Algorithm Developed by LANL & UCD Studies Connection Between Quantum & Classical World

(ScientificAmerican) Nature has clearly found some way of suppressing quantum behavior when quantum objects are assembled into the familiar ones all around us.
A quantum-computing algorithm, developed by scientists at Los Alamos National Laboratory and the University of California, Davis—including both of us—opens a new window on the connection between the quantum and classical worlds and the transition that must occur as we zoom out from the smallest scales.
Quantum computers have the potential to tame the difficulties of studying the quantum-to-classical transition precisely because they operate under the same rules that govern atoms and other quantum entities—an elegant potential solution to a problem that has vexed physicists for decades.