Aaron O'Connell: Making sense of a visible quantum object

Translator: Lenka Tušar Reviewer: Tilen Pigac - EFZG

This is a representation of your brain,

To je prikaz vaših možganov,

and your brain can be broken into two parts.

ki jih lahko razdelimo na dva dela.

There's the left half, which is the logical side,

Tu je leva hemisfera, ki je logična,

and then the right half,

tu pa desna hemisfera,

which is the intuitive.

ki je intuitivna.

And so if we had a scale to measure the aptitude of each hemisphere,

Če bi lahko z lestvico izmerili sposobnosti vsake hemisfere,

then we can plot our brain.

bi lahko zasnovali naše možgane.

And for example, this would be somebody who's completely logical.

Tako bi bil to nekdo, ki se odziva popolnoma logično.

This would be someone who's entirely intuitive.

To pa nekdo s popolnoma intuitivnim odzivanjem.

So where would you put your brain on this scale?

Kam bi na tej lestvici uvrstili vaše možgane?

Some of us may have opted for one of these extremes,

Nekateri bi izbrali enega od ekstremov,

but I think for most people in the audience,

a pri večini ljudi v občinstvu

your brain is something like this --

so možgani nekaj takega,

with a high aptitude in both hemispheres at the same time.

z veliko odzivnostjo v obeh hemisferah hkrati.

It's not like they're mutually exclusive or anything.

Ena druge torej ne izključujeta.

You can be logical and intuitive.

Lahko se odzivate tako logično kot intuitivno.

And so I consider myself one of these people,

Sam sebe prištevam med tiste ljudi,

along with most of the other experimental quantum physicists,

skupaj z večino drugih eksperimentalnih kvantnih fizikov,

who need a good deal of logic

ki veliko uporabljajo logiko,

to string together these complex ideas.

da povežejo te zapletene zamisli.

But at the same time, we need a good deal of intuition

A hkrati potrebujemo veliko intuicije,

to actually make the experiments work.

da lahko poskusi zaživijo.

How do we develop this intuition? Well we like to play with stuff.

Kako razvijemo intuicijo? Radi se igramo s stvarmi.

So we go out and play with it, and then we see how it acts,

Začnemo se torej igrati in ko vidimo, kako se odzivajo,

and then we develop our intuition from there.

razvijemo tudi našo intuicijo.

And really you do the same thing.

Tudi pri vas je enako.

So some intuition

Tista intuicija, ki ste jo razvili skozi čas,

that you may have developed over the years

vam pravi, da je določena stvar

is that one thing is only in one place at a time.

ob določenem trenutku le na enem mestu.

I mean, it can sound weird to think about

Morda bi se vam zdelo čudno misliti,

one thing being in two different places at the same time,

da bi lahko ena stvar bila na dveh mestih hkrati,

but you weren't born with this notion, you developed it.

a s to intuicijo se niste rodili, pač pa ste jo razvili.

And I remember watching a kid playing on a car stop.

Spominjam se otroka pri igri s parkirno blokado.

He was just a toddler and he wasn't very good at it, and he kept falling over.

Bil je še majhen in okoren, zato se je stalno spotikal.

But I bet playing with this car stop taught him a really valuable lesson,

A verjamem, da se je pri tem naučil nekaj pomembnega,

and that's that large things don't let you get right past them,

da preko velikih stvari ne moremo iti

and that they stay in one place.

in da obstanejo na svojem mestu.

And so this is a great conceptual model to have of the world,

To je krasen pojmovni model sveta,

unless you're a particle physicist.

razen če preučujete fiziko osnovnih delcev.

It'd be a terrible model for a particle physicist,

Za te fizike bi bil ta model obupen,

because they don't play with car stops,

saj se ne igrajo z blokadami za avte,

they play with these little weird particles.

temveč s posebnimi majhnimi delci.

And when they play with their particles,

Ko se z njimi igrajo, ugotavljajo,

they find they do all sorts of really weird things --

da počnejo res posebne stvari,

like they can fly right through walls,

lahko potujejo skozi stene

or they can be in two different places at the same time.

ali pa so lahko na dveh mestih hkrati.

And so they wrote down all these observations,

Vse te ugotovitve so zapisali

and they called it the theory of quantum mechanics.

in jih poimenovali teorija kvantne mehanike.

And so that's where physics was at a few years ago;

Področje fizike se je pred nekaj leti nahajalo tu;

you needed quantum mechanics

majhne, majcene delce so razlagali

to describe little, tiny particles.

s kvantno mehaniko.

