Quantum Academy
Quantum Mechanics 101
A 25-chapter crash course in quantum physics, taught by a gloriously unhinged — and rigorously correct — scientist.
- Free · no account
- Beginner level
- Read, listen or play
- 25 chapters · 25 labs
Great Planck's ghost — a new apprentice! I'm Dr. Quincy Quantenstein, and in twenty-five chapters we'll travel from glowing furnaces to entangled photons and quantum computers. Read every lesson, hear me narrate it, or play with it in the lab. I'm mad, not wrong. Shall we begin?
The method
How every lesson works
Six stations, one idea at a time. Use all of them or only the ones that suit how you learn best.
Video briefing
Every lesson opens with a short, hand-picked video from an established science channel or university lecturer, so you know what's coming.
Listen or read
Dr. Q narrates every word, highlighting each paragraph as it's spoken. Prefer to read? It's all on the page, with equations said in words first.
Interactive lab
A hands-on game for every chapter — fire photons, trap electrons, beat the classical limit — each with a challenge to win.
Memory aids & flashcards
A mnemonic, an analogy (and exactly where it breaks), the chapter in one line, and spaced-repetition flashcards.
Worksheet & Quiz Show
A printable worksheet with full worked solutions, then a fast quiz game to prove the ideas stuck.
Ask Dr. Q
Stuck on a step? Ask Dr. Q anything about the chapter and have the answer read aloud in the same voice.
The course map
Twenty-five chapters in six units
From the crack in classical physics to quantum computers and the frontier. Go in order, or jump straight to whatever keeps you up at night — every chapter is open.
Unit 01 · Chapters 1–5
The Classical World Cracks
Why nineteenth-century physics broke, and the desperate idea that fixed it.
Unit 02 · Chapters 6–8
Wave–Particle Duality
Light acts like particles, matter acts like waves, and nothing is ever just one thing.
Unit 03 · Chapters 9–15
The Mathematical Machinery
Wavefunctions, Schrödinger's equation, and the operators that run the quantum world.
Unit 04 · Chapters 16–19
Atoms, Spin & Identity
Why atoms have shells, why chemistry works, and why you don't fall through the floor.
Unit 05 · Chapters 20–22
Entanglement & Reality
Spooky correlations, Bell's theorem, and what a measurement really is.
Unit 06 · Chapters 23–25
Quantum Technology & Frontiers
Qubits, quantum cryptography, sensors, and the open problems at the edge of physics.
Print & practise
Worksheets & notes
Every chapter has a printable worksheet — ten to fourteen questions of every kind, a mad-scientist challenge, a vocabulary match and the chapter's memory aids — plus a separate answer key with worked solutions. Want notes instead? Each chapter page saves the whole lesson as a plain-text file.
All 25 worksheets and answer keys
- Welcome to the Lab: What Is Quantum Mechanics?WorksheetAnswer key
- Waves 101: The Mathematics of WigglesWorksheetAnswer key
- Blackbody Radiation & Planck's Desperate ActWorksheetAnswer key
- The Photoelectric Effect: Light Comes in PacketsWorksheetAnswer key
- Atoms Get Weird: Bohr's Model & Spectral LinesWorksheetAnswer key
- Matter Waves: de Broglie's Audacious SymmetryWorksheetAnswer key
- The Double-Slit ExperimentWorksheetAnswer key
- Heisenberg's Uncertainty PrincipleWorksheetAnswer key
- The Wavefunction & Born's RuleWorksheetAnswer key
- The Schrödinger EquationWorksheetAnswer key
- Particle in a BoxWorksheetAnswer key
- Quantum TunnelingWorksheetAnswer key
- The Quantum Harmonic OscillatorWorksheetAnswer key
- Operators, Observables & Dirac NotationWorksheetAnswer key
- Superposition & MeasurementWorksheetAnswer key
- The Hydrogen Atom & Quantum NumbersWorksheetAnswer key
- Spin & the Stern–Gerlach ExperimentWorksheetAnswer key
- Pauli Exclusion & the Periodic TableWorksheetAnswer key
- Bosons, Fermions & Quantum MatterWorksheetAnswer key
- Quantum EntanglementWorksheetAnswer key
- Bell's Theorem & the End of Local RealismWorksheetAnswer key
- Interpretations, Decoherence & Schrödinger's CatWorksheetAnswer key
- Qubits & Quantum ComputingWorksheetAnswer key
- Quantum Cryptography, Teleportation & SensingWorksheetAnswer key
- Frontiers: Quantum Fields, the Standard Model & Quantum GravityWorksheetAnswer key
What's New in Quantum
Today in quantum
Real results from real labs, every morning — each one linked to the chapter that explains the physics behind it.
Get the daily bulletin on your phone
One short update a day, around 7:30 a.m. US Eastern: the top quantum stories, a dispatch from Dr. Q, and a link from each story to the chapter that explains it.
A notification on this phone or computer each morning. No app store, no account.
Push notifications are still being connected on this site. Email, text or ntfy will reach you meanwhile.
Questions
Before you put on the goggles
Who is Quantum Mechanics 101 for?
Curious beginners: high-school and college students, adult learners, engineers, and anyone who keeps hearing "quantum" in the news and wants to know what it really means. No physics background is assumed. Each idea is built up from everyday experience, and every technical term is defined the first time it appears.
How long does the course take?
There are 25 chapters. Each takes roughly 20–27 minutes to read or 30–38 minutes to hear, plus 10–20 minutes for its lab, flashcards and worksheet — about 10 hours of reading or 14 hours of narrated audio in all. At one chapter a day you will finish in under a month; as a weekend sprint, in two or three.
Do I need advanced maths?
No. Comfortable algebra and scientific notation are enough to start. Probability, complex numbers and the mathematics of waves are introduced gently inside the course, and every equation is explained in plain words before it appears in symbols. Calculus appears as an idea, never as a hurdle.
How does the audio work?
Press play on any chapter and Dr. Q reads the whole lesson aloud — the hook, every section, each equation spoken in plain English, the worked examples and the recap — highlighting each paragraph as it goes. It uses your device's built-in speech voice, so there is nothing to install, and you can change the speed and the voice. Where a studio voice is available, the player offers it too.
Is it free?
Yes. Every chapter, lab, video briefing, worksheet and game is free, with no account required. Your progress, XP and streak are saved in this browser on this device.
How does the daily bulletin reach my phone?
Every morning, What's New in Quantum gathers the day's quantum-physics stories from Phys.org, Quanta Magazine, Nature, ScienceDaily, The Quantum Insider and APS Physics, and links each one to the chapter that explains it. Choose how it reaches you in the "Get the daily bulletin on your phone" panel: a push notification on this device, an email, a text message, or the free ntfy app. On an iPhone, add Quantum Academy to your Home Screen first (Share, then Add to Home Screen) so push notifications can be delivered.