For my art and science project, I wanted to demonstrate how I was truly surprised by the concepts and phenomena of Quantum Theory, and why, in my opinion it is so different and groundbreaking compared to other scientific views previously learnt. To illustrate this, the model I created had two sides which were separated by a door. One side represents Classical Science while the other represents Quantum Theory. On each side of the door, there is a man along with a collage made up of pictures of scientists, formulas, etc of each scientific view. The side representing Classical Science is painted and printed only in black and white, while the side representing Quantum Theory was painted in vibrant colors. I did this in order to express that in Classical views, there formulas hardly have exceptions and motion is always continuous, also objects do not move at all without having force applied by an external force. Whereas for Quantum Theory, it was discovered that electrons within an atom will “jump” to an energy level, once given enough energy rather than have continuous motion. For the first time, scientists see a particle at one position, and then appear at another. In Quantum Theory, a formula such as Bohr’s equation for energy only applies to hydrogen. Also, after such experiments as the Photoelectric Experiment and the Double-Slit Experiment, it was discovered that both electrons and light posse the wave-particle duality. This means that they can represent (or act like) either particle or a wave in the same environment and under the same conditions. Another discovery that defies the minds of scientist (so far) is that during the Double-Slit experiment, the electron would always act as a particle when there was a measuring device placed to observe how electrons can act as a wave, as though the electron knows when there are humans watching them. For all these reasons that challenge our minds and for which we do not have all the explanations for, I decided to have the side representing Quantum Theory to be in vibrant colors. The man on each side can be interpreted to represent Max Plank, because he was the first scientist to discover some phenomena expressed in Quantum Theory. However, it can also represent any student learning Quantum Theory because it is so different from anything they have previously learned in their academic life, and it defies ours, as well as scientists, common sense. The door that separates represents Erwin Schrodinger’s suggestion that there may be one or many alternate universes, because a door is often used to symbolise a portal to a parallel universe. The images that make up the collage consist of pictures of scientists, concepts, formulas, etc. On the side of the model that represents Classical Science (sometimes called Newtonian Science) I have chosen to select Newton, Dalton, and Rutherford because they contributed many explanations and formulas that are incorporated in Classical Science. In addition, I decided to have a picture of Rutherford’s gold foil experiment and his representation of the atom because from these, Bohr contributed in the development of phenomena and formulas for Quantum Theory. On this collage I also included a confused emotion to represent the questions scientist’s had before Bohr’s discovery of the energy levels for the hydrogen atom. On the other side of the model, the scientists shown are Plank, Einstein, Bohr, and Schrödinger because they each explained or discovered concepts that make up Quantum Theory. A cat which is half dead half alive was included to represent Schrödinger’s theoretical experiment of a cat in a box living or not based on the electron’s behaviour at the moment. Will it react at that instant as a particle or a wave rather? The atom representation presented is a correction made by Bohr’s explanations on Rutherford’s original representation. This model, called the Bohr-Rutherford model is still used today. The confused emotion on this side is used to represent the confusion of scientists on such topics such as, why does an electron sometimes behave like a wave? Do electrons really know when there is an observer present? Lastly, the eye symbolises the observer watching the electron, in which the electron will always act as a particle. Through this model, I have tried to demonstrate just how groundbreaking and different Quantum Theory is, especially compared to everything we have ever learnt in science beforehand. I wanted to express the idea that this theory lends to a new world of possibilities to explain the unknown of the many questions left by Quantum Theory.







