quantum mechanics thought experiment nyt crossword

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Answers to the New York Times Crossword

0227-20 NY Times Crossword 27 Feb 20, Thursday

Constructed by: Francis Heaney Edited by: Will Shortz

Not your puzzle? Try today’s … … syndicated NY Times crossword

Today’s Reveal Answer: Schrödinger’s Cat

There’s a note with today’s puzzle:

This puzzle has 16 solutions.

I didn’t spot this note until after I filled in one of those solutions, and assumed I was done. Once I read the note, it took me quite a while longer to work out what was going on. There are four pairs of squares in the grid in which a particular letter can go in either of the paired squares. For example, the answer to 18-across is OMS. The M can go in the left square (making 12-down WHOM and 1-down BOOS). The M can also go in the right square (making 12-down WHO and 1-down BOOMS). The four moveable letters in the grid spell out M-E-O-W!

• 6D Quantum mechanics thought experiment in which contradictory states exist simultaneously : SCHRODINGER’S CAT
• 18A Mantra chants : OMS
• 1D Sounds that can startle : BOO MS or BOO S
• 12D Pronoun that can ask a question : WH O or WH OM
• 33A Opposite of masc. : FEM
• 33D Go to extremes, foodwise : F AST or FE AST
• 34D Buildup during vacation : EM AIL or M AIL
• 39A Zenith : TOP
• 25D “Swell!” : NEA T ! or NEA TO !
• 26D Sag : DRO OP or DRO P
• 53A A pair : TWO
• 53D Many a middle schooler : T EEN or TW EEN
• 54D Possible reactions to shocks : WO WS or OWS

… a complete list of answers

Want to discuss the puzzle? Then … … leave a comment

Bill’s time: 8m 12s (and then another 5 minutes or so, so spot the MEOW!)

Bill’s errors: 0

Today’s Wiki-est Amazonian Googlies

1 british brew since 1777 : bass.

The red triangle on the label of a bottle of Bass Ale was registered in 1875 and is UK Registered Trade Mark (TM) No: 00001, the first trademark issued in the world.

5 Early challenge for Barack and Michelle Obama, for short : LSAT

Law School Admission Test (LSAT)

Michelle Obama née Robinson grew up on the South Side of Chicago. Her brother is Craig Robinson, former coach of men’s basketball at Oregon State University. After graduating from Harvard Law School, Michelle Robinson worked as an associate at the Chicago office of the Sidley Austin law firm. Barack Obama joined the firm as a summer associate and Michelle Robinson was assigned to mentor him, and as they say, one thing led to another …

13 Bill of Rights defender, in brief : ACLU

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has its roots in the First World War. It grew out of the National Civil Liberties Bureau (CLB) that was founded to provide legal advice and support to conscientious objectors. The ACLU’s motto is “Because Freedom Can’t Protect Itself”. The ACLU also hosts a blog on the ACLU.org website called “Speak Freely”.

The Constitution of the United States was adopted on September 17, 1787. There have been 27 amendments to the constitution, the first ten of which are collectively called the Bill of Rights. In essence the Bill of Rights limits the power of the Federal Government and protects the rights of individuals. For example, the First Amendment states:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

14 Dracula accessory : CAPE

“Dracula” is a novel written by the Irish author Bram Stoker and first published in 1897. Dracula wasn’t the first vampire of literature, but he certainly was the one who spawned the popularity of vampires in theater, film and television, and indeed more novels. Personally, I can’t stand vampire fiction …

18 Mantra chants : OMS

“Om” is a sacred mystic word from the Hindu tradition. “Om” is sometimes used as a mantra, a focus for the mind in meditation.

A mantra is a word that is used as a focus for the mind while meditating. The term is Sanskrit in origin, and is now used figuratively in English to describe any oft-repeated word or phrase.

22 “I, Claudius” role : NERO

Nero was Emperor of Rome from 54 to 68 CE, and towards the end of his reign participated in the Olympic Games in the year 67. The Roman leader raced in a ten-horse chariot, of which he lost control and nearly perished after being thrown from the vehicle. Acting and singing were Olympic events back then, and Nero also took part in those competitions. By all accounts, Nero performed badly in every event in which he vied, and yet somehow still managed to win Olympic crowns that he paraded around Rome on his return from Greece.

