'Quantum cats' make molecular physics adorable
Quantum physics is one of the most fascinating sciences for a lot of reasons, including its adorable (and occasionally morbid) reliance on cats.
The cats, of course, are hypothetical — Schrödinger's cat is both alive and dead at the same time until it is observed. But when physicists replicated the "cat state" in their laboratory in 2005 — six atoms simultaneously "spinning up" and "spinning down" (or to keep with the metaphor, "alive" and "dead") — we began to learn a lot more about the inner workings of molecules.
Recently, Stanford scientists had a breakthrough by shooting a two-atom molecule of iodine with a laser, cleaving it in two. That energy makes the molecule both excited and not excited, simultaneously — the so-called "cat state." Then the researchers shot a second X-ray laser at the molecule in order to "create what was essentially an X-ray hologram of concentric rings," Gizmodo writes. "It took a bit of additional clever processing to refine the details, but they ended up with a series of snapshots of the molecule at various points in time. And they were able to string those snapshots together to create a stop-motion movie."
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But all that science talk is admittedly lacking in the aforementioned feline cuteness. Get an adorable dose of cat quantum physics in the explainer video, below. Jeva Lange
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Jeva Lange was the executive editor at TheWeek.com. She formerly served as The Week's deputy editor and culture critic. She is also a contributor to Screen Slate, and her writing has appeared in The New York Daily News, The Awl, Vice, and Gothamist, among other publications. Jeva lives in New York City. Follow her on Twitter.
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