The surprise of the year: a Nobel prize for discovering macrosopic quantum tunnelling!

I must confess  that the work of Nobel prize winners John Clarke, Michel H. Devoret, and John M. Martinis "for the discovery of macroscopic quantum mechanical tunnelling and energy quantisation in an electric circuit" (see this) came as a total surprise for me.

Macroscopic quantum coherence is what makes possible quantum tunnelling in macroscopic scales but the value of Planck constant h is too small to make it plausible.

I have been talking about macroscopic quantum coherence for decades as a basic prediction of Topological Geometrodynamics (TGD). TGD forces us to generalize the standard quantum theory. One prediction is the spectrum h_eff=nh₀ of effective Planck constants as multiples of the minimal value h₀ of Planck constant which is smaller than h. It however seems that the multiples h_eff=nh are the most  important ones. Quantum coherence becomes possible in even astrophysical scales and would play a central role in the TGD inspired quantum biology.    

In the work of Nobel laureates, the quantization of energy and and macroscpic tunnelling were discovered in Josephson junctions.  An interesting question is whether the macroscopic quantum coherence observed in the quantum tunnelling can be really  explained in terms of ordinary quantum mechanics or whether TGD is required. One can indeed  argue that the extremely low temperatures presumably use in the experiments make it possible to have macroscopic quantum coherence in superconducting systems even in the framework of standard quantum mechanics.

The basic mystery of biological systems is their coherence. Could it be induced by macroscopic quantum coherence?  The quantum coherence at room  temperature is  definitely in conflict with standard quantum theory assuming a single value of Planck constant.  Macroscopic quantum tunnelling in high temperature superconductors would  obviously challenge the standard quantum mechanics.

TGD  could explain the quantum coherence at room temperature.  The new view of space-time leads to the notion of a field body, having  magnetic, electric and gravitational field bodies as special cases. These field bodies  carry  phases of ordinary matter with large h_eff. The quantum coherence at the level of  the field body, serving as a controller of the biological body,  would induce the macroscopic coherence (not quantum-) of  the ordinary biomatter.  

For instance, EEG would   relate  to the communications to and the  control by  the field body, which can have layers with the size of the Earth and even larger. In TGD quantum coherence at room  temperature superconductivity would make possible cell membranes as Josephson junctions. They would  play a central role in TGD inspired  quantum biology and neuroscience. The model of nerve pulse and EEG (see this) is one example.  

See for instance https://tgdtheory.fi/public_html/articles/TGD2024I.pdf and https://tgdtheory.fi/public_html/articles/TGD2024II.pdf .

For a summary of earlier postings see Latest progress in TGD.

For the lists of articles (most of them published in journals founded by Huping Hu) and books about TGD see this.