This year, the nobel prize for Physics has been awarded for research that is relevant, if not pertinent, for this day and age. This research could lead to a new generation of faster computers and highly accurate clocks, the bread and butter of society today.
French Physicist Serge Haroche and American David Wineland share the prize for their work - where the particles of light and matter behave in the strangest manner.
Imagine a scale beyond the naked eye, all the way down to the atomic level. Now consider the possibility that the rules of matter and light we grew up with just went out the window and the actions of the smallest particles are simply ludicrous - like existing in different states at the same time!
The quantum world has managed to spook greats like Albert Einstein. Until the 90s, looking at one of these particles changed the way it behaved and there was no way around this. But our two nobel laureates have found a way to isolate and study these particles - opening doors to entire new fields of research.
Computers based on quantum physics would change the industry forever. They would be faster, more efficient and could potentially change our lives the same way conventional computers did this century. This strange concept has already provided clocks a hundred times more accurate than the atomic clock - so accurate in fact that if one had started ticking at the Big Bang, we would have only lost 5 seconds.
And they call sci fi fans dreamers.
French Physicist Serge Haroche and American David Wineland share the prize for their work - where the particles of light and matter behave in the strangest manner.
Imagine a scale beyond the naked eye, all the way down to the atomic level. Now consider the possibility that the rules of matter and light we grew up with just went out the window and the actions of the smallest particles are simply ludicrous - like existing in different states at the same time!
The quantum world has managed to spook greats like Albert Einstein. Until the 90s, looking at one of these particles changed the way it behaved and there was no way around this. But our two nobel laureates have found a way to isolate and study these particles - opening doors to entire new fields of research.
Computers based on quantum physics would change the industry forever. They would be faster, more efficient and could potentially change our lives the same way conventional computers did this century. This strange concept has already provided clocks a hundred times more accurate than the atomic clock - so accurate in fact that if one had started ticking at the Big Bang, we would have only lost 5 seconds.
And they call sci fi fans dreamers.
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