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

Gravitational wave measurements, and quantum computing and communications are just two applications of an international experiment that created entanglement between objects large enough to be visible to humans. At 15 microns, the “drumheads” described in this paper at Nature are of the scale of a human hair, much larger than …

  1. FozzyBear
    Pint

    entanglement was maintained for nearly 30 minutes.

    On objects that large! Yeah that deserves a couple of these -->

    1. King Jack
      Joke

      entanglement was maintained for nearly 30 minutes

      30 minutes? I've seen entanglement last for decades. You think you are divorced/separated but somehow you still have to shell out to your ex other half.

    2. John Smith 19 Gold badge
      Thumb Up

      entanglement was maintained for nearly 30 minutes. On objects that large!

      Indeed.

      Compared to the more usual " X number of atoms in a gas at -200c" or similar this is quite astonishing.

      Entanglement with an object you can see with the naked eye.

      1. Paul Kinsler

        Re: Entanglement with an object you can see with the naked eye.

        Although I strongly suspect actually looking at it with the naked eye* is going to kill any entanglement rather quickly.

        [*] (or rather simply adjusting the setup so it would be visible)

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Devil

      entanglement was maintained for nearly 30 minutes

      But if you can't kill a cat with it it does not count.

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Joke

    Now I'm hungry ;)

    "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."

    Microwaves? Does that mean it can also act as part of my instant microwave oven lunch?

    1. Mark 85

      Re: Now I'm hungry ;)

      Microwaves? Does that mean it can also act as part of my instant microwave oven lunch?

      If so, would it shorten the heating time? Would it work on food bigger than small stuffed mushroom? It might even allow you to fire up the microwave at home and heat the food at work via "entanglement". Enquiring minds and all that....

      1. HelpfulJohn

        Re: Now I'm hungry ;)

        Hmm, not good.

        Very, very not good.

        The Company would expect you to entangle your home device in such a way that The Company kit would be powered by *your* electricity bill. It's your lunch, so you should pay to heat it.

        Next year: entangling your water bill for your lunch-time cuppa. Maybe even heating and cooling the office with entangled household current. It would make sense as it would be *you* the environmental conditioning would be helping, not The Company.

  3. Pascal Monett Silver badge
    Coat

    The real question

    If you leave your sandwich on it, does that affect the computation results ?

    1. Hollerithevo

      Re: The real question

      Computer says toasted cheese.

      1. annodomini2

        Re: The real question

        Talkie toaster says:

        "A-ha! you're a waffle man!"

  4. Rich 11

    Both?

    both photons and microwaves

    Er....

    1. Paul Kinsler

      Re: Both?

      Some photons are microwave photons, some are not.

      1. Rich 11

        Re: Both?

        Some photons are microwave photons, some are not.

        Perhaps the Department of Redundancy Department might not take issue with saying 'both photons and microwaves', but set theorists would laugh their tits off.

    2. Brewster's Angle Grinder Silver badge

      And if that blows your mind, wait till you have a radio frequency photon.

      Boring footnote: Google tells me microwave frequency photons are just about detectable if you really push modern kit to the max.

      1. Paul Kinsler
        Headmaster

        tells me microwave frequency photons are just about detectable

        Presumably that is "a single microwave frequency photon", since lots at once are easy to detect - just heat up something in a microwave!

  5. Scott Broukell

    Sometime in the not too distant future . . .

    Malware alert puny humans! - your entire reality has been entangled! - please send oodles of dosh now to get your reality back!

    1. allthecoolshortnamesweretaken

      Re: Sometime in the not too distant future . . .

      I'm not altogether sure I'd want this particular reality back. Statistically speaking, there should exist better ones.

  6. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Vibrating and Large?

    Schroedinger's Whiskers!

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Schroedinger's Whiskers!

      More humane than using the entire cat...

  7. Warm Braw

    More humane than using the entire cat

    That's merely your sup(er)position.

  8. Destroy All Monsters Silver badge

    Canned Quantum Unicorn Meat?

    infinitely precise reconstruction of classical forces driving the oscillators

    I don't understand this. In a paper dealing with QM, how can the authors speak about "classical forces", moreso about "infinitely precise reconstruction"? The mind resonates from the sudden warp into Newton Universe. IMHO one could only obtain an arbitrarily smooth gaussian...

    This has implications for gravitational wave detection

    Possibly, and maybe more. Currently experiments of interest being prepared to actually check the intersectionality of QM and GR: Physicists Find a Way to See the ‘Grin’ of Quantum Gravity: A recently proposed experiment would confirm that gravity is a quantum force.. Maybe these guys could get together.

    1. Brewster's Angle Grinder Silver badge

      Re: Canned Quantum Unicorn Meat?

      The final paper is free to read and that particular sentence has been toned down and tweaked. It now says:

      Entangled mechanical oscillators combined with phase-sensitive measurement systems can find practical use in the precise reconstruction of classical resonant forces, which has implications for quantum metrology.

      Which is a lot more sober.

      Some sketchy googling suggests interferometers (and other "resonant" "mechanical" systems) suffer from noise well above the floor given by the uncertainty principle. But with entanglement you can "reconstruct" the missing information and get close to the Heisenberg limit. And I think that's all that's being said.

    2. aregross

      Re: Canned Quantum Unicorn Meat?

      The "Grin" they're talking about is the Cheshire Cat's

  9. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

    "At 15 microns ... of the scale of a human hair"

    Not quite that scale. A grain of hazel pollen is more or less triangular and about 25 microns per side. Hazel's fairly typical so 15 micron is about the size of a smallish pollen grain. You might see it with the naked eye as a point of light. If you wanted to see its shape you'd need a decent microscope.

    But certainly bigger than what quantum physicists work on.

    1. ravenviz Silver badge

      In physics, "on the scale of" can be anywhere within an order of magnitude. Google says a human hair is about 30 - 100 microns thick, so 15 microns is "on the scale of" a human hair.

      /IMO

  10. drewsup

    soo..

    The real question is, can this be used for instantaneous communication at a distance of oh say, Earth to Mars??

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: soo..

      no but if you swallowed the device then eventually you could hear Uranus

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: soo..

        "no but if you swallowed the device then eventually you could hear Uranus"

        That depends where your head is at.

  11. Andy 73 Silver badge

    What we need now...

    ... is a really strong cup of tea.

  12. JeffyPoooh
    Pint

    "...entanglement between objects....visible to humans."

    Based on everything that we've been fed for decades regarding that 'Observation Effect' thingy, I presume not 'entangled' and 'visible' at the same time.

    In other words, 'The Cat Must Be In A Box.'

    I wonder if we'll finally be permitted to peek, given that just a few wafer-thin photons shouldn't bother a macroscopic clump all that much.

    1. tony2heads

      @JeffyPoooh

      ypu have to distrurb the system to detect cat in a box

      1. JeffyPoooh
        Pint

        Re: Tony2Heads

        Yes. That's the point that I was referring to with, "...a few wafer-thin photons shouldn't bother a macroscopic clump all that much."

        If quantum entanglement becomes macroscopic, the granola bar munching excessively Spiritualism crowd are going to become insufferable.

  13. Samoa Tech
    Thumb Up

    Did they demodulate the incoming signal; Hi there!

  14. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    There is talk

    Of a quantum system newly developed by an Australian chappy. His alter ego raves about it. Nekaichoh is on Facebook.

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