Hacker News Reader

quantum mechanics (also very much not Newtonian) is much more important to our day-to-day lives.

this kind of distinction is quite stupid in general as plenty of things that we rely on for day-to-day activities such as our houses, desks, chairs, beds, shoes, clothes, etc are all based on Newtonian/classical mechanics. Basically everything that we use which existed pre-transistor strictly speaking only required classical physics.

I mean sure, but the transistor is pretty important to the way I live my life now!

I'd argue so is the bed you sleep in every night, and the roof over your head. Best not to take those for granted, as I don't think the transistor would last so long if it wasn't sheltered from the environment.

The argument is that these kind of distinctions between how "classical" and "quantum" physics affects our lives is just a pointless endeavor that even academics don't waste their time with.

Is it?

Flash memory (quantum tunneling), lasers (stimulated emission), transistors (band theory), MRI machines (nuclear spin), GPS (atomic transition), LED's (band gap), digital cameras (photoelectric effect), ...the list does, in fact, go on, and on, and on.

Did you intentionally list things that are clearly not essential to day-to-day life?

I'd argue flash memory and transistors certainly are.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com