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theory, from which comes the term quantum leap. A quantum leap, in this field, is a change of an electron within an atom from one energy state to the next, without passing through any intermediate levels. This idea is what leads me to the concept of quantum growth. It refers to a very real experience that has happened to all of us in one context or another. You work at something for a long time, seemingly with no result. Yet you continue to try. And then, out of the blue, success! No intermediary stages. Not all growth has this characteristic; many times there is a smooth, gradual improvement. But sometimes the gradual improvement is hidden; it's going on, but not in an obvious, or even visible, way. Until a threshold is reached, and then the growth bursts out into the open and becomes suddenly manifest. The electron has jumped to a new orbit.

Quantum Theory says that the universe is not made up of smooth, continuous stuff. At the smallest possible level, both matter and energy are actually particulate, or grainy, in nature; that is, they are made up of tiny particles that cannot be divided any further. We already understand that this is true of matter You can only break matter down so far; eventually you'll get to particles so small that they can't be separated into any more parts. But did you know that space is also made up of indivisible bits? If you divide any distance in half, and divide it in half again, and keep on dividing it in half, how long can you go on doing this? Theorists used to think you could do it forever; you'd just end up with smaller and smaller distances. But quantum physics has shown that there is a distance that defines the smallest bit of space that has any meaning. It's called the Planck length. The Planck length is roughly equal to 1.6 x 10-35 meters (that's 1.6 meters divided by ten 35 times), or about 10-20 times the size of a proton. Time is also similarly granulated. The smallest unit of time is called Planck time, which is the time it takes light to travel the Planck length, which is 10-43 seconds. So time and space are not infinitely divisible. What's the analogy? Simply this: personal growth is not always a smooth curve of ever-increasing achievement. In many cases it happens in quantum leaps. So don't give up. Good things are happening, even if you can't see them right away. Trust that your efforts will produce results and will not be in vain, but instead, will generate quantum growth.

Learn more about this author, Barry Mahfood.
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