Coherent waves

We are surrounded by objects of usual size; We know the size of our body; We are sure: one chair is comfortable for one person only. In the world of micro-quantum, in the world of things microscopic, everything seems less prosaic: a chair reduced in a couple of hundred billion times and taking the size of an atom will lose its clear boundaries, like any diminished subject. And all the objects can fit into one space, without interfering with each other. Why? In the quantum world, objects are waves that penetrate each other, so five people, and ten, and twenty, can sit on one chair. Such waves were called coherent waves.

Coherence means interconnection, coherence (cohaerens - connecting, in communication). Coherent waves, respectively, have the same frequencies, identical amplitudes, the same phase difference. These signs correspond to monochromatic waves, unlimited in time or in space.

In order to feel the coherence of waves experimentally, things (objects) need not only be reduced, but also very much cooled, i.e. Underestimate the chaotic motion of atoms. And it's not just about the "minus", but about the billionths of a degree according to Kelvin. The wave properties of the same chair should become noticeable at an unimaginably low temperature: - 45 K.

An interesting feature of waves is the ability to coherently form, ie, Orderly and coherent. For example, the coherent waves in time are music. Yes, yes, music! Each sound of a sounding melody, its duration, its frequency, its height - strict order and correspondence. The weakening of coherence is perceived by us as a false sound, and the loss of coherence is like noise. It is coherence that distinguishes music from incoherent and sometimes annoying sounds.

So, to the objects of the quantum world, coherence gives new qualities, so valuable for the creation and reception of absolutely new materials, at times radically changing existing technologies.

It is no coincidence that more than 40% of Nobel Prizes over the past two decades are due precisely to coherent phenomena: cold atoms, liquid helium, superconductors.

Methods for obtaining coherent waves:

• Instrumental acquisition (dividing one wave from a source by two);
• Division of the front.

Decimeter-millimeter ranges of electromagnetic oscillations are used primarily in communication and radio electronics. But over the past 15-20 years, their use has increased in areas of non-traditional, and mainly in biology and medicine. And the shorter-wave ranges were used even earlier, since the discovery of the source of coherent oscillations.

Have you heard about physiotherapy? Of course - yes. This is the first area of use of coherent waves in medicine. The warming of tissues allowed (and now allows) to accelerate reactions (both chemical and biochemical), which determined the physiotherapeutic effect. Waves can penetrate deep into the body, directly into the tissues into which they are directed.

And how valuable is the discovery of hyperthermia! Back in the sixties of the last century it was established that coherent waves can destroy malignant tumors.

No one is surprised today and laser surgery, which uses all the same coherent waves, but only in very narrow beams, capable of destroying both soft and bone tissues. Various lasers are applicable here, with different frequencies, depending on the nature of the operations and tissues. Practically "bloodless" operations, after which the patient recovers much faster.

Analysis of the new directions of application of coherence of waves allows us to think that both medicine and biology will soon become the main areas of their application.