Note to users. If you're seeing this message, it means that your browser cannot find this page's style/presentation instructions -- or possibly that you are using a browser that does not support current Web standards. Find out more about why this message is appearing, and what you can do to make your experience of our site the best it can be.

Science 27 October 2000:
Vol. 290. no. 5492, pp. 720 - 721
DOI: 10.1126/science.290.5492.720
Prev | Table of Contents | Next

Perspectives

Also see the archival list of Science's Compass: Enhanced Perspectives

QUANTUM MECHANICS:
Enhanced: Schrödinger's Cat Is Out of the Hat

Claudia Tesche

In 1935, Erwin Schrödinger suggested his famous gedanken experiment of the cat that is simultaneously "dead" and "alive" inside its box until the box is opened. But as Tesche explains in her Perspective, such a macroscopic manifestation of quantum mechanics has remained elusive until recently. The experiments by van der Wal et al. are an important step toward demonstrating that quantum mechanics can describe macroscopic phenomena. The approach may be exploited in quantum computing and quantum cryptography.

The author is in the Department of Psychology, University of New Mexico, Logan Hall, Albuquerque, NM 87131-1161, USA. E-mail: ctesche{at}unm.edu

Read the Full Text

To Advertise     Find Products

Science. ISSN 0036-8075 (print), 1095-9203 (online)