“I, Claudius” is a 1934 novel penned by Robert Graves, written in the form of an autobiography of Emperor Claudius of Rome. Graves wrote a sequel in 1935 called “Claudius the God”. Both books were adapted by the BBC into a fabulous television series that went by the name of the first book “I, Claudius”.

31 Certain rough patches : BRIARS

“Briar” is a generic name describing several plants that have thorns or prickles, including the rose. Famously, Br’er Rabbit lives in a briar patch.

35 Part of Indochina : LAOS

In the strict sense of the term, “Indochina” is a region in Southeast Asia that corresponds to the former French territory known as French Indochina. Today this region is made up of the countries of Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam. However, the term “Indochina” is more generally used to describe Mainland Southeast Asia, and in this usage it also encompasses Myanmar, Singapore and Thailand.

36 Jargon : LINGO

Lingo is specialized vocabulary. Journalese and legalese would be good examples.

The noun “jargon” can describe nonsensical and meaningless talk, or the specialized language of a particular group, trade or profession. The term “jargon” is Old French, with the more usual meaning of “chattering”. How apt …

39 Zenith : TOP

The nadir is the direction pointing immediately below a particular location (through to the other side of the Earth for example). The opposite direction, that pointing immediately above, is called the zenith. We use the terms “nadir” and “zenith” figuratively to mean the low and high points in a person’s fortunes.

48 Camper driver : RV’ER

One using a recreational vehicle (RV) might be called an RVer.

50 Joan ___, player of Pat Nixon in 1995’s “Nixon” : ALLEN

“Nixon” is a 1995 Oliver Stone biopic in which Welsh actor Anthony Hopkins plays US president Richard Nixon. This was Stone’s second film about the American presidency, after “JFK” (1991) and before “W” (2008).

57 Hall-of-Fame hitter Rod : CAREW

Rod Carew is a former Major League Baseball player from Panama. Actually. Carew is a “Zonian”, meaning that he was born in the Panama Canal Zone, a political entity that existed for decades from 1903.

60 Fearsome part of a Jabberwock : CLAW

Here are the first two verses of “Jabberwocky” by Lewis Carroll, probably the one poem that we all just loved learning to recite at school

’Twas brillig, and the slithy toves Did gyre and gimble in the wabe; All mimsy were the borogoves, And the mome raths outgrabe. Beware the Jabberwock, my son! The jaws that bite, the claws that catch! Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun The frumious Bandersnatch!

4 The Kaaba in Mecca, e.g. : SHRINE

The Kaaba is a large, cube-shaped structure that resides in a mosque in Mecca, in Saudi Arabia. According to the Qur’an, the Kaaba was constructed by Abraham and his son, Ishmael. When Muslims turn to face Mecca during prayers, they are actually turning to the Kaaba.

6 Quantum mechanics thought experiment in which contradictory states exist simultaneously : SCHRODINGER’S CAT

Erwin Schrödinger was an Austrian theoretical physicist, one of the so-called “fathers of Quantum Mechanics”. He won the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1933 for developing the Schrödinger Equation, the “Newton’s Law” of Quantum Mechanics. Famously, Schrödinger devised a thought experiment that illustrates the concept of a paradox. The scenario, known as “Schrödinger’s Cat”, presents us with a cat that can be both alive and dead at the same time. I used to think that I understood Schrödinger’s Cat, and then I became old and wise, and recognized my weaknesses …

7 Bar orders : ALES

The many, many different styles of beer can generally be sorted into two groups: ales and lagers. Ales are fermented at relatively warm temperatures for relatively short periods of time, and use top-fermenting yeasts, i.e. yeasts that float on top of the beer as it ferments. Lagers ferment at relatively low temperatures and for relatively long periods of time. Lagers use bottom-fermenting yeasts, i.e. yeasts that fall to the bottom of the beer as it ferments.

10 Ivy seen along the Schuylkill River : UPENN

The University of Pennsylvania (also “Penn” and “UPenn”) was founded in 1740 by Benjamin Franklin. Penn was the first school in the country to offer both graduate and undergraduate courses. Penn’s sports teams are known as the Quakers, and sometimes the Red & Blue.

