Schrodinger's Cat Closer To Reality?

Posted by simoniker on Wednesday October 1, 2003 @07:28PM from the mew-mew-mewmew dept.

Shipud writes "A group from the University of Oxford is proposing a scheme to achieve quantum superposition in a large object, according to Nature - not as large as Schrodinger's cat, but about ten-thousandth of a square millimiter, some 10^14 atoms. Quantum superposition is the phenomenon in which a photon passing through a beam splitter to takes two paths at once, inconceivable in the macroscopic world. William Marshall and co-workers suggest to mount a tiny mirror on a springy arm, so that the power of a single photon will be enough to oscillate it. When that photon is superposed, it transfers its superposition to the mirror, which will be quantum superposed: at two places at once. Wave particle duality has already been shown in Buckminster fullerenes, a 60 atom compound. Are we getting closer to quantum computers?"

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Re:Yeah... by Jerf · 2003-10-02 05:14 · Score: 2, Informative

So even though the probability of the mirror hitting any gas molecules is low, how reliable are their results?

All experiments have a reliability less then 100%. Techniques to handle that have been around for a long time.

Rest assured the experiment will be performed many, many more times then just "once". (It seems to me you have that as part of your mental image.) Supercollider experiments are run into the hundreds or thousands of times (not certain, not part of that community, could easily be millions for all I know; corrections welcomed).