h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Why is the term 'quantum leap' used to describe massive changes in things (particularly technology) when quantum mechanics deals with some of the smallest things in the universe?

Because a quantum leap is the *very* sudden change of an electron from one orbit within and atom to another, losing or gaining a photon which means a change in energy level. Colloquially the term has been adopted to mean rapid change in understanding, systems, etc... with little or no in between.
This might help you better understand what happens in atom F2124165?thread=4518609 and why the term isn't really being so misused.

It's not so much rapid change that's a defining feature though*, because you can have continuous change that is rapid.

My understanding about quantum physics is that the atom goes from one state to another without any graduation in between, whereas in normal physics you would expect a more continuous change rather than a discrete jump from one state to another.

So in the larger world quantum change is that which happens without a normal process of continuous change, instead it goes from one state to another without that graduation in between.

Also, in terms of human consciousness a quantum leap is one that bypasses what some consider the normal process of intellectual rationalisation - an idea appears to appear out of nowhere, or a concept is grasped without having to get there in a linear thought process. Again, it's the shift from one state to another without having the process in between that is the quantum bit.


*or am I wrong about that - at the atomic level is it the fact that there is no time involved that makes it a quantum change rather than a gradual one?

Perhaps it would have been clearer if I'd said witch between' rather than "change in understand, systems...".

After I posted I thought, that's just what Azathoth said

Quantum, from quanta, meaning discrete chunks, i.e. no continuous change from one state to another, as Kea said. Nothing to do with atoms specifically, or quantum mechanics for that matter.

...and weren't Scott Bakula and Dean Stockwell brilliant in it...



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Dave do you know for sure that the term Quantum Leap didn't comes from physics and was just fancy way of saying a 'substantive change'?

Ding ding ding, ding ding, ding ding ding.

Oops. Sorry.

It's a naming thing isn't it? Like 'Disk' doesn't really have anything to do with computers etc, its just a shape, but has been used so often it's become, er, synonymous with them.

Or not maybe.

>>Dictionary
quantum jump noun Physics an abrupt transition of an electron, atom, or molecule from one quantum state to another, with the absorption or emission of a quantum. • figurative a huge, often sudden, increase or change in something : the quantum jump in Jamie's grades this semester are extremely encouraging. Also called quantum leap .<<

my mac's dictionary.

Sure, 'quantum' is Latin for quantity, and implies a discrete amount. Which is presumably why the physicist originally used the term to describe atomic changes in quantum theory? And the phrase made it's way into general language from there.

Interestingly, the Concise Oxford Dictionary lists the physics definition as the first one, for 'quantum'.

Disc has become synonymous with disc-shaped data storage thingies.

I guess we need to know if 'quantum' was in common usage in the early 1900s. Did people say "I'll have a large quantum of chips with my fish please"?

<>

Bang on, Max Planck used 'quanta' in 1900 to describe photons only having discrete amounts of energy. The same principle was found at work in atoms etc a few years later.