17 Iridescent stones : OPALS

An opal is often described as having a milky iridescence known as opalescence.

23 Like the boys in “Lord of the Flies” : MAROONED

“Lord of the Flies” is such a great story! William Golding wrote the novel as an allegory of society. The most famous screen adaptation was made in 1963, directed by Peter Brook.

29 “Aladdin” parrot : IAGO

In the 1992 Disney feature “Aladdin”, there is a parrot called Iago. Iago is voiced by the comic Gilbert Gottfried.

32 Amazonas and others : RIOS

In Spanish, “el Amazonas” (the Amazon) is a “río” (river).

38 Fannie ___ : MAE

The Federal National Mortgage Association is commonly called “Fannie Mae”, a play on the initialism FNMA. Fannie Mae was founded during the Great Depression as part of President Roosevelt’s New Deal.

45 Surgery to improve how you look? : LASIK

LASIK surgery uses a laser to reshape the cornea of the eye to improve vision. The LASIK acronym stands for “laser-assisted in situ keratomileusis”.

47 Big name in cosmetics : ALMAY

The Almay brand of cosmetics was established back in 1931. Almay was founded by Alfred and Fanny May Woititz, who melded their given names to come up with the brand name (Al-may). The couple were driven to invent the products as Fanny May needed cosmetics that did not irritate her skin.

49 YouTube data : VIEWS

YouTube is a video-sharing website that was launched in 2005 by three ex-PayPal employees. Google bought YouTube in 2006 for $1.65 billion. Yep, $1.65 billion, less than two years after it was founded …

51 Java neighbor : BALI

Bali is both an island and a province in Indonesia. It is a popular tourist spot, although the number of visitors dropped for a few years as a result of terrorist bombings in 2002 and 2005 that killed mainly tourists. Bali became more popular starting in 2008 due to a significant and favorable change in the exchange rate between the US dollar and the Indonesian rupiah.

52 Madras wrap : SARI

The item of clothing called a “sari” (also “saree”) is a strip of cloth, as one might imagine, unusual perhaps in that is unstitched along the whole of its length. The strip of cloth can range from four to nine meters long (that’s a lot of material!). The sari is usually wrapped around the waist, then draped over the shoulder leaving the midriff bare. I must say, it can be a beautiful item of clothing.

The government of India has been changing the names of cities since the end of British rule in 1947. Bombay was renamed to Mumbai in 1995, and Madras became Chennai a year later, in 1996.

56 Angel dust : PCP

Phencyclidine is a recreational drug usually referred to on the street as “PCP” or “angel dust”.

58 Oval thing in the Oval Office : RUG

Although there have been several “oval” offices used by US presidents in the White House, the current Oval Office was designed and constructed at the bequest of President Franklin D. Roosevelt. The room has four doors. One door opens onto the Rose Garden; a second door leads to a small study and dining room; a third opens onto the main corridor running through the West Wing; the fourth door opens to the office of the president’s secretary.

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Complete List of Clues/Answers

1 British brew since 1777 : BASS 5 Early challenge for Barack and Michelle Obama, for short : LSAT 9 Streak : RUN 12 Usefulness : WORTH 13 Bill of Rights defender, in brief : ACLU 14 Dracula accessory : CAPE 15 Big fly at the ballpark : HOMER 16 See 14-Down : THE BORDER 18 Mantra chants : OMS 19 Underground workers : MINERS 21 “What’s the ___?” : POINT 22 “I, Claudius” role : NERO 23 Layers of stone : MASONS 24 One of the Twelve Apostles : ANDREW 28 Old phone features : DIALS 30 “___ #1!” : WE’RE 31 Certain rough patches : BRIARS 33 Opposite of masc. : FEM 35 Part of Indochina : LAOS 36 Jargon : LINGO 37 Palindromic term of address : MA’AM 39 Zenith : TOP 40 Bit of baby talk : GOO GOO 41 Locale of the 2018, 2020 and 2022 Olympics : ASIA 42 “You win” : I LOSE 43 Irk : NETTLE 45 Listed : LEANED 48 Camper driver : RV’ER 50 Joan ___, player of Pat Nixon in 1995’s “Nixon” : ALLEN 51 Sleeper hits, perhaps : B-SIDES 53 A pair : TWO 55 See 42-Down : … SOME SPACE 57 Hall-of-Fame hitter Rod : CAREW 59 Tablet one might take before going to bed? : IPAD 60 Fearsome part of a Jabberwock : CLAW 61 Sets straight : TRUES 62 Crucial : KEY 63 A dreadful state, with “the” : … PITS 64 Leo or Libra : SIGN

