Replies

1 posted on 09/14/2006 8:19:42 PM PDT by annie laurie

2 posted on 09/14/2006 8:20:39 PM PDT by raygun (Whenever I see U.N. blue helmets I feel like laughing and puking at the same time.)

To: annie laurie

bookmark. Interesting article.

3 posted on 09/14/2006 8:21:31 PM PDT by Tench_Coxe

To: IonImplantGuru

OH, and another thing: ping!

4 posted on 09/14/2006 8:22:27 PM PDT by raygun (Whenever I see U.N. blue helmets I feel like laughing and puking at the same time.)

To: annie laurie

Quantum duck alert.....quark, quark, quark.

5 posted on 09/14/2006 8:29:27 PM PDT by shankbear

To: annie laurie

6 posted on 09/14/2006 8:34:07 PM PDT by JMJJR ( If Bush was a misleader, many top Democrats were misleadees)

To: annie laurie

Measuring the current should cause back action in the resonator

It's like the old superstition - "Naming calls".

7 posted on 09/14/2006 8:34:09 PM PDT by glorgau

To: annie laurie

Now the uncertainty principle is being harnessed to see if it is possible to identify a point at which matter begins to exhibit weird quantum behaviour.

I thought Schrodinger proved it starts at the cat-level.

8 posted on 09/14/2006 8:36:38 PM PDT by PackerBronco

To: annie laurie

11 posted on 09/14/2006 8:53:51 PM PDT by lesser_satan (EKTHELTHIOR!!!)

To: annie laurie

These sorts of experiments certainly demonstrate a technical virtuosity, but I resist the idea that they are necessary to illuminate "quantum weirdness", which is readily evident in the world as we experience it, minute to minute.

In fact, it is Quantum Uncertainty which "holds up the world". It is the only thing which prevents atomic electrons from collapsing into the nucleus.

Note that an electron confined within a radius r of a proton will have energy -e^2/r, so it can continually lose energy by falling inward, but by the Uncertainty Principle, it must have a residual velocity such that r (mv) > h, so mv > h/r, and this implies a kinetic energy mv^2/2 > h^2/(2mr^2), so if r gets too small, the "confinement energy" will overwhelm the (negative) Coulomb energy.

To estimate a balance point, equate the magnitude of the opposing effects and get e^2/r = h^2/(2mr^2) or r = h^2/(2me^2), an approximation of the Bohr radius of the Hydrogen atom.

"Please observe, gentleman, how facts which at first seem improbable will, even on scant explanation, drop the cloak which has hidden them and stand forth in naked and simple beauty." - Salviati

13 posted on 09/14/2006 9:57:46 PM PDT by dr_lew

To: annie laurie

14 posted on 09/14/2006 11:19:20 PM PDT by Maynerd (New Middle East policy - less troops more nukes)

To: annie laurie

By cooling the resonator in this way - to temperatures out of reach of conventional technology - Schwab hopes to put it into a state called quantum superposition, where it is in two states at once.

Very cool! Thanks.

15 posted on 09/14/2006 11:30:01 PM PDT by Sunsong

To: annie laurie

By monitoring if and when the superposition vanishes, the team aims to probe the boundary between the quantum and classical worlds.

Well, that kinda seems like peeking in the cat's box. We can't do that.

17 posted on 09/15/2006 5:50:49 PM PDT by AndrewC

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