[Ethan Clive Osgoode]

This is a pretty silly article. One of many popular articles on the subject of quantum stupidity. Objects are made of elementary particles, not the other way around. Why is it so surprising that elementary particles do not behave like ping-pong balls or cars? The author says "objects have specific features and properties—that a ball is red" and he then wishes to transmit the sentiment of surprise to the reader, in that elementary particles are not like balls. Why should they be? And this silliness is extended further when objects are imagined to behave like elementary particles: "imagin[e] what would have happened if you had tried to cross the road when a truck was coming...". What a pile of metaphyisical rubbish.

Trucks are not big elementary particles. Cars and ping-pong balls are not made of little cars and little ping-pong balls. The point of atomic theory is that objects are made of elementary things and objects owe their properties to elementary things. There's no logical reason whatsoever to turn this around and expect the elementary things to have the properties of objects. And to say that objects can behave like a big elementary thing, is just a metaphysical contradiction. It's like being flabbergasted at the fact that muscle cells do not have arms and legs.

[dr_lew]

You are correct, sir!

I would only add that many of the familiar properties of everyday objects are pure manifestations of the quantum. My favorite example is metal, aluminum foil to be specific. What a strange sort of cloth! Classical physics offers no explanation whatsoever of its properties, only a phenomenological description. When you look at a shiny piece of metal, you’re staring straight into the depths of the Fermi sea.