But you didn't need it

Niso pa je več uporabljali

to describe the large, everyday objects around us.

pri opisih večjih vsakodnevnih predmetov.

This didn't really sit well with my intuition,

To nekako ni prepričalo moje intuicije, morda le zato,

and maybe it's just because I don't play with particles very often.

ker se ne srečujem pogosto z osnovnimi delci.

Well, I play with them sometimes,

No, včasih že,

but not very often.

ne pa prav pogosto.

And I've never seen them.

In še nikdar jih nisem videl.

I mean, nobody's ever seen a particle.

Pravzaprav jih ni še nihče.

But it didn't sit well with my logical side either.

A tudi moje logične plati to ni prepričalo.

Because if everything is made up of little particles

Namreč, če vse temelji na osnovnih delcih

and all the little particles

in če vsi ti osnovni delci

follow quantum mechanics,

sledijo načelom kvantne mehanike,

then shouldn't everything just follow quantum mechanics?

mar jim ne bi morali slediti tudi večji predmeti?

I don't see any reason why it shouldn't.

Ne vidim razloga, zakaj ne.

And so I'd feel a lot better about the whole thing

Zelo vesel bi bil,

if we could somehow show

če bi lahko nekako pokazali,

that an everyday object

da tudi vsakodnevni predmeti

also follows quantum mechanics.

sledijo načelom kvantne mehanike.

So a few years ago, I set off to do just that.

Pred nekaj leti sem se tega lotil.

So I made one.

In naredil sem tak predmet.

This is the first object

To je prvi predmet,

that you can see

ki ga lahko vidite

that has been in a mechanical quantum superposition.

ki je bil v mehanski kvantni superpoziciji.

So what we're looking at here

Tu opazujemo

is a tiny computer chip.

majcen računalniški čip.

And you can sort of see this green dot right in the middle.

V sredini lahko vidite to zeleno piko.

And that's this piece of metal I'm going to be talking about in a minute.

O tem koščku kovine bom govoril čez nekaj trenutkov.

This is a photograph of the object.

To je fotografija tega predmeta.

And here I'll zoom in a little bit. We're looking right there in the center.

Približal bom, da vidimo točno v sredino.

And then here's a really, really big close-up of the little piece of metal.

To je zelo zelo približan prikaz.

So what we're looking at is a little chunk of metal,

Opazujemo ta majcen kovinski kos

and it's shaped like a diving board, and it's sticking out over a ledge.

v obliki odskočne deske, ki štrli od nosilca.

And so I made this thing

To sem ustvaril na podoben način,

in nearly the same way as you make a computer chip.

kot so sestavljeni računalniški čipi.

I went into a clean room with a fresh silicon wafer,

Čisto silicijsko rezino sem nesel v sterilno sobo

and then I just cranked away at all the big machines for about 100 hours.

in zagnal vse velike stroje za okrog 100 ur.

For the last stuff, I had to build my own machine --

Nazadnje sem moral sestaviti svoj stroj,

to make this swimming pool-shaped hole

da sem pod napravo naredil

underneath the device.

luknjo v obliki bazena.

This device has the ability

Ta naprava je lahko

to be in a quantum superposition,

v kvantni superpoziciji,

but it needs a little help to do it.

a pri tem potrebuje nekaj pomoči.

Here, let me give you an analogy.

Naj vam ponazorim s primerom.

You know how uncomfortable it is to be in a crowded elevator?

Veste, kako neprijetno je obtičati v polnem dvigalu?

I mean, when I'm in an elevator all alone, I do all sorts of weird things,

Ko sem v dvigalu sam, se obnašam čudaško,

but then other people get on board

a ko ostali vstopijo,

and I stop doing those things

se ustavim in odneham,

because I don't want to bother them,

saj jih ne želim motiti

or, frankly, scare them.

ali pa jih preprosto prestrašiti.

So quantum mechanics says

Kvantna mehanika pravi,

that inanimate objects feel the same way.

da se negibni predmeti obnašajo enako.

The fellow passengers for inanimate objects

Sopotniki v dvigalu pri negibnih predmetih

are not just people,

niso le ljudje,

but it's also the light shining on it

temveč tudi svetloba,

and the wind blowing past it and the heat of the room.

pihanje vetra in toplota v prostoru.

And so we knew, if we wanted to see

Vedeli smo torej, da če želimo,

this piece of metal behave quantum mechanically,

da se ta kos kovine obnaša kvantno mehanično,

we're going to have to kick out all the other passengers.

se bomo morali znebiti vseh ostalih potnikov.

And so that's what we did.

Točno to smo storili.

