the free download of chapter one (use the link below) mentions some of the ideas we have looked at already and mentions some names that should be familiar by now: Einstein, Planck, de Broglie (is that picture of de Broglie wrong, looks like a young Einstein to me?) and Millikan.
Have a read of the introductory chapter and share it with you dog. The interview is good too.
