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Scientists Have Pushed the Schrödinger’s Cat Paradox to New Limits


A research team in China has held atoms in a state of quantum superposition for 23 minutes, suggesting tantalizing new possibilities in research and quantum computing.

In a paper listed on the preprint site ArXiv, researchers at the University of Science and Technology of China claim to have observed atoms in a state of quantum superposition for 23 minutes. The researchers used about 10,000 ytterbium atoms, which they cooled to a few thousandths of a degree above absolute zero and trapped with the electromagnetic forces of laser light. Because it extends superposition for so long, such a technique, if it is proved to be possible, could in the future be used to detect and study magnetic forces, probe new and exotic effects in physics, or even allow for very stable quantum computer memory.

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