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Quantum state, visible to the naked eye!

Researchers have created a “quantum state” in the largest object yet.

Such states, in which an object is effectively in two places at once, have until now only been accomplished with single particles, atoms and molecules.

In this experiment, published in the journal Nature, scientists produced a quantum state in an object billions of times larger than previous tests.

Billions of times! This is extreme.

The result is a huge push toward answering the question of whether quantum mechanical effects simply disappear in objects beyond a certain size.

“As far as mechanical objects are concerned, the dividing line was at around 60 atoms,” Professor Cleland said.

“With this experiment, we’ve shown that the dividing line can be pushed up all the way to about a trillion atoms.”

And why stop there…

2 Comments

  1. Satama wrote:

    Why stop at cold? Photosynthesis is hot and green:
    http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20527464.000-natures-hot-green-quantum-computers-revealed.html

    And why stop there? The question seems to be an ethical and aesthetical one, ultimately about the role of intentionality in observation events.

    Question posed by the global wave function potential as superposition of all possible worlds, what to remember and what to forget of this decohering illusion of classical world that actualizes entropically from moment to moment, from quantum jump to quantum jump?

    Birds and trees that I keep now seeing are very nice, to begin with. And as everything interconnects, I guess everything else is OK too as is in this moment. Including being human, the creative edge for endless curiosity of God’s gnothi seauton.

    So what is intentionality if not Universal Mind’s will to explore endless variety of its mental images, including forms like us? The purpose of All is itself.

    Thursday, March 25, 2010 at 2:33 pm | Permalink
  2. Satama wrote:

    You can’t improve over Mother Nature – that is the frustrating news to techno-utopians who dream of photovoltaics replacing fossile energy.

    What is really frustrating is that techno-utopians constantly fail to understand most basic physics, starting from thermodynamics. The reason is that they have been conditioned to give attention to only quantity and lose sight of quality and comprehension of qualitative relations.

    Thermodynamical (and informational Shannon) entropy and energetic potential to do work – called exergy – is about relative quality of forms of energy, with heat at the bottom. Photosynthesis stores exergy with efficiency of quantum computation in chemical bonds that are highly stable and storable without any human input – extreme efficiency of exergy storage in form of chemical bonds are fossile fuels.

    Photovoltaics try to mimic plants but don’t store exergy in form of chemical bonds but produce only heat and electric current. Exergy of electic current cannot be stored efficiently and requires the whole technological matrix to do any work – the matrix that is build with and dependent from exergy in chemical bonds, especially fossile fuels, and as a whole has negative EROEI.

    What is negentropy, then, in human terms? Homo sapiens is homo hortonomicus, the only species besides ants known to practice gardening. Coevolution and symbiosis between Homo hortonimucus and plants means human potential to spread seeds and increase biodiversity – and that way photosynthesis – like no other species. Human gardener knows how to use lowest quality energy – heat – to aid plants to capture more solar exergy by lenghtening growth period – by using compost heat to grow plants over the compost. Human gardener know how to make deserts into blossoming forests. Human gardener knows how to plant forest gardens that satisfy all our justified material and spiritual needs.

    It should be self-evident that biological and cultural symbiosis and coevolution with other life forms works, but technological symbiosis with rocks and metals alone is a fools dream. I wonder why it isn’t? Maybe Gaia is just using technological civilization to find an anditote against big rocks falling down from the sky, constantly messing Her up… and who could blame Her for that?

    Friday, March 26, 2010 at 6:32 am | Permalink

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