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Index › Discussion › Exhibition › Visualizing a quantum harmonic oscillator
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Visualizing a quantum harmonic oscillator (Read 2142 times)
Cliff
Visualizing a quantum harmonic oscillator
May 24th, 2010, 7:33pm  
Greets,

A lot of the mathematical structures in quantum mechanics are really beautiful, so I made this applet to bring some of that beauty to a general audience.  

http://anisometry.org/qho/

As you might be able to guess, this is the quantum-physical analog of a simple harmonic oscillator. It should give you at least a general idea of the wavey nature of physics at the atomic scale. Try out some different states and see what you get.

Of course I also think think this is a necessary resource for physics students (this is one of the really important basic models, for a number of reasons). At some point equations are just not sufficiently descriptive and you need to SEE what is going on.

Anyway, let me know if ya dig it! :]
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blindfish
Re: Visualizing a quantum harmonic oscillator
Reply #1 - May 25th, 2010, 1:07am  
Cliff wrote on May 24th, 2010, 7:33pm:
As you might be able to guess, this is the quantum-physical analog of a simple harmonic oscillator.


Shocked

Looks interesting; though I know little, to nothing, about quantum mechanics...

My only criticism would be that the interface feels a bit clunky: I'd expect to be able to click in one of the bars and at the very least for the bar to jump to the mouse position; and ideally to be able to drag it up and down.  Have you looked at the controlP5 library  It would take a bit more work to set up, but well worth the time...
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Where is the what if the what is in why?
 
liudr
Re: Visualizing a quantum harmonic oscillator
Reply #2 - May 26th, 2010, 9:00am  
Very nice! How did you display the character psi? With symbol font?
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Cedric
Re: Visualizing a quantum harmonic oscillator
Reply #3 - May 26th, 2010, 9:46am  
looks like he is loading an image. It has a different background color than the rest.
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... twitter.com/CedricKiefer
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