We turned off the lights,

Izklopili smo luči,

and then we put it in a vacuum and sucked out all the air,

ga postavili v vakum in izsesali ves zrak

and then we cooled it down

ter ga ohladili na le delček stopinje

to just a fraction of a degree above absolute zero.

nad absolutno ničlo.

Now, all alone in the elevator,

Ko je zdaj sam v dvigalu,

the little chunk of metal is free to act however it wanted.

se lahko ta kovinski kos giblje po želji.

And so we measured its motion.

Izmerili smo njegovo gibanje

We found it was moving in really weird ways.

in ugotovili, da se je gibal resnično čudno.

Instead of just sitting perfectly still, it was vibrating,

Namesto da bi miroval, je vibriral

and the way it was vibrating was breathing something like this --

in sicer kot bi dihal podobno kot

like expanding and contracting bellows.

širjenje in krčenje meha.

And by giving it a gentle nudge,

Ko smo ga narahlo dregnili,

we were able to make it both vibrate

je zavibriral

and not vibrate

in ni zavibriral

at the same time --

hkrati --

something that's only allowed with quantum mechanics.

to dovoljuje le kvantna mehanika.

So what I'm telling you here is something truly fantastic.

Pripovedujem vam o nečem resnično izjemnem.

What does it mean for one thing

Kaj pomeni, da stvar hkrati

to be both vibrating and not vibrating

vibrira in

at the same time?

ne vibrira?

So let's think about the atoms.

Pomislimo na atome.

So in one case:

Na eni strani so torej

all the trillions of atoms that make up that chunk of metal

bilijoni atomov, ki sestavljajo ta kovinski kos

are sitting still

in mirujejo,

and at the same time those same atoms

hkrati pa se ti isti atomi

are moving up and down.

pomikajo gor in dol.

Now it's only at precise times when they align.

Le v točno določenih trenutkih se poravnajo.

The rest of the time they're delocalized.

V ostalih trenutkih so dislocirani.

That means that every atom

To pomeni, da je vsak atom

is in two different places at the same time,

na dveh različnih mestih hkrati,

which in turn means the entire chunk of metal

kar posledično pomeni, da je celoten

is in two different places.

koviski del na dveh mestih hkrati.

I think this is really cool.

To se mi zdi res super.

(Laughter)

(Smeh)

Really.

Resnično.

(Applause)

(Aplavz)

It was worth locking myself in a clean room to do this for all those years

Bilo je vredno, da sem toliko let preždel v sterilni sobi

because, check this out,

in to počel. Le pomislite,

the difference in scale

da je razlika v velikosti

between a single atom and that chunk of metal

med atomom in tem kosom kovine

is about the same as the difference

podobna razliki v velikosti

between that chunk of metal and you.

med tem kosom in vami.

So if a single atom can be in two different places at the same time,

Če je torej atom lahko na dveh mestih hkrati,

that chunk of metal can be in two different places,

je lahko tudi ta kos kovine

then why not you?

in zakaj ne bi bili vi?

I mean, this is just my logical side talking.

To mi pravi moja logična plat.

So imagine if you're in multiple places at the same time,

Predstavljajte si, kako bi bilo,

what would that be like?

če bi bili na večih krajih hkrati.

How would your consciousness

Kako bi se vaša zavest

handle your body being delocalized in space?

odzivala na vaše telo, dislocirano v prostoru?

There's one more part to the story.

Tu je še en del zgodbe.

It's when we warmed it up,

Ko smo ta kos ogreli,

and we turned on the lights and looked inside the box,

vklopili luči in pogledali v notranjost,

we saw that the piece metal was still there in one piece.

smo videli, da je košček ostal na mestu in cel.

And so I had to develop this new intuition,

Razvil sem torej to novo slutnjo,

that it seems like all the objects in the elevator

da so očitno vse stvari v dvigalu

are really just quantum objects

pravzaprav zgolj kvantne stvari,

just crammed into a tiny space.

natrpane v majhnem prostoru.

You hear a lot of talk

Velikokrat slišite, da je po načelih

about how quantum mechanics says that everything is all interconnected.

kvantne mehanike vse medsebojno povezano.

Well, that's not quite right.

A temu ni ravno tako.

It's more than that; it's deeper.

Gre namreč še globlje.

It's that those connections,

Vse povezave med vami

your connections to all the things around you,

in stvarmi, ki vas obdajajo,

literally define who you are,

dobesedno določajo, kdo ste

and that's the profound weirdness of quantum mechanics.

in v tem je globoka posebnost kvantne mehanike.

Thank you.

Hvala.

(Applause)

(Aplavz)