1 Sounds that can startle : BOOMS or BOOS 2 Company division : ARM 3 Fruit part that’s thrown away : STEM 4 The Kaaba in Mecca, e.g. : SHRINE 5 “Ciao!” : LATER! 6 Quantum mechanics thought experiment in which contradictory states exist simultaneously : SCHRODINGER’S CAT 7 Bar orders : ALES 8 Popcorn container : TUB 9 Item in a beach bag : RADIO 10 Ivy seen along the Schuylkill River : UPENN 11 “Darn it!” : NERTS! 12 Pronoun that can ask a question : WHO or WHOM 14 With 16-Across, travel internationally : CROSS … 17 Iridescent stones : OPALS 20 Recent recruits, so to speak : NEW BLOOD 23 Like the boys in “Lord of the Flies” : MAROONED 24 Hole puncher : AWL 25 “Swell!” : NEAT! or NEATO! 26 Sag : DROOP or DROP 27 Hi or lo follower : -RES 29 “Aladdin” parrot : IAGO 32 Amazonas and others : RIOS 33 Go to extremes, foodwise : FAST or FEAST 34 Buildup during vacation : EMAIL or MAIL 37 Welcome site? : MAT 38 Fannie ___ : MAE 40 Hollows : GLENS 42 With 55-Across, breakup line : I NEED … 44 Puts up : ERECTS 45 Surgery to improve how you look? : LASIK 46 Go off, but not without a hitch? : ELOPE 47 Big name in cosmetics : ALMAY 49 YouTube data : VIEWS 51 Java neighbor : BALI 52 Madras wrap : SARI 53 Many a middle schooler : TEEN or TWEEN 54 Possible reactions to shocks : WOWS or OWS 56 Angel dust : PCP 58 Oval thing in the Oval Office : RUG

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11 thoughts on “0227-20 NY Times Crossword 27 Feb 20, Thursday”

24:41. I just got one solution and then looked for the others after I was done. I saw the different rebus options that could work, but I whiffed on the MEOW portion. Impressive construction.

Schrodinger actually developed his thought experiment as a way of disproving another theory of quantum physics. He didn’t really think the cat was both alive and dead at the same time.

Definitely Thursday-worthy today.

Best –

21:03. Never would have seen the MEOW. This should not surprise anyone….

10:18, no errors, but, like Bill, I got one solution and assumed I was done. It never occurred to me that there was more to it until I came here and was enlightened. At this point, all I can say is, “What a marvelous construction!” This puzzle will be enshrined in my own personal Crossword Hall of Fame!

Akron Beacon Journal has this puzzle yesterday solve, and had tomorrow’s puzzle to solve which is Aimee Lucido.

31:12 paper and pencil time with no errors…I got the rebus solutions but not the double answers or the MEOW…this one was above my average joe mentality

All the above.

I still don’t understand the MEOW aspect. Where does the P figure in? Just ignore the extra non-MEOW letter?

What P? I don’t understand your objection. Maybe you need to re-read Bill’s explanation?

Thank you for responding! At your suggestion, I reread Bill’s explanation and this time “moveable letter” jumped out at me. In 26 down rather than look at OP, I simply looked at the “moveable O.” All the other theme answers have some combination of M, E, O, and W, in a single square, so the moveable aspect wasn’t obvious to me. Much obliged!

13:58, no errors. Saw from the note that the puzzle has 16 solutions. As with others, it never occurred to me that the rebus square would move. SCHRODINGER’S CAT seems to have appeared in a lot of boxes lately. Reminds me of an old cartoon book titled ‘101 Uses for a Dead Cat’.

A clever bag of goodies today. Had some trouble with ALMAY cosmetics and wanted LASer before LASik.

