Physicists observe quantum properties in the world of objects
Demonstration ties the physics of the ultrasmall to the everyday
Physicists have demonstrated behavior governed by rules of the quantum world, which operate at the level of atoms, in mechanical objects large enough to see.
The accomplishment fulfills a long-held dream to bridge the quantum and everyday worlds. One day, researchers say, mechanical devices in a laboratory might be manipulated according to the rules of single atoms — paving the way to quantum information processing or probing other unusual behaviors of the subatomic world.
“This is groundbreaking work,” says Markus Aspelmeyer, a physicist at the University of Vienna in Austria who was not affiliated with the work. “Now the door is open. Now the fun begins.”