Quantum Leap
Translated from Russian. Originally published on Oct 10, 2010 as “Квантовый скачок”.
In ancient Greece there lived a brilliant man named Democritus. One day he arrived at an interesting hypothetical conclusion: if you take a piece of stone and start dividing it, again and again, sooner or later you'll get a material point that can't be divided any further. He called this point an atom, which in Greek means "indivisible". According to Democritus, the properties of all the matter around us were determined precisely by the properties of these microscopic indivisible bodies. The atoms of fire were angular and sharp, which is why fire burned; the atoms of water were smooth and round, which is why water flowed; the atoms of ordinary solids were rough, which is why objects kept their shape; even the soul consisted of its own special atoms, evidently elusive ones!
Of course, Democritus and his contemporaries had no way to test this hypothesis experimentally. Only two millennia later did Rutherford, after a series of experiments, propose the planetary model of the atom — planetary because formally it resembled the solar system. In the center was a massive nucleus (the Sun), and electrons (the planets) revolved around it in their orbits. But this analogy eventually turned out to be wrong. First, the atom was divisible after all and consisted of well-defined particles — protons and neutrons — which in turn consisted of other particles, quarks, as was discovered later. And second, much to the scientists' regret, according to classical laws the electron should radiate continuously, i.e. lose energy, and eventually spiral down onto the nucleus. But that didn't happen. Some time later Bohr extended Rutherford's model with his saving postulate: an electron can move only along strictly defined orbits, without losing energy, and when it jumps between orbits (energy levels) a quantum of energy must be emitted or absorbed. It is this process in the microworld that came to be called a quantum leap.
It's clear without any higher matters that a quantum leap belongs only to the world of low, very low energies. And in the case of an electron jumping from one level to another, it also means microscopic distances. The radius of the first orbit in the hydrogen atom, for example, is:
i.e. a value about eleven orders of magnitude below a meter — and the distances between orbits are several orders of magnitude smaller still! Tragedy unfolds when the quantum world meets everyday life. By some terrible misunderstanding, quantum leaps in the macroworld not only take place but even embody something great and big.
Type the query "квантовый скачок" ("quantum leap") into Google. Heaven talks of nothing else… so many wonderful links! One of the first introduces the wanderer to a long article titled "A Quantum LEAP Awaits Us".
"This cycle for us and our Logos will also last 26,000 years, and nothing can prevent the Great quantum leap from taking place."
"Our True Creators are doing everything possible to awaken human consciousness by any means and prepare it for the act of transfiguration, or the quantum leap."
"Even beings from very distant galaxies have arrived here to observe the coming quantum leap — beings who had never before shown any interest in humans, and whose bodies are not merely the finest emanations of light but represent, as it were, a single integral consciousness shared with their unique spaceships, built entirely of light."
Although, it should be noted, the numerous quantum leaps are the least of the evils in that article. It turns out not all quantum leaps are alike; among them there are Great ones, so great that they happen once every 26,000 years. Quoting such heresy is, of course, utterly pointless; it's much more interesting when the long-suffering quantum leaps are used in the news and in advertising.
Meet "Mercedes CL 63 AMG: A Quantum Leap"!
The manufacturer stresses that its new 5.5-liter biturbo V8 consumes a quarter less fuel than the previous naturally aspirated 6.3-liter engine. The "souped-up" newcomer takes only 10.5 l/100 km, a net saving of 4 l/100 km — and the coupe still does 0–100 km/h in 4.5 s. The creators themselves called this "economic" breakthrough a quantum leap in engine building.
It turns out the Germans are so pious and modest that they call even their wonderful achievements in car making nothing less than microscopic, negligible and insignificant.
In general, I think you'll find a pile of wonderful examples yourselves. I suggest remembering one simple rule: when a manufacturer claims its product is a quantum leap in the industry, feel free to picture a line-up of products in which the advertised one stands out from the rest (the competitors) by a whole 0.00000000001 centimeters, or even less.