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Thought experiment in quantum physics Crossword Clue

Here is the answer for the crossword clue Thought experiment in quantum physics last seen in New York Times puzzle. We have found 40 possible answers for this clue in our database. Among them, one solution stands out with a 98% match which has a length of 15 letters. We think the likely answer to this clue is SCHRODINGERSCAT .

Crossword Answer For Thought experiment in quantum physics:

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New York Times, Thursday, February 27, 2020

This puzzle:

ANDREW: This puzzle is a personal favorite (not just because it has my name at 24-Across). This was my first foray into Thursday puzzles, so I figured I'd mess with some crossword rule, and the two-letter rule seemed like a fun challenge. I quickly turned to John for help with the idea, and together we got the M-E-O-W letters to work without too much glue and awkward cluing. John gets all the credit for the apropos CROSS THE BORDER and I NEED SOME SPACE bonuses.

JOHN: I'm glad I got to work with Andrew on this one, our fourth Times collaboration. It was an inspired idea that was great fun to help shape into its final form. Andrew and I will also be collaborating on the fourth edition of Boswords , the crossword tournament we co-direct in Boston that is open to solvers of all levels. This year's version will be on Sunday, July 26 and you can find more information about Boswords here .

SCHRÖDINGER'S CAT was just in another recent crossword. Perhaps it's both there and here today! That darn cat.

Will Shortz once told me that solvers like to fill in boxes, the more definitively, the better. There's something so satisfying about completing that last square and calling it a victory. So I immediately paused when I saw the note about 16 possible solutions. Talk about indefinite!

However, I enjoyed Andrew and John's concept. There have been a lot of Schrödingers in the NYT by now, and this one isn't quite like any I've seen.

And how meta, that TWO is played upon in the lower right corner! So appropriate for having TWO solutions down there.

It wouldn't have occurred to me that there were multiple solutions if it hadn't been for the note, though. For example, in that lower right, I put in TEEN and WOWS without another thought. Even after realizing that there needed to be an alternate solution, I struggled to come up with OWS as "reactions to shocks." A stretch.

Also a stretch: I NEED / SOME SPACE. It's not nearly as good at explaining the concept as CROSS THE BORDER.

All in all, a solid construction, impressive considering how difficult it is to work around Schrödinger squares. The solve left something to be desired, though, since it's already hard to know what to put inside a Schrödinger box, and having a combination of rebus / single letters makes it that much more confusing.

I wonder if putting a circle between the two squares — giving a place for solvers to write in the back-and-forth letter — would have made for a more satisfying (if not as Schrödinger-esque) solve.

ADDED NOTE: It wasn't until Andrew and John sent their thoughts that I noticed which four letters were swapping back and forth: M E O W. What a nice touch!

Answer summary: 1 unique to this puzzle .

There are 15 rows and 15 columns, with 4 rebus squares , and 6 cheater squares (marked with "+" in the colorized grid below.)

It has normal rotational symmetry.

Puzzle has 4 fill-in-the-blank clues and 4 cross-reference clues.

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Quantum mechanics thought experiment in which contradictory states exist simultaneously Crossword Clue

Quantum mechanics thought experiment in which contradictory states exist simultaneously answer is: schrodingerscat.

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Thought experiment in quantum physics - NYT Crossword Clue

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Thought experiment in quantum physics

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Clue: Quantum mechanics thought experiment in which contradictory states exist simultaneously

Referring crossword puzzle answers.

• SCHRODINGERSCAT

Likely related crossword puzzle clues

• Subject of a famous quantum mechanics thought experiment
• Thought experiment in quantum physics
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• New York Times - Feb. 27, 2020

It's both a particle and a wave, in quantum theory NYT Crossword Clue

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September 9, 2024

A New Quantum Cheshire Cat Thought Experiment Is Out of the Box

The spin of a particle seems to detach and move without a body—a strange experimental observation that’s stirring up debate

By Manon Bischoff

Quantum physics is often about cats—and this is also the case here.

Seregraff/Getty Images

Physicists seem to be obsessed with cats. James Clerk Maxwell, the father of electrodynamics, studied falling feline s to investigate how they turned as they fell. Many physics teachers have used a cat’s fur and a hard rubber rod to explain the phenomenon of frictional electricity. And Erwin Schrödinger famously illustrated the strangeness of quantum physics with a thought experiment involving a cat that is neither dead nor alive.

