Quantum Hyperion
October 24th, 2008 by WaltSean at Cosmic Variance has an interesting article on decoherence called Quantum Hyperion. It describes a paper by Zurek and Paz that calculates that if Saturn’s moon Hyperion were an isolated system, then within twenty years it would evolve into a non-localized quantum state. It is only the interaction with the outside world that keeps Hyperion looking like a moon.
October 27th, 2008 at 7:50 pm
I wrote about that in week223 of This Week’s Finds. I cited a
paper by the mathematical physicist Michael Berry
on this subject.
Does Sean’s article have a cool photo of Hyperion, like mine? I’ll go check…