PHYSICISTS often like talking about atoms colliding together like billiard balls. In reality, things are very different. Collisions that occur between atoms at temperatures near absolute zero, for example, have some highly unusual properties. These collisions . are no longer governed by classical physics, but by quantum mechanics. Studying such collisions is important since cold atoms are beginning to be used in a range of experiments, from precision measurements of physical constants to atom optics and atom intetferometry.
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