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THERE is an outdated philosophy query a couple of tree in a forest. If it falls with no one there to listen to it, does it make a sound? Ask a quantum physicist they usually would possibly say the sound was there – however you couldn’t be certain the tree was.
Quantum mechanics has long pushed the boundaries of our understanding of reality at its tiniest. Countless experiments have proven that particles unfold out like waves, as an example, or appear be in multiple place without delay. In the quantum world, we will solely know the probability that one thing will seem in a single place or one other – till we glance, at which level it assumes a particular place. This troubled Albert Einstein. “I like to think that the moon is there even if I am not looking at it,” he mentioned.
Now, a brand new class of experiments is placing Einstein’s conviction to the take a look at, seeing if quantum weirdness stretches past the tiny world of quarks, atoms and qubits into the on a regular basis world of tables, chairs and, effectively, moons. “If you can go from one atom to two atoms to three to four to five to a thousand, is there any reason why it stops?” says Jonathan Halliwell at Imperial College London.
These experiments aren’t simply investigating whether or not there’s a onerous boundary between the quantum and classical worlds, but additionally probing the true nature of actuality. If the work goes as some theorists anticipate, it’d simply kick the legs out from underneath one in every of our most firmly held beliefs: that issues exist no matter whether or not we’re taking a look at them. …
