[Catalist] Schrödinger’s Fridge: “Physicists find the act of observation can make heat flow backwards.”

[Michael McGarry]

Greetings Science Colleagues, [especially secondary physics teachers],


Motivated by my reading of this COSMOS magazine article:


URL 1: https://cosmosmagazine.com/physics/schrodinger-s-fridge-physicists-find-the-act-of-observation-can-make-heat-flow-backwards <https://cosmosmagazine.com/physics/schrodinger-s-fridge-physicists-find-the-act-of-observation-can-make-heat-flow-backwards>, I tried to gain greater understanding of the article by studying the original source of the article:

URL 2: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41535-017-0043-6 <https://www.nature.com/articles/s41535-017-0043-6>.

I came to realize that my grounding in the classical physics of Newton, and others, severely limited my comprehension of how “the act of observation can make heat flow backwards.”


I am aware that currently a growing number of physics educators, from around our world, give support to the teaching of quantum mechanics background to high school science students. For example:


URL 3: https://arxiv.org/pdf/1701.01472.pdf <https://arxiv.org/pdf/1701.01472.pdf>
URL 4: https://www.perimeterinstitute.ca/personal/bshoshany/Thinking_Quantum_v1.pdf <https://www.perimeterinstitute.ca/personal/bshoshany/Thinking_Quantum_v1.pdf>
“Quantum theory is the theoretical framework believed to describe all aspects of our universe at the most fundamental level. Mathematically, it is surprisingly simple. However, conceptually, it is very hard to understand using the intuition we have from living in a “classical” world.”


I found the mathematics of quantum mechanics also very difficult to understand.


I searched the WWW for websites that provide ‘beginning’ background on quantum mechanics for secondary teachers of ‘classical’ high school physics.


URL 5: http://physics.mq.edu.au/~jcresser/Phys301/LectureSlides/Phys301Lectures.pdf <http://physics.mq.edu.au/~jcresser/Phys301/LectureSlides/Phys301Lectures.pdf>
URL 6: http://physics.mq.edu.au/~jcresser/Phys304/Handouts/QuantumPhysicsNotes.pdf <http://physics.mq.edu.au/~jcresser/Phys304/Handouts/QuantumPhysicsNotes.pdf>
I never tried to ‘teach’ science/maths concepts that I did not fully understand.

A review of the WA SCSA ATAR WACE Chemistry and Physics syllabuses read in conjunction with this Wikipedia URL 7: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_quantum_mechanics <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_quantum_mechanics>, will show that the above stated WACE ATAR courses cover a large amount of Quantum Theory.


Thanks and Best Wishes,


Michael John McGarry

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