New Experiment Probes Weird Zone Between Quantum and Classical

April 10, 2007 | Source: Wired News

Scientists at the Max Planck Institute for Quantum Optics have created a tiny silicon cantilever arm on a chip.

After being cooled down to 0.0001 degrees above absolute zero, it will become the first object in the observable world scaled down to interact in the slippery world of quantum mechanics.

With a minute magnet attached at one end, the cantilever will make ultra-sensitive measurements of a cloud of several thousand laser-cooled rubidium atoms, in a Bose-Einstein condensate, hovering above it.