2,000 Atoms Exist in Two Places at Once in Unprecedented Quantum Experiment
By Rafi Letzter - Staff Writer 15 hours ago Space
The new experiment demonstrated a bizarre quantum effect from the double-slit experiment at an unprecedented scale.
An illustration suggests the behavior of big, complex molecules spreading out like ripples across space.An illustration suggests the behavior of big, complex molecules spreading out like ripples across space.(Image: © Yaakov Fein, Universität Wien)
Giant molecules can be in two places at once, thanks to quantum physics.
That's something that scientists have long known is theoretically true based on a few facts: Every particle or group of particles in the universe is also a wave — even large particles, even bacteria, even human beings, even planets and stars. And waves occupy multiple places in space at once. So any chunk of matter can also occupy two places at once. Physicists call this phenomenon "quantum superposition," and for decades, they have demonstrated it using small particles.
But in recent years, physicists have scaled up their experiments, demonstrating quantum superposition using larger and larger particles. Now, in a paper published Sept. 23 in the journal Nature Physics, an international team of researchers has caused molecule made up of up to 2,000 atoms to occupy two places at the same time.
Researchers had long known that light, fired through a sheet with two slits in it, would create an interference pattern, or a series of light and dark fringes, on the wall behind the sheet. But light was understood as a massless wave, not something made of particles, so this wasn't surprising. However, in a series of famous experiments in the 1920s, physicists showed that electrons fired through thin films or crystals would behave in a similar way, forming patterns like light does on the wall behind the diffracting material.
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https://www.livescience.com/2000-atoms-in-two-places-at-once.html
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