Polymath

STEM · Full roadmap · ~90 min read · 28 steps

⚛️Quantum physics without the mysticism

Understand what quantum physics really says and what it does not

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Unit 1

1

Start here

Course overview

2

What "quantum" actually means

Quantized means discrete, not continuous

3

The crack in classical physics: glowing hot objects

Blackbody radiation and the ultraviolet catastrophe

4

Planck's desperate fix

Energy comes in packets, E = hf

5

Einstein takes the packets seriously

The photoelectric effect and photons

Unit 2

So is light a wave or a particle?

Wave-particle duality

The double-slit experiment

Interference from two paths

What watching the slits does

Which-path measurement destroys interference

Matter is wavy too: de Broglie

The de Broglie wavelength

The wavefunction

A wave of probability amplitude

Unit 3

Superposition, carefully

A sum of possibilities, not two realities

The uncertainty principle

Position and momentum cannot both be sharp

Why atoms do not collapse: energy levels

Quantized energy and the Bohr model

The limits of the Bohr model: orbitals

Electrons live in probability clouds

Spin

An intrinsic quantum property

Unit 4

Why chemistry works: the Pauli exclusion principle

No two electrons share the same state

Quantum tunneling

Passing through walls that should stop you

Entanglement, honestly

Correlated outcomes from a shared state

Why entanglement does not send signals

No faster-than-light communication

Bell's theorem: ruling out the obvious explanation

The correlations are not from hidden instructions

Unit 5

The measurement problem

The gap between smooth evolution and definite outcomes

Interpretations are stories, not separate physics

Same predictions, different pictures

Decoherence: why the quantum world looks classical

Entanglement with the environment hides interference

Quantum technology you already use

Transistors, lasers, and MRI

Qubits and quantum computing

Using superposition and entanglement to compute

Unit 6

Common myths to retire

The errors people repeat most

Putting it together and how to keep learning

A practice routine for thinking quantum

Where to go next

Where to go next

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