Nothing sits still. Even at absolute zero, when the thermal jiggling of matter is frozen, all things must still buzz to the tune of quantum mechanics. Now this subtle jittering has been detected in a small silicon bar, the first solid object ever to reveal its quantum vibrations.
This phenomenon, called zero-point fluctuation, is a consequence of Heisenberg's uncertainty principle, which says that we can never pin down the precise position and motion of any object. So far zero-point energy has only been seen directly in single atoms or small collections of particles.
The new experiment uses a silicon bar about 12 micrometres long and less than a micrometre across. Oskar Painter at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena and colleagues cooled the bar to within half a degree of absolute zero and then used a laser to detect its
motion.
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