{"id":96612,"date":"2019-09-24T12:04:07","date_gmt":"2019-09-24T19:04:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2019\/09\/2000-atoms-in-two-places-at-once-a-new-record-in-quantum-superposition"},"modified":"2019-09-24T12:04:07","modified_gmt":"2019-09-24T19:04:07","slug":"2000-atoms-in-two-places-at-once-a-new-record-in-quantum-superposition","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2019\/09\/2000-atoms-in-two-places-at-once-a-new-record-in-quantum-superposition","title":{"rendered":"2000 atoms in two places at once: A new record in quantum superposition"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/2000-atoms-in-two-places-at-once-a-new-record-in-quantum-superposition2.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>The quantum superposition principle has been tested on a scale as never before in a new study by scientists at the University of Vienna in collaboration with the University of Basel. Hot, complex molecules composed of nearly two thousand atoms were brought into a quantum superposition and made to interfere. By confirming this phenomenon\u2014\u201d the heart of quantum mechanics,\u201d in Richard Feynman\u2019s words\u2014on a new mass scale, improved constraints on alternative theories to quantum mechanics have been placed. The work will be published in Nature Physics.<\/p>\n<p><b>Quantum to classical?<\/b><\/p>\n<p>The superposition principle is a hallmark of quantum theory which emerges from one of the most fundamental equations of quantum mechanics, the Schr\u00f6dinger equation. It describes particles in the framework of wave functions, which, much like <a href=\"https:\/\/phys.org\/tags\/water+waves\/\" rel=\"tag\" class=\"\">water waves<\/a> on the surface of a pond, can exhibit <a href=\"https:\/\/phys.org\/tags\/interference+effects\/\" rel=\"tag\" class=\"\">interference effects<\/a>. But in contrast to water waves, which are a collective behavior of many interacting <a href=\"https:\/\/phys.org\/tags\/water+molecules\/\" rel=\"tag\" class=\"\">water molecules<\/a>, quantum waves can also be associated with isolated single particles.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The quantum superposition principle has been tested on a scale as never before in a new study by scientists at the University of Vienna in collaboration with the University of Basel. Hot, complex molecules composed of nearly two thousand atoms were brought into a quantum superposition and made to interfere. By confirming this phenomenon\u2014\u201d the [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":513,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41,48,1617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-96612","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-information-science","category-particle-physics","category-quantum-physics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96612","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/513"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=96612"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96612\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=96612"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=96612"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=96612"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}