|
|
| From: Zardoz ® |
03/11/2001
8:32:20
|
| Subject: re: QUANTUM MECHANICS
FAQ |
post id:
482685
|
Zeno Effect
What is the Zeno
Effect?
Common sense says you can't keep an atom's nucleus from
decaying simply by looking at it. Quantum mechanics says you can. Now two
Israeli physicists have come up with a way in which watching a nucleus
might make it decay faster.
The decay-preventing process, known as
the quantum Zeno effect, has fascinated physicists for 25 years. Imagine
an alpha particle, two protons and two neutrons, lodged inside a much
larger, radioactive nucleus. It can escape via a strange quantum
tunneling, in which the particle exists in a "superposition" of states
that puts it, in effect, both inside and outside the nucleus at once. But
if someone measures the particle, by, say, bouncing a photon off it, the
superposition collapses and the particle must instantly commit itself to
being either inside or outside the nucleus. By repeatedly prodding the
particle with photons, the theory goes, scientists can destroy
superposition before it starts and dash a particle's chances of escaping
the nucleus. In short, the watched pot never boils.
http://www.weizmann.ac.il/chemphys/gershon/zeno.html
Anti-Zeno
effect & decay control
| |
