Hazy quantum world

Author: Jiang Xiangdong
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2002-01-01
Features: Our eyes can see something because the light it emits or reflects is transformed into image signals in our brains. However, even with the most keen eyesight, you cannot distinguish things smaller than the distance between photoreceptor cells on the retina. Fortunately, scientists have prepared tools like microscopes for us, which allow us to observe these small things. So, how small can we see? Human wisdom has now been able to understand many phenomena in nature. From the vast universe at extreme scales to the microscopic particle world, many details of material movement between these two extreme scales can be reasonably explained. When people marvel at the immense size of matter and how incredibly small it is, scientists have discovered an inseparable connection between the extreme scales of the very large and the very small. For example, using knowledge of particle physics, scientists can understand the conditions of the universe in the first few minutes after its birth about 13.8 billion years ago, listening to the "echoes" of the Big Bang from the "cosmic egg." The vast, boundless starry sky has become a natural laboratory for scientists to study microscopic particles. As long as we keep up with the pace of scientific progress, we can gain insight into these "invisible scientific worlds" and gain a deeper, more comprehensive understanding of the mysterious universe.