On the Boundary between Quantum and Classical Behaviour in Nanotechnology

How quantum states merge into classical, as microscopic is expanded to macroscopic, has been the subject of debate over the entire 20^th century. The issue is essential to understanding nanotechnology fully, because small nanoparticles lie on the boundary between ‘quantum’ and ‘classical’ behaviour. This article discusses the said boundary in light of a new scale constructed between the two: the ‘Degree of Manifestation’. The possibility of connecting quantum and classical by such a scale was a much dreamed of, but elusive, possibility, until the proof by D’Espagnat that we do not live in an Objective Reality. The Vedic concepts of Vyakta and Avyakta, manifest and unmanifest, lead to a new approach to interpreting quantum theory in which decoherence, (essentially a process of equilibriation of system and environment), is supplemented by the idea of ‘manifestation due to information production’. Here, lack of thermodynamic equilibrium, inherent in any directed energy exchange between any open system (including quantum systems) and its environment, has to supplement decoherence. This leads to new insights into information generation in nanotech systems on the boundary between quantum and classical physics. It also offers a new point of departure for the quantum theory of observation.