this post was submitted on 05 Nov 2023
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Okay but tell me, what theory superceded electromagnetism?
Sure, EM is still useful, I use it in my work, but in the end, it all boils down to QM.
"X depends on or is built up on Y" does not imply "X is Y". Concepts, laws, techniques, etc. can depend or be higher-order expressions of QM without being QM. If you started asking a QM scientist about tensile strength or the Mohs scale they would (rightly) be confused.
Yes, of course. Coloumb and Maxwell had no idea about QM when they were developing their ideas. Not to mention that these higher-order abstractions are just as valid as QM (up to a point, but so is QM). Depening on the application, you'd want to use a different abstraction. EM is perfect for everyday use, as well as all the way down to the microscale.
My point is that EM is explained by QM, and therefore supercedes it. You could use QM to solve every EM problem, it'd just be waaaaay too difficult to be practical.
I feel like you're using "supercede" differently to the rest of us. You're getting a hostile reaction because it sounded like you're saying that EM is no longer at all useful because it has been obsoleted (superceded) by QM. Now you're (correctly) saying that EM is still useful within its domain, but continuing to say that QM supercedes it. To me, at least, that's a contradiction. QM extends EM, but does not supercede it. If EM were supercedes, there would be no situation in which it was useful.
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Also can you really solve all em equations with qm? I always thought the laws broke down from one to the other? So you’re saying going from em to qm the laws break down but going from qm to em the laws hold up?
Huh? Not sure what the first part of your comment means but I'll give it a go...
Quantum mechanics basically explains all interactions between particles/waves (take your pick, it's all the same) except gravitational interactions. You can use the laws of QM to solve any problem you'd have if you were studying electromagnetism, in fact you can derive versions of EM directly from QM. EM will start breaking down at small scales, we're talking 10^-9 m ish. It'll still be accurate, you'll just notice your data will be off from your calculations the smaller you go. You can exploit QM effects to be tangible/visible on larger scales, but it takes some work. QM only starts breaking down at the Planck scale, which is suuuuuuper small. We can't observe anything that small yet so it kinda doesn't matter. It'd be nice if we had a theory that did, though.
The first part was me being humbled by the intellectual conversation and it going way over my head so I said the dumbest thing I could think of to level it out. But then I reread it and learned something. Planck scale being built up from minimum units? I’m assuming this is what string theory is attempting to do? Also don’t you find it kind of stupid that the largest size is 10m^26 and the smallest is 10m^-35 and we naturally observe the universe closest to 10m^0? Like we’re right in the middle of that? Seems obvious that looking in each direction and hitting a wall is analogous to naturally looking into the distance and only being able to see so far and looking closely and only being able to see so far.
Oh yeah, that's super interesting! I think our understanding of the universe (and conseqentially, our theories) are a byproduct of our place in the universe. If we were on a smaller scale and still had the same intelligence, perhaps we could peer deeper in one direction, at the cost of the other. I think there could be infinte complexity hiding just beyond our reach.
Quantum mechanics didn't supersede electromagnetism. Again, they're different things. Electromagnetism is a fundamental interaction. Whereas quantum mechanics describes the mechanics of quantum particles. Whether those particles are affected by electromagnetic forces or not. It's a description of how they behave at quantum scales.
Coulomb's law has nothing to do with quantum mechanics, it's a description of how macroscopic charged particles interact. What the OP should have said to be correct is:
I don't know where he got quantum mechanics from.