Scientists put half-dozen beryllim atoms into 'cat state'

[Kid Icarus]

http://www.insidebayarea.com/sanmate...ews/ci_3346904


The article explains it better then i could.

Be warned, it may break your brain. Just try to picture something, an atom, spinning both left and right. Or a cup being both empty and full, or something being both white and black at the same time. Owie.

[iris]

Originally Posted by article

These atoms were each spinning clockwise and counterclockwise at the same time. Moreover, like miniature Rockettes, they were all doing whatever it was they were doing together, in perfect synchrony.

Funny, "like miniature Rockettes" is exactly how Donatello visualizes quantum particles.

Originally Posted by Gwgtrunks

Be warned, it may break your brain.

Einstein commented, "On quantum theory, I use up more brain grease than on relativity." My brain hurts less if I imagine these particles to be spinning in opposite mathematical directions rather than physical directions (even if they are).

Good article. Tad confusing.

The "cat state" refers to the famous "Schrödinger's cat" thought experiment, which was intended to show that, according to the math, all states exist at the same time and also that such a thing is crazy. The cat is equally alive and dead, or in this case it's spinning in both directions. This impossibility may be attributed to the our sketchy understanding of quantum mechanics... which is what the physicists quarrel about in the article. Either these things really ARE happening or we're missing something.

"I don't like it, and I'm sorry I ever had anything to do with it." -- Erwin Schrödinger

[Kid Icarus]

so it'd be spinning in 1 and in -1 at the same time?

[iris]

Sure... heh *shrug*

[Voltron]

That's really strange! The thing that gets me, however, is that they still aren't certain that the laws of physics remain constant throughout the universe. So, would that mean this cat state would still affect everything?

[iris]

Originally Posted by Voltron

That's really strange! The thing that gets me, however, is that they still aren't certain that the laws of physics remain constant throughout the universe. So, would that mean this cat state would still affect everything?

Not sure what you're saying?

In the "cat state" experiment, they suspended 6 beryllium ions in a magnetic field and got the ion nuclei to spin clockwise and counterclockwise ("cat" state, a type of "superposition") in synch... the ions were "entangled," so what you do to one has a "magical" effect on the others and what you observe happening to one ion will be true about the others. Then they hit one of the ions with a laser beam to measure either its location or velocity. Doing the measurement caused the ion nucleus to pick a spin direction, and since they were entangled, the others magically followed suit.

Only the entangled ions were affected.... but according to the article it sounds like if you separated the entangled ions before you took the measurement it would have the same "magic" effect on ther other ions.

Check out this article: http://physicsweb.org/articles/news/9/12/1/1
There's a link to the NIST animation if you click on the picture.

They did this experiment with 5 photons (particles of light), and apparently the same rules applied. This new experiment was significant because it demonstrated superposition (the opposite spinning) and entanglement (spooky effect at a distance) with a relatively large number of atoms. All this would seem to further indicate that Einstein was wrong-- maybe God does play dice with the universe...