Quantum Trickery: Testing Einstein's Strangest Theory

The New York Times ^ | December 27, 2005 | Dennis Overbye

[snarks_when_bored]

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December 27, 2005

Quantum Trickery: Testing Einstein's Strangest Theory

By DENNIS OVERBYE

Einstein said there would be days like this.

This fall scientists announced that they had put a half dozen beryllium atoms into a "cat state."

No, they were not sprawled along a sunny windowsill. To a physicist, a "cat state" is the condition of being two diametrically opposed conditions at once, like black and white, up and down, or dead and alive.

These atoms were each spinning clockwise and counterclockwise at the same time. Moreover, like miniature Rockettes they were all doing whatever it was they were doing together, in perfect synchrony. Should one of them realize, like the cartoon character who runs off a cliff and doesn't fall until he looks down, that it is in a metaphysically untenable situation and decide to spin only one way, the rest would instantly fall in line, whether they were across a test tube or across the galaxy.

The idea that measuring the properties of one particle could instantaneously change the properties of another one (or a whole bunch) far away is strange to say the least - almost as strange as the notion of particles spinning in two directions at once. The team that pulled off the beryllium feat, led by Dietrich Leibfried at the National Institute of Standards and Technology, in Boulder, Colo., hailed it as another step toward computers that would use quantum magic to perform calculations.

But ...

[snip]

[snarks_when_bored]

You may be on the way towards proving the impossibility of the 'many-worlds' interpretation...

[norwaypinesavage]

That's why the water in a bathtubs actually spins in the same direction in both the southern and the northern hemispheres. You just happen to be looking at it from underneath, when you're in the southern hemispheres.

[mikrofon]

[snarks_when_bored]

No problem...

[Old Student]

"Is reality really the "one illusion we all share"?"

More like where all our fantasies overlap. But then again, I'm a social studies major, and I'm going to have to retake trig before I can get anywhere even within seeing distance of someplace where I could understand the math...

[Bellflower]

ping

[razorback-bert]

The fog comes
on little cat feet.

[lafroste]

I guess that means that the object is really only spinning in one direction, but the observer is observing it from opposite perspectives simultaneously. That means that the object is in a state that is not part of the recognized dimensions and is extra-dimensional for that brief instant in time (or out of time as the case may be).

[grey_whiskers]

Did I give you permission to post my picture, Snarks? ;-)

[jwalsh07]

Tough engineering problem for the quantum computer guys. Yeah, the potential for vast amounts of information and speed exists but accessing the information without destroying it is a sticky wicket. Trials and tribulations.

[snarks_when_bored]

Did I give you permission to post my picture, Snarks? ;-)

I have discovered a truly marvelous 'dead cat bounce' joke, but this post is too brief to contain it.

[Bloody Sam Roberts]

That means that the object is in a state that is not part of the recognized dimensions and is extra-dimensional for that brief instant in time (or out of time as the case may be).

Excellent point and explanation.

Hey...it works for me.

[Onelifetogive]

two diametrically opposed conditions at once, like black and white...

That's grade-school level quantum physics. How about when it black and white AND red all over????

[Erasmus]

Zeno would have loved this stuff.

"Antelope Freeway, one half mile."
"Antelope Freeway, one quarter mile."
"Antelope Freeway, one sixteenth mile."
"Antelope Freeway, one thirty-second mile."
"Antelope Freeway, one sixty-fourth mile."
"Antelope Freeway, one one hundred twenty-eigth mile."
"Antelope Freeway, one two hundred fifty-sixth mile."
...

[Erasmus]

Once in a while, a wormhole opens and I can pick it up on 1600 AM.

[Mannaggia l'America]

Most of these guys are just capitalizing on the inability of the public (and more importantly, the guys who fund this research) to understand what they are doing, and what it proves or doesn't prove.

I think they do it just to get chix...

[The_Reader_David]

No, but it might be the basis of a really neat way to share one time binary pads and get unbreakable encryption.

[Boiler Plate]

I think you are confusing Evil Mr Spock fo Evil Prof Robinson.

[higgmeister]

Read "To Sail Beyond the Sunset" and "Number of the Beast"

In one reality there is a pleasant peaceful America where
they restarted their calendars from the day they lynched
all the lawyers.

[Straight Vermonter]

This fall scientists announced that they had put a half dozen beryllium atoms into a "cat state."

Reportedly the result was a beryllium sphere.