3 ms·

Awesome experiment, and really cool findings, but I feel that... > The findings take us a step nearer to measuring gravitational fields that are so weak that t

• crubier 6y ago
  In terms of mass it takes us halfway there already, from 10^30kg to 10^-3kg, with quantum effects arriving around 10^-15kg. And in terms of force, the article states that the force involved in that experiment is equivalent to the force of earth gravity on a mass of 10^–15kg, which is probably even closer to the energy of a graviton.
  • penetraitor69 6y ago
    Depending on how you're cutting it, you could also call it 1/1000000000000 of the way there.
    • seanhunter 6y ago
      That's half (within some tolerance).
  • abdullahkhalids 6y ago
    Why do you say that quantum effects arise at 10^-15kg? The carbon atom is about 2x10^-26 kg. And I don't think we can put objects much larger than a few atom molecules into a superposition of two locations.
    • johncolanduoni 6y ago
      It depends on the nature of the quantization of the gravitational field. If we expect the gravitational field itself to be quantized in a manner somewhat similar to the electromagnetic field, we may be able to detect quantum effects without the objects being particularly small. A good analogue is the photoelectric effect, which involves no superposition at all and can be observed even with macro amounts of energy involved.
    • FeepingCreature 6y ago
      Not sure if this has held up, but Google points at this 2010 paper that put a microscopic object into a superposition: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/232755709_Quantum_ground_state_and_single-phonon_control_of_a_mechanical_resonator https://www.researchgate.net/publication/232755709_Quantum_g...
• arbitrage 6y ago
  It's science-journalism. They needed a tag to wrap up the article. For a lay reader, it would give them an overall concept they can tie the just-read article to, increasing the likelihood of retention. For an astute reader, yeah, it smells like bullshit.