So it hardly seems surprising that physicists turned to felines once again to name a newly discovered quantum phenomenon in a paper published in the New Journal of Physics in 2013. Their three-sentence study abstract reads, “In this paper we present a quantum Cheshire Cat. In a pre- and post-selected experiment we find the Cat in one place, and its grin in another. The Cat is a photon, while the grin is its circular polarization.”

The newfound phenomenon was one in which certain particle features take a different path from their particle—much like the smile of the Cheshire Cat in Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, written by Lewis Carroll—a pen name of mathematician Charles Lutwidge Dodgson—and published in 1865. To date, several experiments have demonstrated this curious quantum effect. But the idea has also drawn significant skepticism . Critics are less concerned about the theoretical calculations or experimental rigor than they are about the interpretation of the evidence. “It seems a bit bold to me to talk about disembodied transmission,” says physicist Holger Hofmann of Hiroshima University in Japan. “Instead we should revise our idea of particles.”

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Recently researchers led by Yakir Aharonov of Chapman University took the debate to the next level. Aharonov was a co-author of the first paper to propose the quantum Cheshire effect. Now, on the preprint server arXiv.org, he and his colleagues have posted a description of theoretical work that they believe demonstrates that quantum properties can move without any particles at all —like a disembodied grin flitting through the world and influencing its surroundings—in ways that bypass the critical concerns raised in the past.

A Grin without a Cat

Aharonov and his colleagues first encountered their quantum Cheshire cat several years ago as they were pondering one of the most fundamental principles of quantum mechanics: nothing can be predicted unambiguously. Unlike classical physics, the same quantum mechanical experiment can have different outcomes under exactly the same conditions. It is therefore impossible to predict the exact outcome of a single experiment—only its outcome with a certain probability. “Nobody understands quantum mechanics. It’s so counterintuitive. We know its laws, but we are always surprised,” says Sandu Popescu, a physicist at the University of Bristol in England, who collaborated with Aharonov on the 2013 paper and the new preprint.

But Aharonov was not satisfied with this uncertainty. So, since the 1980s , he has been exploring ways to investigate fundamental processes despite the probability-based nature of quantum mechanics. Aharonov—now age 92—employs an approach that involves intensively repeating an experiment, grouping results and then examining what came out before and after the experiment and relating these events to each other. “To do this, you have to understand the flow of time in quantum mechanics,” Popescu explains. “We developed a completely new method to combine information from measurements before and after the experiment.”

The researchers have stumbled across several surprises with this method—including their theoretical Cheshire cat. Their idea sounds simple at first: send particles through an optical tool called an interferometer, which causes each particle to move through one of two paths that ultimately merge again at the end. If the setup and measurements were carried out skillfully, Aharonov and his colleagues theorized, it could be shown that the particle traveled a path in the interferometer that differed from the path of its polarization. In other words, they claimed the property of the particle could be measured on one path even though the particle itself took the other—as if the grin and the cat had come apart.

Inspired by this theory, a team led by Tobias Denkmayr, then at the Vienna University of Technology, implemented the experiment with neutrons in a study published in 2014. The team showed that the neutral particles inside an interferometer followed a different path from that of their spin, a quantum mechanical property of particles similar to angular momentum: Denkmayr and his colleagues had indeed found evidence of the Cheshire cat theory. Two years later researchers led by Maximilian Schlosshauer of the University of Portland successfully implemented the same experiment with photons. The scientists saw evidence that the light particles took a different path in the interferometer than their polarization did.

Weak Measurements and Illusions

But not everyone is convinced. “Such a separation makes no sense at all. The location of a particle is itself a property of the particle,” Hofmann says. “It would be more accurate to talk about an unusual correlation between location and polarization.” Last November Hofmann and his colleagues provided an alternative explanation based on widely known quantum mechanical effects .

And in another interpretation of the Cheshire cat results, Pablo Saldanha of the Federal University of Minas Gerais in Brazil and his colleagues argue that the findings can be explained with wave-particle duality . “If you take a different view, there are no paradoxes,” Saldanha says, “but all results can be explained with traditional quantum mechanics as simple interference effects.”

