quantum physics – Quanta Magazine

Introduction Last summer, a wedding photographer walked begrudgingly into a physics laboratory outside Rome. Feeling uninspired by the intricate machinery around him, he decided to turn off the lights. “I wanted to create a world that was a bit more intimate,” said the photographer, Marco Donghia. He had been brought into the lab to participate in a photography contest by his sister Raffaella Don…

Introduction One afternoon in October 1979, Gilles Brassard was swimming outside a beachfront hotel in San Juan, Puerto Rico, when a stranger swam up to him and changed the course of his career. Without so much as an introduction, the man began describing a way to create currency that couldn’t be forged. The scheme was based on the laws of quantum physics — a subject Brassard, a computer scientis…

Introduction Astrid Eichhorn spends her days thinking about how the laws of physics change at the tiniest scales. Imagine zooming in closer and closer to the device on which you’re reading this article. Its apparently smooth screen quickly dissolves into a jiggling lattice of molecules, which in turn resolve into clouds of electrons buzzing around atomic nuclei. You dive into a nucleus, and atoms…

Introduction N one of the leading interpretations of quantum theory are very convincing. They ask us to believe, for example, that the world we experience is fundamentally divided from the subatomic realm it’s built from. Or that there is a wild proliferation of parallel universes, or that a mysterious process causes quantumness to spontaneously collapse. This unsatisfying state was a key element…

Introduction In July 2012, physicists at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) in Europe triumphantly announced the discovery of the Higgs boson, the long-sought linchpin of the subatomic world. Interacting with Higgs bosons imbues other elementary particles with mass, making them slow down enough to assemble into atoms, which then clump together to make everything else. A couple of months later, I too…

Try as they might, scientists can’t truly rid a space or an object of its energy. But what “zero-point energy” really means is up for interpretation. The post In Quantum Mechanics, Nothingness Is the Potential To Be Anything first appeared on Quanta Magazine

Physicists spotted a “terribly exciting” new black hole, doubled down on weakening dark energy, and debated the meaning of quantum mechanics. The post The Year in Physics first appeared on Quanta Magazine

The supercollider is now being used to explore quantum phenomena, including a “magic” form of quantum entanglement. The post Particle Physicists Detect ‘Magic’ at the Large Hadron Collider first appeared on Quanta Magazine

Has the secret to understanding gravity been hiding in plain sight for nearly 50 years? The post Old ‘Ghost’ Theory of Quantum Gravity Makes a Comeback first appeared on Quanta Magazine

Quantum mechanics has at last been formulated exclusively with real numbers, bringing a mathematical puzzle at the heart of the theory into a new era of inquiry. The post Physicists Take the Imaginary Numbers Out of Quantum Mechanics first appeared on Quanta Magazine

“Anomalous” heat flow, which at first appears to violate the second law of thermodynamics, gives physicists a way to detect quantum entanglement without destroying it. The post A Thermometer for Measuring Quantumness first appeared on Quanta Magazine

Earth’s radiation can send some molecules spinning or vibrating, which is what makes them greenhouse gases. This infographic explains how relatively few heat-trapping molecules can have a planetary effect. The post The Quantum Mechanics of Greenhouse Gases first appeared on Quanta Magazine

Recent progress on both analog and digital simulations of quantum fields foreshadows a future in which quantum computers could illuminate phenomena that are far too complex for even the most powerful supercomputers. The post Analog vs. Digital: The Race Is On To Simulate Our Quantum Universe first appeared on Quanta Magazine

The proof, known to be so hard that a mathematician once offered 10 martinis to whoever could figure it out, connects quantum mechanics to infinitely intricate mathematical structures. The post ‘Ten Martini’ Proof Uses Number Theory To Explain Quantum Fractals first appeared on Quanta Magazine

Hundreds of physicists (and a few journalists) journeyed to Helgoland, the birthplace of quantum mechanics, and grappled with what they have and haven’t learned about reality. The post ‘It’s a Mess’: A Brain-Bending Trip to Quantum Theory’s 100th Birthday Party first appeared on Quanta Magazine

Artificial intelligence software is designing novel experimental protocols that improve upon the work of human physicists, although the humans are still “doing a lot of baby-sitting.” The post AI Comes Up With Bizarre Physics Experiments. But They Work. first appeared on Quanta Magazine

Every elementary particle falls into one of two categories. Collectivist bosons account for the forces that move us while individualist fermions keep our atoms from collapsing. The post Matter vs. Force: Why There Are Exactly Two Types of Particles first appeared on Quanta Magazine

Physicists recently mapped the hidden shape that underlies the quantum behaviors of a crystal, using a new method that’s expected to become ubiquitous. The post First Map Made of a Solid’s Secret Quantum Geometry first appeared on Quanta Magazine

From living matter to molecules to elementary particles, the world is made of “chiral” objects that differ from their reflected forms. The post How the Universe Differs From Its Mirror Image first appeared on Quanta Magazine

Quantum gravity could help physicists unite the currently incompatible worlds of quantum mechanics and gravity. In this episode, Monika Schleier-Smith discusses her pioneering experimental approach, using laser-cooled atoms to explore whether gravity could emerge from quantum entanglement. The post Can Quantum Gravity Be Created in the Lab? first appeared on Quanta Magazine