Jul 11, 2024 02:35 PM
https://www.sciencealert.com/strange-mot...ly-bizarre
EXCERPTS: . . . Yet in spite of a century of experiments showing just how useful quantum theory is at explaining what we see, it's hard to shake our 'classical' view of the Universe's building blocks as reliable fixtures in time and space. Even Einstein was forced to ask his fellow physicist, "Do you really believe the Moon is not there when you are not looking at it?"
Numerous physicists have asked over the decades whether there is some way the physics we use to describe macroscopic experiences can also be used to explain all of quantum physics.
Now a new study has also determined that the answer is a big fat nope.
[...] The neutron interferometer involves firing a beam of neutrons at a target. As the beam travels through the apparatus, it splits in two, with each of the beam's prongs traveling separate paths until they are later recombined.
Leggett and Garg's theorem states that a measurement on a simple binary system can effectively give two results. Measure it again in the future, those results will be correlated, but only up to a certain point.
[...] Using several different measurement methods, the researchers probed the neutron beams at different times. And, sure enough, the measurements were too closely correlated for the classical rules of macro reality to be at play. The neutrons, their measurements suggested, were actually traveling simultaneously on two separate paths, separated by a distance of several centimeters.
It's just the latest in a long string of Leggett-Garg experiments that show we really do need quantum theory in order to describe the Universe we live in... (MORE - missing details)
PAPER: https://journals.aps.org/prl/abstract/10...132.260201
EXCERPTS: . . . Yet in spite of a century of experiments showing just how useful quantum theory is at explaining what we see, it's hard to shake our 'classical' view of the Universe's building blocks as reliable fixtures in time and space. Even Einstein was forced to ask his fellow physicist, "Do you really believe the Moon is not there when you are not looking at it?"
Numerous physicists have asked over the decades whether there is some way the physics we use to describe macroscopic experiences can also be used to explain all of quantum physics.
Now a new study has also determined that the answer is a big fat nope.
[...] The neutron interferometer involves firing a beam of neutrons at a target. As the beam travels through the apparatus, it splits in two, with each of the beam's prongs traveling separate paths until they are later recombined.
Leggett and Garg's theorem states that a measurement on a simple binary system can effectively give two results. Measure it again in the future, those results will be correlated, but only up to a certain point.
[...] Using several different measurement methods, the researchers probed the neutron beams at different times. And, sure enough, the measurements were too closely correlated for the classical rules of macro reality to be at play. The neutrons, their measurements suggested, were actually traveling simultaneously on two separate paths, separated by a distance of several centimeters.
It's just the latest in a long string of Leggett-Garg experiments that show we really do need quantum theory in order to describe the Universe we live in... (MORE - missing details)
PAPER: https://journals.aps.org/prl/abstract/10...132.260201