Both Thermal/quantum and Static/dynamic
Taken together, the previous two examples show how the path integral formulation of quantum mechanics is related to statistical mechanics. From statistical mechanics, the shape of each spring in a collection at temperature will deviate from the least-energy shape due to thermal fluctuations; the probability of finding a spring with a given shape decreases exponentially with the energy difference from the least-energy shape. Similarly, a quantum particle moving in a potential can be described by a superposition of paths, each with a phase : the thermal variations in the shape across the collection have turned into quantum uncertainty in the path of the quantum particle.
Read more about this topic: Wick Rotation
Famous quotes containing the words quantum and/or dynamic:
“A personality is an indefinite quantum of traits which is subject to constant flux, change, and growth from the birth of the individual in the world to his death. A character, on the other hand, is a fixed and definite quantum of traits which, though it may be interpreted with slight differences from age to age and actor to actor, is nevertheless in its essentials forever fixed.”
—Hubert C. Heffner (1901–1985)
“We Americans have the chance to become someday a nation in which all radical stocks and classes can exist in their own selfhoods, but meet on a basis of respect and equality and live together, socially, economically, and politically. We can become a dynamic equilibrium, a harmony of many different elements, in which the whole will be greater than all its parts and greater than any society the world has seen before. It can still happen.”
—Shirley Chisholm (b. 1924)