Physicists are used to the idea that subatomic particles behave according to the bizarre rules of quantum mechanics, completely different to human-scale objects. In a breakthrough experiment, Aaron O'Connell has blurred that distinction by creating an object that is visible to the unaided eye, but provably in two places at the same time. In this talk he suggests an intriguing way of thinking about the result.

Making sense of a visible quantum object

Quantum mechanics, once thought to govern only tiny particles, now applies to objects visible to the naked eye. In a stunning experiment, a tiny metal chip was placed into a quantum superposition, meaning it was both vibrating and not vibrating at once. This blurs the line between the familiar world and the bizarre quantum realm. The experiment challenges the intuition that large objects behave differently from atoms, hinting that everything, even people, may be fundamentally quantum.