This is cool: a micromachined device, which has been cooled into its ground stated.
Scientists supersize quantum mechanics
A team of scientists has succeeded in putting an object large enough to be visible to the naked eye into a mixed quantum state of moving and not moving.
This, not so much
Quantum mechanics just got REAL
The fuck? In my day, we were taught, with the help of non-graphing calculators and paper notebooks, that quantum mechanics was a lot of wand-wavey nonsense about wave/particle duality that you never had to worry about because it belonged to some magical tiny land that no one visits with their actual eyes. This…this is straight-up magic.
Ohdearohdearohdear. Quantum mechanics is not magic. It’s great that it evokes a sense of wonder when the experimental boundaries are pushed, but considering established science to be “wand-wavey nonsense” diminishes it and makes it easier to accept real nonsense.
The Nature article is absolutely terrible. It’s written in the tone of SciAm, and includes approximately zero information about the actual research. I saw Cleland’s presentation at the APS meeting, and it’s a stretch (at best) to say that this device was measured in its ground state. Maybe some fraction of the time it can be considered in that state, but there are always caveats.