Scientists supersize quantum mechanics

Nature ^ | 3/17/10 | Geoff Brumfiel

[LibWhacker]

Largest ever object put into quantum state.

A team of scientists has succeeded in putting an object large enough to be visible to the naked eye into a mixed quantum state of moving and not moving.

Andrew Cleland at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and his team cooled a tiny metal paddle until it reached its quantum mechanical 'ground state' — the lowest-energy state permitted by quantum mechanics. They then used the weird rules of quantum mechanics to simultaneously set the paddle moving while leaving it standing still. The experiment shows that the principles of quantum mechanics can apply to everyday objects as well as as atomic-scale particles.

[BigEdLB]

A team of scientists has succeeded in putting an object large enough to be visible to the naked eye into a mixed quantum state of moving and not moving.

A Nancy Pelosi face lift?

[B-Chan]

Someone notify the US Olympic Ping Pong team! Thanks to science, we can now put those smug Chinese bastards in their place.

[Pavegunner72]

Comments after were the best.

[bjc]

Very, very witty.

[mnehring]

[Moonman62]

I both understood and did not understand this article at the same time.

[Rocky]

"There might be some interesting application," he says. "But frankly, I don't have one now."

Apparently, his mind is in a quantum state. Someone should check to see if it was cooled to a tenth Kelvin.

[Fiddlstix]

Hmmmmm.......
Hey. This ain't no big trick......
I can be sitting still and moving both at the same time.....
In fact I do it almost everyday.......
It's called driving a car....
LOL

[Quix]

PING TO OP

[BipolarBob]

I tried to explain this very simple concept to my boss that I was both snoozing and working at the same time but he’s not real big on quantum physics or rules for special relativity.

[r9etb]

I both understood and did not understand this article at the same time.

I observed your answer. Turns out that you understood the article.

[Alamo-Girl]

Thanks for the ping!

[50cal Smokepole]

“Schrödinger’s cat”
Ah-ha! So that explains the horked up hairballs in the hall while the cat is sleeping in the window sill. It all makes sense now.

[smokingfrog]

Finally, we know that size does matter.

[Getready]

I wnnder how they measured the paddle? And did the superposition
quantum circuit change the situation? Again, it seems we
are at the near limit of our observational abilities such that
we cannot determine the exact state of matter, and need to
use invented mathematical modeling with concommittant
counterintuitive notions such as moving and not moving
simultaneously....If nature makes our logic and semantics seem
incapable of describing our observations how much faith can we place
in logic?

But it does explain John Kerrys positon or positions on
Iraq. I knew he thought he was cool, but not 1/10 of a Kelvin degree
cool.

[Quix]

LOL.

Well put.

[count-your-change]

Very enlightening...”The thing did something to the gadget which caused unusual stuff to just happen somehow, maybe..”

[BraveMan]

If I understood this correctly, I didn’t . . .

[The Cajun]

Next, the researchers put the quantum circuit into a superposition of 'push' and 'don't push', and connected it to the paddle. Through a series of careful measurements, they were able to show that the paddle was both vibrating and not vibrating simultaneously.

That's the part I would like to see a lot more information on, especially the second sentence.