Conal Elliott

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Matter, says quantum mechanics, occupies the state called superposition when it is not being observed. An electron in superposition occupies no particular point in space. It is typically, rather, in a kind of “mix” of being in many places at once. The mix is not perfectly balanced: some places are far more heavily represented than others. So a particular electron’s superposition might be almost all made up from positions near a certain atomic nucleus and just a little bit from positions elsewhere. That is the closest that quantum mechanics comes to saying that the electron is orbiting the ...more
The Knowledge Machine: How Irrationality Created Modern Science
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