There's a mysterious threshold that's predicted to exist beyond the limits of what we can see. It's called the quantum-classical transition.
If scientists were to find it, they'd be able to solve one of the most baffling questions in physics: why is it that a soccer ball or a ballet dancer both obey the Newtonian laws while the subatomic particles they're made of behave according to quantum rules? Finding the bridge between the two could usher in a new era in physics.
We don't yet know how the transition from the quantum world to the classical one occurs, but a new experiment, detailed in Physical Review Letters , might give us the opportunity to learn more.
The experiment involves cooling a cloud of rubidium atoms to the point that they become virtually motionless. Theoretically, if a cloud of atoms becomes cold enough, the wave-like (quantum) nature of the individual atoms will start to expand and overlap with one another. It's sort of like circular ripples in a pond that, as they get bigger, merge to form one large ring. This phenomenon is more commonly known as a Bose-Einstein condensate, a state of matter in which subatomic particles are chilled to near absolute zero (0 Kelvin or −273.15° C) and coalesce into a single quantum object. That quantum object is so big (compared to the individual atoms) that it's almost macroscopic—in other words, it's encroaching on the classical world.
[Also Covered By]: http://arstechnica.com/science/2015/05/atomic-telescope-brings-atoms-to-standstill/
(Score: 2) by darkfeline on Sunday May 31 2015, @12:10AM
In that case, there should still be a statistical "transition", at which point Newtonian physics can predict behavior accurately enough to the Nth degree, for some N. Emergent phenomena, etc. etc.
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(Score: 3, Informative) by hendrikboom on Sunday May 31 2015, @02:18AM
Statistical estimates could work if the deviations of quantum mechanics from Newtonian were truly random. But they're not. Well, often they are to a usable approximation, but often they are not, and nonrandom situations can sort of gang up on each other to achieve interesting phenomona.