The TEQ teams work to establish the large-scale limit of quantum mechanics trying to answer questions that are so far unaddressed: why we have no evidence of non-classical behavior in the macroscopic world? How is quantumness lost as we abandon the microscopic domain? To find answers, TEQ partners are undergoing tests of quantum effects for systems whose mass is orders of magnitude larger than that employed in the most successful quantum experiments to date.

The PI of the TEQ project, Prof. Angelo Bassi, has been recently interviewed for the cover article of the July issue of Scientific American, the prestigious American popular science magazines, in which he talks about the efforts to understand the true nature of the matter in between the micro and the macro. “We know the microworld is quantum, and we know in one way or another, we are classical—whatever that means,” says Angelo Bassi […] “We are ignorant about the true nature of matter in between the micro and the macro.”

The article explains how the microscopic and macroscopic worlds do not blend seamlessly: the probabilistic nature of quantum mechanics reigns over the first, whereas the second observes more logical “classical” rules. World top researchers in the field have a say in the piece and share their findings and opinions. “Some people will tell you quantum mechanics has taught us that the world is strange, so we have to accept it,” Bassi says. “I would say no. If something is strange, then we have to understand better.”

Click here to read Bassi on Scientific American