Sunday, July 1, 2012

Super Physics Smackdown: Relativity v Quantum Mechanics...In Space

-34m). However, efforts are now afoot to explore this scale using atom interferometers.

And until now, physicists have not been able to test quantum mechanics on the scale of general relativity, because the distances over which the curvature of space time become significant are so large. We saw just a few weeks ago that the record for teleporting quantum objects is only 150km, which is too little for general relativity to work its magic.   

Rideout and co say that's bound to change over the coming years. The paradoxes of quantum mechanics were first debated by Einstein, Bohr and others in the 1920s and 30s. But for various reasons, not least of which was blind prejudice against this type of work, it wasn't until the 1970s and 80s that physicists began to test them experimentally. 

The paradoxes raised by the meeting of quantum mechanics and relativity are just as old and arguably more profound. And yet, physicists have yet to begin a concerted effort to explore them experimentally.

High time to grip this nettle.

Ref: arxiv.org/abs/1206.4949: Fundamental Quantum Optics Experiments Conceivable With Satellites Reaching Relativistic Distances And Velocities

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