• Question: Could you realisticly get a creature small enough to utilise quantum fluctions

    Asked by cosmic to Amy, Karen, Sarah, Vijay, Will on 11 Jun 2012.
    • Photo: Will Reynolds

      Will Reynolds answered on 11 Jun 2012:

      Hey Cosmic! This is a mind-boggling question! I did some quantum mechanics years ago but I wasn’t very good at it. My instinct would be to say no probably not. Quantum phenoena are calculated according to probability (how likely it is for an event to happen). Usually these can only be seen at a subatomic scale (usually electrons, which are tiny particles inside atoms). They can technically happen on larger scales but there is only a very very very VERY small probability of that happening. Im not sure how small single cell organisms are (anybody?) but they must be made up of more than one atom so I would expect they are too big to have a high probability of experiencing quantum behaviour. Sorry if this complecated! Thanks for your awesome question.

    • Photo: Sarah Martin

      Sarah Martin answered on 11 Jun 2012:

      Hi cosmic,
      great question! I work on the smallest independent living cell, a tiny alga called Ostreococcus – it’s a small sphere, one hundredth of the thickness of human hair! They don’t experience quantum phenomena any more than we do, because they are still 10,000 times too big! But if we could organise quantum effects so each individual atom in an organism fluctuated the same way, teleportation could be possible… We just haven’t got a clue yet how to do it! Maybe you’ll help one day?

    • Photo: Amy Birch

      Amy Birch answered on 11 Jun 2012:

      Hi cosmic,
      That is a tough question, I don’t know anything about quantum mechanics (except from science fiction books I have read) so I have no idea! Even if it was possible to get a creature small enough to use quantum fluctuations – how would you be able to measure it?!

    • Photo: Karen Reed

      Karen Reed answered on 12 Jun 2012:

      Hiya Cosmic, great question that. I’ve no idea as I know nothing about quantum things, but I take it cells, as small as they are (1-100 micrometers for most human cells) are too big.

Comments