Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle limits what we can know about the quantum world. Now the uncertainty principle is being harnessed to see if it is possible to identify a point at which matter begins to exhibit weird quantum behaviour.
According to the uncertainty principle, measuring the position of an object always disturbs its momentum in an unpredictable way. Physicists ordinarily see this so-called “back action” as a nuisance, but a team led by Keith Schwab of the University of Maryland, College Park, decided to put it to good use.
Schwab’s team fabricated a nanoscale resonator – the equivalent of a tiny pendulum – on a silicon chip,…
