Does light take all possible paths at the same time



We’re incredibly grateful to Prof. David Kaiser, Prof. Steven Strogatz, Prof. Geraint F. Lewis, Elba Alonso-Monsalve, Prof. Christopher S. Baird, Prof. Anthony Bloch, and Prof. Stephen Bartlett for their invaluable contributions to this video.

A special thanks to Mahesh Shenoy from FloatHeadPhysics for his help with this video. Check out his excellent intuitive video on the UV Catastrophe here (Sep 2024): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ALEDjjAVZSY

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0:00 What path does light travel?
2:40 Black Body Radiation
6:47 How did Planck solve the ultraviolet catastrophe?
9:42 The Quantum of Action
13:25 De Broglie’s Hypothesis
15:16 The Double Slit Experiment
20:00 How Feynman Did Quantum Mechanics
25:01 Proof That Light Takes Every Path
31:16 The Theory of Everything

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References:
Armin Hermann (Nov 1974). The Genesis of Quantum Theory (1899-1913). - https://ve42.co/genquanttheor
Richard P. Feynman (1985). QED The Strange Theory of Light and Matter. - https://ve42.co/qed
A fantastic book on the history of the Principle of Least Action: Rojo, A. and Bloch, A. The
Principle of Least Action: History and Physics. - https://ve42.co/Bloch2018
Coopersmith, J. (2017). The lazy universe: an introduction to the principle of least action. Oxford University Press. - https://ve42.co/LazyU
PBS Space Time. (Nov 2021) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q_CQDSlmboA
Sabine Hossenfelder. (May 2022) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A0da8TEeaeE
Max Planck (1901). On the Law of Distribution of Energy in the Normal Spectrum. Annalen der Physik - https://ve42.co/lawdistenergy
Paul Ehrenfest (1911). Welche Züge der Lichtquantenhypothese spielen in der Theorie der Wärmestrahlung eine wesentliche Rolle?. Wiley Online Library - https://ve42.co/quantthermrad
Nils-Erik Bomark and Reidun Renstrøm (Aug 2023). The Ultraviolet myth. Proceedings of Science - https://ve42.co/uvmyth
Planck's law. In Wikipedia - https://ve42.co/planckslaw
PBS Space Time. (Jul 2017). - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vSFRN-ymfgE&t=10s
Einstein and The Photoelectric Effect. (Jan 2005) via APS News - https://ve42.co/einsteinphotoelec
Louis de Broglie (1924). On the Theory of Quanta. - https://ve42.co/theoryquanta
Larry Sorensen (2012). Path Integrals 1. University of Washington - https://ve42.co/pathintegrals
Feynman’s Method of “A Particle Exploring All Possible Paths”. (Mar 2018) via Pure Dhamma - https://ve42.co/allposspaths
A great intuitive video on the Feynman path integral approach - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sp5SvdDh2u8&t=1253s
Origins of Quantum Theory. via University of Pittsburgh - https://ve42.co/origquanttheor

Images & Video:
Nobistor Altona 1880 via NDR - https://ve42.co/streetlight
Edison incandescent lights by William J. Hammer via Wikimedia Commons - https://ve42.co/edinclights
The full expanded form of the Standard Model Lagrangian by Chen Ning Yang et al. via Wikipedia - https://ve42.co/stmodellang
Muon Ray. (2011). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-QUj2ZRUa7c
Muon Ray. (2011). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1C7abO7LtV0
Bohrs Atomic Model via EEEGUIDE.COM - https://ve42.co/bohrmodel

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Directed by Casper Mebius
Written by Casper Mebius and Derek Muller
Edited by Trenton Oliver and Peter Nelson
Animated by Fabio Albertelli, Mike Radjabov, Ivy Tello, Andrew Neet and Emma Wright
Illustrations by Jakub Misiek, Tommy A. Steven and Cainejan Esperanza
Filmed by Derek Muller and Casper Mebius
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Music from Epidemic Sound

Michio Kaku: The Universe in a Nutshell
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OVERVIEW:

In a profoundly informative and deeply optimistic discussion, Professor Michio Kaku delivers a glimpse of where science will take us in the next hundred years, as warp drives, teleportation, inter-dimensional wormholes, and even time travel converge with our scientific understanding of physical reality. While firing up our imaginations about the future, he also presents a succinct history of physics to the present.
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MICHIO KAKU:

Dr. Michio Kaku is the co-founder of string field theory, and is one of the most widely recognized scientists in the world today. He has written 4 New York Times Best Sellers, is the science correspondent for CBS This Morning and has hosted numerous science specials for BBC-TV, the Discovery/Science Channel. His radio show broadcasts to 100 radio stations every week. Dr. Kaku holds the Henry Semat Chair and Professorship in theoretical physics at the City College of New York (CUNY), where he has taught for over 25 years. He has also been a visiting professor at the Institute for Advanced Study as well as New York University (NYU).
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TRANSCRIPT:

My name is Professor Michio Kaku. I’m a professor of theoretical physics at the City University of New York and I specialize in something called string theory. I’m a physicist.
Some people ask me the question, “What has physics done for me lately? I mean, do I get better color television, do I get better internet reception with physics?” And the answer is yes. You see, physics is at the very foundation of matter and energy. We physicists invented the laser beam, we invented the transistor. We helped to create the first computer. We helped to construct the internet. We wrote the World Wide Web. In addition, we also helped to invent television, radio, radar, microwaves, not to mention MRI scans, PET scans, x-rays. In other words, almost everything you see in your living room, almost everything you see in a modern hospital, at some point or other, can be traced to a physicist.

Now, I got interested in physics when I was a child. When I was a child of eight, something happened to me that changed my life and I wanted to be part of this grand search for a theory of everything. When I was eight, a great scientist had just died. I still remember my elementary school teacher coming into the...

To read the full transcript and for more info, please visit https://bigthink.com/videos/un....iverse-in-a-nutshell
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