In our daily world, things obey common sense: objects cannot be in two places at the same time and exist even when we do not look at them. However, there is another area – the world of quantum mechanics, where nothing is definite, and one atom or molecule can be in several places until they are observed.
The question arises: does reality really obey one set of laws for Macro and another for micro? Most physicists do not accept the idea of a divided universe. The theoretician from the University College of London (UCL) Sugato Bosom believes that quantum mechanics are not observed on the scale of large objects due to insufficient isolation from the environment, which would see quantum properties. Bosos and his colleagues from the UK and India plan to conduct an experiment that must determine whether large objects are subordinate to the strange laws of quantum theory.
In a recent article in the journal Physical Review Letters, an experiment is described that dates back to the famous mental task of Ervin Schredinger, formulated almost a century ago. Schrödingger proposed to consider the situation with a cat locked in a closed box along with a poison bottle, which can break up with a 50% probability. According to the principles of quantum mechanics, until no one opens the box, the cat is simultaneously alive and dead.
This famous mental experiment demonstrates the absurdity of the application of quantum rules to macroscopic objects. In the new work, physicists implemented Schrödinger’s situation in the laboratory, placing a micro -Rusonator in a quantum superposition of two conditions. This made it possible to demonstrate quantum uncertainty for a macroscopic object.
An experimental installation with optical levitation in the Hendrick Ulbricht Laboratory at the University of Southampton in England involves the use of lasers to suspend the single nicrixing silica in a vacuum chamber. Despite the fact that the size of the particle is only about 100 nanometers, which approximately corresponds to the size of the virus, it is a thousand times larger than molecular clusters, previously considered an indicator of “quantum”.
Researchers set themselves the task of finding out whether quantum mechanics are really applicable to everything, regardless of size. This can allow physicists to see the true quantum behavior of objects, even relatively large, if they can be isolated from almost everything in the environment.