Quantum mechanics underlies many of the most revolutionary discoveries and principles of human technology, from the big bang to the laser, to the transistor to superconducting magnets used at CERNs LHC.
Extraterrestrial technology more advanced than ours might manifest itself by inconceivable whole-part relationships. “Quantum weirdness, living organisms, human minds, and designed machines all are examples in which wholes and parts relate in different ways,” writes
astrophysicist Paul Davies in his new book, Eerie Silence. A hundred years ago, Davies observes, who would have thought that atoms behave with the weirdness they exhibit? There could be many ways in the universe that whole-part relationships differ from anything in our experience.”