Quantum Quirk May Give Objects Mass

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zavvy

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<b>Quantum Quirk May Give Objects Mass </b><br /><br />LINK<br /><br />If you thought that quantum entanglement - the weird effect that allows two particles to behave as one, no matter how far apart they are - is too subtle to affect your daily life, think again. The phenomenon could be responsible for something as significant as the mass of everyday objects, yourself included, and could finally explain why the fundamental particles of matter have the mass they do. <br /><br />Sometimes, the interaction of two particles, say electrons, causes their individual properties, such as spin, to become “entangled”. If you then change the spin of one particle it will instantly affect the spin of the other, regardless of the distance between them. <br /><br />There is mounting evidence that entanglement has consequences in the macroscopic world. Last year physicist Vlatko Vedral of the University of Leeds, UK, showed that entanglement is involved in superconductivity. <br /><br />Now, he has shown in a paper submitted to the journal Physical Review Letters that entanglement can explain one of the defining traits of superconductivity – the Meissner effect, in which a magnet will levitate above a piece of superconducting material. The magnetic field induces a current in the surface of the superconductor, and this current effectively excludes the magnetic field from the interior of the material, causing the magnet to hover. <br /><br /><br />Photons in treacle <br /><br /><br />Only a current composed of entangled electrons in the superconductor can achieve this effect, Vedral says. The current halts the photons of the magnetic field after they have travelled only a short distance through the superconductor. For the normally massless photons it is as if they have suddenly entered treacle, effectively giving them a mass.<br /><br />Vedral also claims that a similar mechanism may be behind the mass of all particles.
 
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Maddad

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It's definitely an interesting idea. We'll have to watch the next quarter century to see where this goes.
 
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mooware

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I read somewhere previously that Quantum Engtanglement could not be used to transfer information. Now, with this idea does that put the former in question?<br /><br />
 
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