Books etc

Measurement scales and vectors

We often talk about quantities and measurements. When we say Millie weighs 6 kilograms, her tail is 25 centimeters long, and today it’s 23 degrees, we are using numbers and units of measurement: kg, cm, and degrees Celsius. Each unit of measurement refers to a measurement scale. Here are some exampl...…
in macroscopic concepts
Measurement scales and vectors

What's the real shape of an electron?

In Millie's stories, electrons look like little spheres with a funny pointy hat. But in real life, nobody knows what they really look like because they’re so tiny that we can’t see them. Some scientists think they might be like tiny spheres, others think they’re like little clouds, and some say they...…
in questions
What's the real shape of an electron?

Wave or particle?

Thomas Young, a British scientist, was one of the first to explore this question. He invented the double-slit experiment to determine whether light behaves as a wave or as a collection of particles. The basic idea is to study a beam of objects whose nature is unknown and observe how they behave. T...…
in questions
Wave or particle?

How can electrons turn into waves and pop out of them?

In Millie's stories, electrons are sometimes particles and sometimes waves. This dual nature is called wave-particle duality. It's a typical quantum property that doesn't exist in our everyday life. Unfortunately, nobody fully understands how the transformation between particle and wave behavior...…
in questions
How can electrons turn into waves and pop out of them?

What's an electron made of?

An electron is so tiny that we can't see it, even with the best microscopes. If you check out the article What is an elementary particle?, you'll learn that an electron isn’t made of smaller pieces — it’s one of the smallest building blocks of everything, called an elementary particle. In B...…
in questions
What's an electron made of?

Heisenberg's uncertainty principle

In the article on wave-particle duality, we explained that the world of particles is filled with strange phenomena that differ significantly from our everyday experiences. For instance, in our daily lives, it's normal to measure the speed of a car while simultaneously knowing its precise position...…
in quantum concepts
Heisenberg's uncertainty principle

Wave-particle duality

In the realm of particles, many phenomena are profoundly different from anything we experience in our everyday world. For instance, it seems obvious to us that a tennis ball and an ocean wave are two entirely different things. We’re also absolutely sure that ocean waves will never turn into tennis b...…
in quantum concepts
Wave-particle duality

Wave function

In Book 1 Millie wonders about the location of the electron that transformed into a wave. The answer she receives is: "Probably not far, but it could be anywhere." The word probably was not chosen by chance. In fact, it is impossible to know exactly where the electron is. But we can ask: "wh...…
in quantum concepts
Wave function