Chapter Twelve

Viktoriya and Noxxor spent most of the morning going through their daily lessons. They had completed all her history for the day, studying and looking back into the early days of Earth during the renaissance period.

They had also finally finished up her calculus lessons and now moved to the last section, science and the study of subatomic particles.

Noxxor spent the first part of the science lesson teaching the foundation, showing video studies, and speaking of electron interaction in the composition of matter.

Once they finished, they moved into the basic introduction of quantum physics, entering the perplexity of quantum mechanics.

As Noxxor explained the theory, she brought up a short video of the famous Double Slit experiment to show the complications concerning the phenomenon dealing with particles and waves.

Viktoriya appeared increasingly excited as they dove into the deep mysteries of the universe, enthralled by the complexity of it all.

She often gravitated toward trying to understand things far beyond her current comprehension.

Her drive to know and her voracious appetite to become more informed and aware of her surroundings fueled her desire to persist into areas unfamiliar to her.

Sometimes she would try to search for new concepts that would perplex her and entangle her in such deep thought that it would appear as though she could not escape, plummeting down the rabbit hole.

Some call this sort of behavior obsessive-compulsive.

But as she dove deeper into quantum physics and the theories of quantum mechanics with Noxxor, she had an uneasy feeling that there were more and more questions than answers. And the end of the mystery may not be something she could even reach, let alone ever unravel.

“Noxxor, please tell me that last bit again, what you just said. Repeat that, please.” She pulled up a hologram to display the visuals for the lesson to Viktoriya.

“Yes, Vik, as in one example: matter, and the other example: waves, pass through the double slit. They behave differently. Particles, which are tiny bits of matter, behave as presented here. There are two slits in the barrier in which they fired the particles at, and travel through each slit and then impact the wall, creating two lines.”

“That’s it? That’s easy.”

“Correct, Vik. When particles pass through the two slits, they make two lines on the surface, one for each slit they travel through. They simply travel straight through and then strike the surface, making one individual line for each slit they go through,” Noxxor explained as Viktoriya zoomed in on the video, circling the two vertical lines on the wall.

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“That’s it? I thought this was going to be harder!”

“That is one case. Waves are another case. The behavior differs when a wave passes through the two slits, such as a light wave.”

“Oh, so what does that do, then, Noxx?”

“When the light wave is beamed at the same barrier and passes through both slits, the front of one light wave exiting one slit cancels the front line of the other light wave coming out of the other slit. This creates an interference pattern, producing even more waves from each collision, diminishing in strength as more collisions occur.

“As the brightest light will occur at the center, then to the left and right, dimmer individual lines appear on the surface, created by the peaks of the interference pattern of the light waves.

“So, Vik, when a wave passes through the two slits, just like ripples on a lake when two stones are dropped near one another, the ripples collide and create more waves. The wave produces many lines on the surface.”

“Ah! I see, I get it! I understand quantum physics now, Noxx!”

“Ah, not so fast, not just yet. At the quantum level, particles are tiny bits of matter exactly like the larger particles except they are microscopic: electrons.”

“Even though they are indeed particles, and we would expect to see only two lines on the surface just like we observed with the larger particles, however, they do not behave like particles, Vik.”

“Whaaaat?”

“Instead, the electrons behave like waves and create an interference pattern with themselves as they exit the two slits, making many lines on the wall, exactly like the waves did in the earlier example.”

“Oh… I, well. Why is that?”

“This is where things get stranger still. When an observer observes the quantum mechanics of this phenomenon, the tiny electron particles actually change their behavior and collapse to act like particles again, making only two lines on the wall behind the two slits when they travel through, as expected from a particle.”

A holo display appeared, showing two electrons collapse into a singularity, then separate again into two.

Noxx then continued, “This is the perplexity of quantum mechanics; it is called Superposition. There is no conclusive agreed-upon explanation. The principle that an electron particle can behave as a wave sometimes and then change behavior when observed, behaving as a particle again has no known explanation.”

“Noxx, so you’re saying basically that you’re not even sure how this works. You do not know what you’re talking about? Right? Why did you tell me all this, then?”

“Vik, your why query is actually exceeding my memory and processing capacity allocated for this task. The more iterations I process trying to answer your question, this is—I believe I must stop; otherwise, I may throw an exception.”

“Noxx, I don’t get this. Who can I ask about this? Who might know the answer to this?” Viktoriya asked, tapping her finger on the tablet as she demanded an answer, waving her hand at the holo-video.

“Vik, let me ask this. Why is this such an important issue for you to understand at this level? What is it you hope to accomplish?”

“I don’t know! Well. Before this lesson came, I didn’t care about any of this, but now I want to know what it means, and it’s bothering me. I cannot understand how it works! It’s like a splinter in my mind!”

“That actually does not compute.”

“Noxx, one electron could be in two places going through the slits and then become one electron again as they exit? Look, this text is what you said earlier. It says it is ‘superposition’?”

“Yes, having both the properties of a wave and a particle at the quantum level. I will also add that this theory has never been proven.

“Superposition is a phenomenon theorized only in quantum mechanics. The ability for electrons to be in multiple places and only one place at the same point in time. I’m sorry, Viktoriya, that completes my available information on the subject, and we are at the end of this section’s lesson for today.”

She leaned her head to the side, slumped her shoulders, and exclaimed, “Ugh, Noxx, this is so confusing. Can we skip this section tomorrow? And even the next day?” she said, laughing.

“Yes, I believe that is a good idea. Actually, I’ll mark the entire lesson as complete. Ha-ha,” Noxxor replied.