Dear Tejinder,
1. You may want to contact these researchers in Vienna. This info came from the Physics World Archive.
"The interference pattern formed when a beam of electrons passes through a double slit is clear
evidence that electrons can behave as both waves and particles. This wave-particle duality lies at
the heart of quantum mechanics, but physicists remain intrigued by the boundary between the quantum
and classical worlds. Neutrons, atoms and small molecules have all shown quantum-interference
effects. Now Markus Arndt and co-workers at the University of Vienna have observed the wave-like
behaviour of carbon-60 molecules. The "bucky-ball" molecules are at least an order of magnitude more
massive than any other object where wave properties have been observed (Nature 1999 401 680)."
2. I did some "Googling" on "His Dark Materials" and found I had made a mistake. The university
involved is Oxford and not Cambridge. I could not discover weather Pullman actually met Penrose, but
they were linked in this article: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/3340760/The-quest-for-dark-
matter.html
"Pullman's imaginary dark matter, Dust, is a name for what happens when matter begins to understand
itself. That's why it plays such an important role in the trilogy in which church scholars fret
that it could even bring down God. Pullman made a leap in inventiveness by making Dust "a way of
picturing human consciousness, the most mysterious thing in the universe".
Some of the inspiration for this idea lay nearby, in the university, in the controversial
suggestion of mathematician Sir Roger Penrose that consciousness is somehow linked with the yet-to-
be developed theory of quantum gravity, which will unite the quantum theory of the very small with
general relativity, the current theory of the very big (and gravity). "It is an extraordinary
idea," said Pullman."
3. I have been assuming that the transition from quantum to classical is gradual and that a buckyball is
not quite as good quantum mechanically as an electron. The transition to classical is complete at
the Planck mass. The m-mass region should contain a mixture of QM and classical stuff. These are just
my notions. What do you think?
4. If you think I can be of any help please let me know.
Thanks,
Don L.