Word of the day: decoherence
It’s a word I came across – for the first time- in a book I’m currently reading: a popular work on physics called “You Are Here” and written by Christopher Potter.
The book describes decoherence as “the passing from quantum reality to classical reality” – which is not very helpful. In more lay person’s terms, I think it is the connection – or lack of it – between the Newtonian world of everyday objects that we can generally see and the Einsteinian world of sub-atomic particles which operate by very different rules.
However, if you’re interested in pursuing the subject, you’ll be amazed to learn that there is actually a web site devoted to the concept.
December 30th, 2009 at 10:52 pm
Decoherence is not the same as incoherence, which is what often results when quantum theory is invoked to support notions such as “cosmic consciousness” and “quantum healing”. See e.g. Deepak Chopra.