ScienceThe ProfessorBeginner
Quantum Physics for the Real World, a free science course on Tomo

Quantum Physics for the Real World

Like Duolingo, but for Quantum Physics for the Real World. Tomo turns the whole topic into a game you play five minutes a day, until it actually sticks.

For the part of you with thirty open tabs that never became anything.

21 levels across 3 sections, about 42 minutes end to end, roughly 8 days at five minutes a day. It moves through The Quantum Surprise, The Rules of the Game, and Quantum Tech in Your Pocket. It starts from scratch.

21 bite-size levelsAbout 5 minutes each

Free forever · No credit card · iPhone & Android

Quirk the Quark, the guide who teaches the Quantum Physics for the Real World course
Quantum Physics for the Real World
with Quirk the Quark
21
Levels
3
Sections
5
Min/day
What you'll learn

Key ideas in Quantum Physics for the Real World

  • Energy is not a smooth fluid but comes in discrete packets
  • Large-scale 'classical' physics rules do not apply to atoms
  • There is a 'smallest possible' amount of energy that cannot be divided further
  • Subatomic particles do not move in simple, predictable lines
  • The term 'quantum' refers to these individual, countable units
  • Human intuition based on everyday objects is often wrong about the very small
  • Light travels and interferes like a wave
  • Light hits targets and transfers energy in concentrated lumps like a particle
  • The concept of energy being 'quantized' rather than infinitely divisible
  • The 'photon' is the name for the particle-like unit of light
  • To see something, you must bounce light or energy off it
  • The failure of classical intuition at the atomic scale
  • At the quantum scale, the energy used to observe a particle is strong enough to push it
  • The act of looking is a physical interaction that changes the result
  • The dual nature of light
  • The physical impact of measurement on a quantum system
Why not just Google it

You've tried the other tabs

Wikipedia

Thirty open tabs. Four facts you actually kept.

YouTube

You watched. You nodded. By Sunday it was gone.

ChatGPT

One answer, then back to scrolling.

Online courses

Eight weeks. You meant to finish. You didn't.

Tomo gives Quantum Physics for the Real World the Duolingo treatment: levels, streaks, and quick quizzes that test what you just learned. That game loop is what the tabs above never had, so it's the one you actually finish.

Try a question

Here's what playing it feels like

A real question from this course. Take your best guess.

The End of Smoothness

If you looked at energy with a powerful enough microscope, what would you see?

Get it right to open this lesson and 20 more in the app.

Course map

Where Quantum Physics for the Real World takes you

Discover the strange rules that govern the smallest building blocks of our universe and how they power the technology in your pocket.

  1. 1

    The Quantum Surprise

    • The Tiny World is Different
    • The Double Slit Experiment
  2. 2

    The Rules of the Game

    • Superposition: Being in Two States
    • Entanglement: The Spooky Connection
    • The Math of Waves and Limits
  3. 3

    Quantum Tech in Your Pocket

    • How Your Phone Uses Quantum Physics
    • The Future of Quantum Computing

3 sections · 7 units · 21 levels. Built to play, not to enroll.

How it's taught

You pick the voice

This course
The Professor

Quantum Physics for the Real World is taught in the The Professor style: clear, structured, thorough. Want a different feel? In the app you can spin up the same topic in any of Tomo's teaching styles. Same facts, totally different vibe.

Start free

Start Quantum Physics for the Real World today.

Download Tomo, search Quantum Physics for the Real World, and play your first lesson in under a minute.