ASSCASTLES BUILT OF QUANTUM

[ñͤͣ̄ͦ̌̑͗͊͛͂͗ ̸̨̨̣̺̼̣̜͙͈͕̮̊̈́̈͂͛̽͊ͭ̓͆ͅé ̰̓̓́ͯ́́͞]

The work shows that the laws of quantum mechanics hold up as expected on a large scale. "It's good for physics for sure," Wang says.

So if trillions of atoms can be put into a quantum state, why don't we see double-decker buses simultaneously stopping and going? Cleland says he believes size does matter: the larger an object, the easier it is for outside forces to disrupt its quantum state.

http://www.nature.com/news/2010/100317/full/news.2010.130.html

Note the barstool mention in the comments.

[Cain]

Wait, what?  Quantum effects on a macro-level?  That seems fairly...impressive.  If unlikely.  I'd like to see the actual paper on this.

[Igor]

The paper is here, but you have to pay to read it all.

There was another group in the same University trying to do something like this a while ago. They were trying to show that if you make something big enough go into a superposition, it would eventually collapse into one or the other, since there can't be enough energy to uphold both gravitational fields. As far as I can tell, they never really got anywhere. And this group doesn't seem to have anything to do with that one. Oh well. You can read more about that other experiment (Roger Penrose was the theorist behind it) here: PDF.

[Faust]

Wait, what?  Quantum effects on a macro-level?  That seems fairly...impressive.  If unlikely.  I'd like to see the actual paper on this.

Well all the macro stuff we see is just the overall average of all these micro scale matter interactions, after a certain point those averages become what we call classical physics.

[Telarus]

I saw this. I think the key breakthrough they made was figuring out what sort of macro object the could pump one quanta of electricity into (a really really small metal oscillator, but visible with the naked eye, although something tells me that doesn't mean the vibrations were visible, just the object).

[ñͤͣ̄ͦ̌̑͗͊͛͂͗ ̸̨̨̣̺̼̣̜͙͈͕̮̊̈́̈͂͛̽͊ͭ̓͆ͅé ̰̓̓́ͯ́́͞]

Wait, what?  Quantum effects on a macro-level?  That seems fairly...impressive.  If unlikely.  I'd like to see the actual paper on this.

Yeah, this appears to be an important breakthrough, if the science is solid:

"No one has shown to date that if you take a big object, with trillions of atoms in it, that quantum mechanics applies to its motion," Cleland says.