Basic quantum mechanics

Quantum mechanics is a very fancy way of talking about really, really small things like atoms and particles that make up atoms. In quantum mechanics, things don't work the same way that they do in our big, everyday world. Instead of being either here or there, particles can be in two places at once or even more than two places at the same time! Crazy, right?

One of the most famous things in quantum mechanics is called "wave-particle duality." This means that sometimes particles act like waves and sometimes they act like particles. Imagine throwing a ball and seeing it go in a straight line until it hits the ground. But imagine if the ball would go everywhere at once like a wave. That's how some particles behave in quantum mechanics.

Another thing quantum mechanics talks about are "quantum states." These are like little bits of information about particles that we can use to figure out how they behave. Think of it like a recipe for a cake. If you have all of the right ingredients and follow the recipe exactly, you'll get a delicious cake! Well, quantum states tell us how particles will work based on certain conditions.

In the end, quantum mechanics is really just a fancy way of understanding how really small things behave. Scientists use it to build things like computers and understand what's going on in our universe on a very tiny scale.