Last updated on December 18, 2013 at 11:05 EST  Physics That
Connect The Classical Temperature To The Quantum World
September 9, 2013 Image Caption: Principle of the experiment: In
the beginning the atom cloud is prepared in an almost perfectly
ordered quantum state (symbolized by gray atoms). Over time,
this quantum order is lost and disorder spreads through the
system with a certain well-defined velocity (symbolized by the
mixture of red and gray atoms). This disorder can be associated
with the emergence of a temperature. The initial quantum
properties are lost only through interactions between the atoms,
without any influence from the outside world. Credit: Vienna
University of Technology  Vienna University of Technology  How
does a classical temperature form in the quantum world? An
experiment at the Vienna University of Technology has directly
observed the emergence and the spreading of a temperature in a
quantum system. Remarkably, the quantum properties are lost,
even though the quantum system is comp