Quantum mechanics goes boom
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G. Mark Voit
[1]
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[1] Michigan State University
Michigan State University
City of East Lansing, Estados Unidos
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- Localización: The Physics Teacher, ISSN 0031-921X, Vol. 63, Nº. 4, 2025, págs. 292-293
- Idioma: inglés
- Enlaces
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Resumen
Supernova explosions rank among the most powerful events ever to occur in the universe (Fig. 1). For a few glorious weeks, they come close to outshining all of the other stars combined in a galaxy like the Milky Way. The kinetic energy imparted to surrounding protons and neutrons is a hundred times the light output, and the supernova energy carried away by elusive neutrinos is another hundred times bigger than that. Also, we owe our lives to supernovae because they spread oxygen, calcium, iron, and other elements necessary for life throughout our galaxy. Because supernovae are such large-scale events, they might seem far removed from the microscopic realm in which quantum mechanics prevails. But quantum mechanical principles explain why supernovae happen
