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1 Electrical Charge
16 August 2009
13:59
It means that there is a basic quantity below which the object cannot exist.
The easiest example is the atom. If you have a lump of aluminum, You can try and divide it forever.
However, there will come a time when you cannot divide it any further, because you are left with only one atom. If you succeed in
slitting an atom of aluminum, it is no longer aluminum. The atom is the quantum of elementary matter.
Electromagnetic energy (for example light) comes in little packets called photons. Each photon carries the minimum amount of energy
that light (at that wavelength) can have. You cannot divide this energy by dividing the photon itself.
Imagine a universe with only one hydrogen atom (one proton with an electron orbiting it). The electron can absorb energy from passing
photons, by jumping to higher energy orbits.
However, orbits are "quantized". Either the electron receives enough energy to jump to the next level, or it does not go at all. It cannot
go half-way between orbits.
Let's pretend that the next orbit available has an energy 1 eV higher (the electron-volt is a unit of energy for very small interactions).
And the next higher one is 1.8 eV.
Along comes a photon with 1.6 eV.
The electron will ignore it. Because there is no orbit available at 1.6 (and the electron cannot "make change").
If the orbital energy levels were not "quantized", the electron could take the energy of the photon and simply create a new orbit at 1.6
eV from its old one.
The more we look at how the universe works (at the very small level), the more it looks like ALL quantities are "quantized": they all
have minimum values that can not be divided any more.
Pasted from <http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20091014101052AA8JkUd>
24 January 2010
19:40
15 January 2010
23:10
13 January 2010
11:42
21 January 2010
19:18
14:01
Electric Potential
23 February 2010
14:48
HIGHER LEVEL
24 January 2010
15:58
14:01
20 January 2010
09:49
+_ 3
+_ 3
14:01
Starter Question
05 February 2010
10:23
21 February 2010
03:06
11:26
Resistors in Series
Two resistors A and B
23 January 2010
14:26
14:31
22 February 2010
10:25
14:36
23 March 2010
14:46
Transformers
19 March 2010
14:50
24 February 2010
10:10
Notes
26 February 2010
10:31
12 April 2011
11:20