Not What It Seems

Steven K. Blau

Clusters of atoms that seemingly should implode can be propped up by quantum fluctuations. Clusters of atoms that seemingly should implode can be propped up by quantum fluctuations.

James Francis Burke

M. Blaauboer

Can a measurement at location A depend on events taking place at a distant location B, too far away for the information to be transmitted between the two? It does seem too mysterious to be true. Even Einstein did not believe so. But experiments seem to prove him wrong.

Pouya Khazaei

For nearly a century, the transition state---the structure organizing motion between reactants and products---has seemed to lack an exact quantum counterpart. Its geometry---a recrossing-free dividing surface whose one-way flux gives the exact rate---seems to require position and momentum direction at once, in tension with the uncertainty principle. The obstruction seems fundamental. It is not. The exact quantum equations generate a phase-space flow whose stable and unstable manifolds intersect in a unique bounded trajectory---the quantum transition state---that anchors such a surface. Quantum mechanics does not destroy the transition state; it becomes quantum.

Julian Barbour