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posted by janrinok on Saturday May 30 2015, @10:18PM   Printer-friendly
from the pass-me-my-gloves-and-scarf dept.

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/


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  • (Score: 2) by Covalent on Sunday May 31 2015, @07:54PM

    by Covalent (43) on Sunday May 31 2015, @07:54PM (#190475) Journal

    If it's a true quantum particle, it might quantum teleport to other locations within the container.

    If it's a classical particle, it should fall due to gravity.

    At some point we'll be able to make a BEC as big as a basketball...and then perhaps watch it suddenly disappear and reappear, 5 feet to the left.

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