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Many standard quantum mechanics textbooks, such as Merzbacher, and Landau and Lifshitz, use the term "electron" for brevity and concreteness when referring to some quantum mechanical object, although they mention this explicitly in a footnote within the first few pages.[[User:131.111.213.41|131.111.213.41]] 14:38, 4 November 2007 (UTC)
::Yes, technically any particle or system that is 'bound'; nucleons, phonons, positronium, etc. will have quantized energy levels, and the transitions between these levels could be described as 'quantum leaps'. --[[User:Chetvorno|<
== It's not used by scientists ==
It might be worthwhile noting that although the term is used by scientists to explain quantum mechanics to nonscientists, it is not used by scientists among themselves, who are more likely to use terms like "atomic transition". To get an idea of how the term was used in published literature, I looked at the first 400 hits on Google Books. Leaving out references to the television show, the most common useage was as a metaphor in New Age and business innovation books. There was much use in general interest books about science: such as [http://books.google.com/books?id=IWvreEoFhPMC Brian Clegg (2009) ''Instant Egghead Guide to Physics''], [http://books.google.com/books?id=DFF-i63WLdIC&printsec=frontcover&dq=bill+nye&cd=1#v=onepage&q=&f=false Bill Nye (1993) ''The Science Guy's Big Blast of Science''], [http://books.google.com/books?id=sSmEPwAACAAJ&dq=gribbin+Einstein&hl=en&ei=fXywS6LsMNXo4gaZjO3gDw Gribbin (1997) ''Einstein: a life in science''], [http://books.google.com/books?id=P2V1RbwvE1EC&printsec=frontcover&dq=Alan+guth+inflationary+univers&hl=en&ei=2XywS4HxDcy94gbmt9CWBQ&sa=X Alan Guth (1998) ''The Inflationary Universe'']. There were almost no uses in professional scientific literature; the few times it occured it was used as a metaphor for innovation: [http://books.google.com/books?id=4mosAAAAYAAJ Richard Leavens (1988) ''Interfaces, Quantum Wells, and Superlattices'']. One of the few uses by a scientist to refer to atomic transitions was [http://books.google.com/books?id=u1UmAAAAMAAJ&q=Arnold+sommerfeld&dq=Arnold+sommerfeld&hl=en&ei=toCwS8OqB4jh4gb4uJTFDw Arnold Sommerfeld (1934) ''Atomic Structure and Spectral Lines''] --[[User:Chetvorno|<
== "few nanoseconds or less" ==
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I removed the following sentence. It is expressed obscurely (what is "doubt"?) and it does not give any context or motivation. It appears to concern stimulated emission (or absorption) in an individual atom, so it would be quite interesting to see it explained.
:''The prediction expressed in the paper<ref>http://journals.aps.org/prl/abstract/10.1103/PhysRevLett.54.1023 - Richard J. Cook, H. J. Kimble, 1985</ref> and doubt was present in the 1980s.<ref>http://tf.boulder.nist.gov/general/pdf/2723.pdf - Early observations of macroscopic quantum jumps in single atoms</ref> Nevertheless it was shown experimentally, that the fluorescence rate of a single atom can not be calculated by [[Maxwell-Bloch equations]].'' <small class="autosigned">— Preceding [[Wikipedia:Signatures|unsigned]] comment added by [[Special:Contributions/178.38.100.30|178.38.100.30]] ([[User talk:178.38.100.30|talk]]) 17:43, 27 April 2015 (UTC)</small><!-- Template:Unsigned IP --> <!--Autosigned by SineBot-->
== Plan to edit ==
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