Much of the controversy surrounds the way in which particles’ properties and positions are detected in these experiments. Disturbing a particle could alter its quantum mechanical properties. For that reason, the photons or neutrons cannot be recorded inside the interferometer using an ordinary detector. Instead scientists must resort to a principle of weak measurement developed by Aharonov in 1988. A weak measurement makes it possible to scan a particle very lightly without destroying its quantum state. This comes at a price, however: the weak measurement result is extremely inaccurate. (Thus, these experiments must be repeated many times over, to compensate for the fact that each individual measurement is highly uncertain.)

In the quantum Cheshire cat experiments, a weak measurement is made along a path in the interferometer, the paths then merge, and the emerging particles are measured with an ordinary detector. Along one path of the interferometer, a weak measurement of the particle’s position can be taken and, along the other, its spin. Using detectors, physicists can more definitively characterize the particles that traveled through the interferometer and potentially reconstruct what occurred during the particle’s journey. For example, only certain particles will appear in certain detectors, helping the physicists piece together which path their neutron or photon previously took. According to Aharonov, Popescu and their colleagues, the Cheshire cat experiments ultimately reveal that the particle’s position can be confirmed on one path even as its polarization or spin was measured on the other.

Melissa Thomas Baum/Buckyball Design; Source: “Observation of a Quantum Cheshire Cat in a Matter-Wave Interferometer Experiment,” by Tobias Denkmayr et al., in Nature Communications , Vol. 5, Article No. 4492; July 29, 2014

Saldanha and his co-authors assert that it is impossible to make claims about quantum systems in the past given their measurements in the present. In other words, the photons and neutrons measured in the final detectors cannot tell us much about their previous trajectory. Instead the wave functions of particles passing through the paths of the interferometer could overlap, which would make it impossible to trace which path a particle had taken. “Ultimately, the paradoxical behaviors are related to the wave-particle duality,” Saldanha says. But in the papers that report evidence of the quantum Cheshire cat, he asserts, the findings “are processed in a sophisticated way that obscures this simpler interpretation.”

Hofmann, meanwhile, has stressed that the results will differ if you measure the system in a different way. This phenomenon is well-known in quantum physics: if, for example, you first measure the speed of a particle and then its position, the result can be different than it would be if you first measured the position of the same particle and then its speed. He and his colleagues therefore contend that Aharonov and his team’s conclusions were correct in themselves—that the particle moved along one path and the polarization followed the other—but that such differing paths do not apply simultaneously.

As Hofmann’s co-author Jonte Hance, also at Hiroshima University, told New Scientist , “It only looks like [the particle and polarization are] separated because you’re measuring one of the properties in one place and the other property in the other place, but that doesn’t mean that the properties are in one place and the other place, that means that the actual measuring itself is affecting it in such a way that it looks like it’s in one place and the other place.”

A New Way to Catch a Cheshire Cat?

But these critiques are “missing the point,” Popescu says. He agrees that the work and reasoning put forward by Saldanha and Hofmann’s respective groups are correct—but adds that the best way to test any interpretation is to generate testable predictions from each. “As I understand it, there is no direct way to make predictions based on them,” Popescu says in reference to these alternative explanations. “They kind of have a very old-fashioned way of looking at things: there are contradictions, so you stop doing the math.”

With their recent preprint paper, Aharonov and Popescu, together with physicist Daniel Collins of the University of Bristol, have now described how a particle’s spin can move completely independently of the particle itself—without employing a weak measurement. In their new experimental setup, a particle is located in the left half of an elongated two-part cylinder that is sealed at the outer edges. Because of a highly reflective wall in the middle, the particle has a vanishingly small probability of tunneling through to the right-hand side of the cylinder. In their paper, the researchers provide a proof that even if the particle remains in the left-hand area in almost all cases, it should still be possible to measure a transfer of the particle’s spin at the right-hand outer wall. “It’s amazing, isn’t it?” Collins says. “You think the particle has a spin and the spin should stay with the particle. But the spin crosses the box without the particle.”

In a new thought experiment designed to observe the quantum Cheshire cat, physicists would be able to measure the property of a particle in one of two chambers of an elongated cylinder despite the fact that the particle itself would be contained in the other chamber.

