The Daily R-r-r-ibbit

Desk Experiment 3: Someone to watch over me...

 

My computer desk and one of the harvestmen spiders in my screenssaver file. [Photo by Cathie Bird]

See Desk Experiment 1: No, we're not in Kansas anymore, and Desk experiment 2: Caught in the fade at my photo blog.

Physics team: Entangled diamonds vibrate together

I came across an interesting article today relating to intersections of quantum physics and spiritual principles of our essential oneness and interdependence with all that is.

When quantum systems such as electrons, molecules or photons interact, they can become "entangled" and, once they become separated by distance, then one object cannot be fully described without considering the other ones. They remain in a "quantum superposition" and share a single "quantum state" until a measurement is made. A group of scientists from the UK, Canada and Singapore reports on their work with these principles:

A pair of diamond crystals has been linked by quantum entanglement. This means that a vibration in the crystals could not be meaningfully assigned to one or other of them: both crystals were simultaneously vibrating and not vibrating.

Quantum entanglement — interdependence of quantum states between particles not in physical contact — has been well established between quantum particles such as atoms at ultra-cold temperatures. But like most quantum effects, it doesn't tend to survive either at room temperature or in objects large enough to see with the naked eye.

A team led by Ian Walmsley, a physicist at the University of Oxford, UK, found a way to overcome both those limitations, demonstrating that the weird consequences of quantum theory apply at large scales as well as at very small ones. The work is published today in Science.

Read the whole story at www.nature.com

Here are some additional links:

Abstract: Entangling Macroscopic Diamonds at Room Temperature [Lee, K. C. et al. Science 334, 1253–1256 (2011)]

Wikipedia has a pretty good page with many links to look at if you want to explore quantum entanglement further.