How small is small? How large is large? Since Quantum Mechanics was developed in the 1920s, this has been one of THE questions we've had - where is the boundary between being able to treat the world with classical, Newtonian mechanics, or treating the world with QM?
It appears that over the last 20 years, a scientist at Los Alamos National Laboratory, Wojciech Zurek, has developed a theory using first principles of QM to show how many-atom objects and systems naturally yield the 'classical', everyday properties we measure. It has to do with the fact that any quantum object, such as an atom, naturally becomes 'entangled' with all other physical entities it interacts with. It is this mass entanglement process where the properties we observe behave as a continuum rather than as quantized values.
Read the article here, if you wish. If you are a student, I have a copy of Zurek's recently published book about quantum decoherence and his theory of Quantum Darwinism. It's pretty technical, but have a look if you want!
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