Amanda Montañez

This approach would address several of the critical concerns raised thus far. The physicists don't need weak measurements. Nor do they need to group their experimental results to draw temporal conclusions. (That being said, grouping results would still improve the measurements, given that the angular momentum of the wall itself cannot be determined unambiguously because of the Heisenberg uncertainty principle.) But in this scenario, the only physical principles involved are conservation laws, such as the conservation of energy or the conservation of momentum and angular momentum. Popescu and Collins explain that they hope other groups will implement the experiment to observe the effects in the laboratory.

The new work has piqued Hofmann’s interest. “The scenario is exciting because the interaction between polarization and particle motion produces a particularly strong quantum effect that clearly contradicts the particle picture,” he says.

But he still does not see this as proof of disembodied (particle-free) spin transfer. “For me, this means, above all, that it is wrong to assume a measurement-independent reality,” Hofmann says. Instead quantum mechanics allows a particle’s residence to extend to the right-hand region of the cylinder, even if a residence in the left-hand region seems logically compelling. “I think it is quite clear to Aharonov, Collins and Popescu that the space in front of the wall is not really empty,” he adds.

Saldanha, meanwhile, still sees the researchers as overcomplicating what could be explained as traditional quantum interference effects. When discussing the particle’s very low probability of entering the right-hand side of the experimental setup, he explains, “we have to be careful about a ‘vanishingly small probability’ when we refer to waves.” The wave function of the particle could also expand into the right-hand side of the setup and thus influence the angular momentum of the wall. “The same predictions can be made without such dramatic conclusions,” he says.

In response to these critiques, Popescu says, “This is of course another way of thinking about it. The question is whether this interpretation is useful.” Regardless of which interpretation of the events is correct, the quantum Cheshire cat could enable new technological applications. For example, it could be used to transfer information or energy without moving a physical particle—whether made of matter or light.

For Popescu, however, the fundamental questions of physics play a more important role. “It all started when we thought about how time propagates in quantum mechanics,” he says. “And suddenly we were able to discover something fundamental about the laws of conservation.”

This article originally appeared in Spektrum der Wissenschaft and was reproduced with permission.

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Particles and waves: the central mystery of quantum mechanics - chad orzel.

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One of the most amazing facts in physics is that everything in the universe, from light to electrons to atoms, behaves like both a particle and a wave at the same time. But how did physicists arrive at this mind-boggling conclusion? Chad Orzel recounts the string of scientists who built on each other’s discoveries to arrive at this ‘central mystery’ of quantum mechanics.

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Even Physicists Don’t Understand Quantum Mechanics

Worse, they don’t seem to want to understand it.

By Sean Carroll

Dr. Carroll is a physicist.

“I think I can safely say that nobody really understands quantum mechanics,” observed the physicist and Nobel laureate Richard Feynman. That’s not surprising, as far as it goes. Science makes progress by confronting our lack of understanding, and quantum mechanics has a reputation for being especially mysterious.

What’s surprising is that physicists seem to be O.K. with not understanding the most important theory they have.

Quantum mechanics, assembled gradually by a group of brilliant minds over the first decades of the 20th century, is an incredibly successful theory. We need it to account for how atoms decay, why stars shine, how transistors and lasers work and, for that matter, why tables and chairs are solid rather than immediately collapsing onto the floor.

Scientists can use quantum mechanics with perfect confidence. But it’s a black box. We can set up a physical situation, and make predictions about what will happen next that are verified to spectacular accuracy. What we don’t do is claim to understand quantum mechanics. Physicists don’t understand their own theory any better than a typical smartphone user understands what’s going on inside the device.

There are two problems. One is that quantum mechanics, as it is enshrined in textbooks, seems to require separate rules for how quantum objects behave when we’re not looking at them, and how they behave when they are being observed. When we’re not looking, they exist in “superpositions” of different possibilities, such as being at any one of various locations in space. But when we look, they suddenly snap into just a single location, and that’s where we see them. We can’t predict exactly what that location will be; the best we can do is calculate the probability of different outcomes.

The whole thing is preposterous. Why are observations special? What counts as an “observation,” anyway? When exactly does it happen? Does it need to be performed by a person? Is consciousness somehow involved in the basic rules of reality? Together these questions are known as the “measurement problem” of quantum theory.

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