by carlaron » Mon Jun 11, 2012 8:17 pm
I've had people (my very intelligent but anal-retentive uncle for one) give me grief over the phrase "quantum leap" before, and I suppose that most of the time people don't really think about what they're saying when they use it, and they often use it to mean a large change.
However, I think the phrase has a meaning that is very close to the way people often use it.
A "quantum leap" originally referred to "Atomic electron transition"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomic_electron_transition
A quantum leap is a transition from one state to another, without passing through intervening states. Electron states are often visualized as "higher" or "lower" orbits, so in that sense, the leap is from one location to another.
So while a quantum leap is actually very small in a scalar sense, you could say that it represents a change with infinite slope, or a movement with infinite speed.
I've had people (my very intelligent but anal-retentive uncle for one) give me grief over the phrase "quantum leap" before, and I suppose that most of the time people don't really think about what they're saying when they use it, and they often use it to mean a large change.
However, I think the phrase has a meaning that is very close to the way people often use it.
A "quantum leap" originally referred to "Atomic electron transition" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomic_electron_transition
A quantum leap is a transition from one state to another, without passing through intervening states. Electron states are often visualized as "higher" or "lower" orbits, so in that sense, the leap is from one location to another.
So while a quantum leap is actually very small in a scalar sense, you could say that it represents a change with infinite slope, or a movement with infinite speed.