4 ms·
> Macroscopic objects are quantum objects. But when the mass is big enough, the position and momentum can be defined simultaneously with an error that is so sma
by pmiller2 8y ago
> Macroscopic objects are quantum objects. But when the mass is big enough, the position and momentum can be defined simultaneously with an error that is so small that you can just ignore the uncertainty and approximate them as classical objects.
Exactly. And, due to quantum tunnelling, there's a teeny tiny chance I could walk through a wall, but because there are a lot of particles in me that all have to tunnel a relatively large distance, and the probability of even one of my particles tunnelling that far is so tiny, it won't happen.
Intuitively, the difference between quantum and classical objects is a lot like the central limit theorem. Add up a bunch of uncertainties, all of which have similar distributions, and you're going to get something with a very small variance (uncertainty).