Macroscopic (human hair-sized) entangled "quantum drums" demonstrated

[Andy Capp]

This is pretty huge, for something as wide as a hair, LOL. Typically, quantum entanglement has been achieved only with microscopic objects and for only short periods of time.

"At 15 microns, the “drumheads” described in this paper at Nature are of the scale of a human hair, much larger than the photons or atoms that have been the staple of entanglement experiments since the 1970s.

Working at the macro scale offers two important advantages. First, such objects can interact with both photons and microwaves, and could thus act as a channel between quantum communication systems (using photons) and microwave-based quantum computers.

Second, a mechanical system that can be quantum-controlled could be the basis of instruments to measure phenomena such as gravitational waves."

That's frikken cool. And so is this,

"The superconducting circuit was cooled to around .15 Kelvin (-273° Celsius) for the experiment, and in the experiment, entanglement was maintained for nearly 30 minutes."

I spy with my little eye ... a quantum drum with TRILLIONS of atoms

 

[Ares Black]

This might be the nerdiest thread I have ever seen.

Interesting read though.

 

[My name is]

I read the title and felt like an idiot

 

[rj144]

This is pretty huge, LOL. Typically, quantum entanglement has been achieved only with microscopic objects and for only short periods of time.

"At 15 microns, the “drumheads” described in this paper at Nature are of the scale of a human hair, much larger than the photons or atoms that have been the staple of entanglement experiments since the 1970s.

Working at the macro scale offers two important advantages. First, such objects can interact with both photons and microwaves, and could thus act as a channel between quantum communication systems (using photons) and microwave-based quantum computers.

Second, a mechanical system that can be quantum-controlled could be the basis of instruments to measure phenomena such as gravitational waves."

That's frikken cool. And so is this,

"The superconducting circuit was cooled to around .15 Kelvin (-273° Celsius) for the experiment, and in the experiment, entanglement was maintained for nearly 30 minutes."

I spy with my little eye ... a quantum drum with TRILLIONS of atoms

15 Kelvin is not -273 Celsius. That's absolute zero. It's -258 Celsius.

 

[Jake the Muss]

FE is frikken cool.

 

[Midnighter]

15 Kelvin is not -273 Celsius. That's absolute zero. It's -258 Celsius.

0.15 Kelvin not 15

 

[Andy Capp]

15 Kelvin is not -273 Celsius. That's absolute zero. It's -258 Celsius.

0.15 Kelvin not 15

I read the title and felt like an idiot

Try reading the article. It's not too bad.

 

[Andy Capp]

This might be the nerdiest thread I have ever seen.

Interesting read though.

If so, you haven't been paying attention.

Or, put another way, keep an eye out for my Mayberry threads.

 

[Midnighter]

Try reading the article. It's not too bad.

I did though.

 

[Andy Capp]

I did though.

Sorry, your earlier post sounded like you stopped at the title. The important breakthrough is that it's hard to manipulate individual atoms in any way that gives practical results. But if you can get quantum entanglement on a scale the size of a human hair, that you can see with your own eye, it opens up lots of new possibilities in the field. It's very significant.

 

[Midnighter]

Sorry, your earlier post sounded like you stopped at the title. The important breakthrough is that it's hard to manipulate individual atoms in any way that gives practical results. But if you can get quantum entanglement on a scale the size of a human hair, that you can see with your own eye, it opens up lots of new possibilities in the field. It's very significant.

I was correcting him on the temperature.

And yea, that's cool.

 

[Andy Capp]

I was correcting him on the temperature.

And yea, that's cool.

And I appreciate that you beat me to it. I'm talking about the read the title and felt like an idiot comment.

Anyway it's all good. I didn't intend to quote the other posts.

 

[kenetics]

I like turtles.

 

[rj144]

Try reading the article. It's not too bad.

Ahh... I thought that was a period. Normally, it's written 0.15 Kelvin.

 

[RetiredSlave]

How? Why?

 

[Agent Mulder's Hair]

That's very interesting

 

[ShinkanPo]

This might be the nerdiest thread I have ever seen.

Interesting read though.

I did not understand any of it. I should go back to grade school I guess

 

[Andy Capp]

On a peripherally related note, this story says the are 10's of thousands of black holes orbiting near the center of the galaxy,
https://www.theregister.co.uk/2018/04/04/the_milky_ways_heart_may_be_stuffed_with_20000_black_holes/
In the story the say the data could be used to help gravitational wave researchers, whereas the story in the OP is concerned with measuring them.

Edit: to me, part of what makes following this type of stuff fun is seeing how totally different discoveries can be related.

 

[CoolB]

I usually try to pretend that I understand threads like this but

 

[Andy Capp]

How? Why?

The how is more technical than I can really explain, except that it involves making the atoms very very cold, near absolute zero, and then using an instrument to induce them all to become entangled.

The why is that measurements can be made by seeing what happens to them when something disturbs them that they are sensitive to, say very long wavelength radiation or gravitational waves.