A team of scientists has succeeded in putting an object large enough to be visible to the naked eye into a mixed quantum state of moving and not moving
After the cooling process was complete, Cleland and company were able to "simultaneously set the paddle moving while leaving it standing still." Again: The metal paddle was both vibrating and not vibrating at the same time, and in a way that was observable by the naked eye
Now, I am very sceptical about this. Part of that is because I HATE quantum mechanics. So if someone with a nature subscription and a good understanding of quantum mechanics could look up this article and give me (and everybody else on this board who is interested) a better idea of what really is written in that article, please do so.
Again: The metal paddle was both vibrating and not vibrating at the same time, and in a way that was observable by the naked eye
Looks like journalistic nonsense.
Quantum physics can be indeed strange, but I really have difficulty to understand how anybody could see with naked eyes an object that vibrates and does not vibrate at the same time.
Either the journalist has polarized eyes or I think he used the wrong words...
The issue is with the eye simultaneously both seeing and not seeing the paddle. To observe this, your eye must be out of quantum phase synchronicity with the vibration and non-vibration of the paddle. If it were in-phase you would be stuck seeing one of the other.
Carl White wrote:I'm no quantum physicist, but shouldn't the act of observing have forced the selection of one state or the other?
Indeed.
The system in question was of course not observed in this way. However the key issue is that quantum coherence is preserved over an object large enough in principle to be visible with naked eye.
So you could imagine large cryogenic systems being in quantum superposition such that the macroscopic state is indeterminate, and only revealed when observed from the outside. This work makes realisation of such systems seem a lot more possible.
