A beautiful, jewel-like mathematical object may provide new and profound insights into particle physics, writes Roger Highfield
‘Quantum smell’ idea gains ground
A controversial theory that the way we smell involves a quantum physics effect has received a boost, following experiments with human subjects. It challenges the notion that our sense of smell depends only on the shapes of molecules we sniff in the air. Instead, it suggests that the molecules’ vibrations are responsible. A way to test it is with two … Read More
Physicists Realize Non-Causal Quantum Eraser Concept
Whether a quantum object behaves like a wave or like a particle depends on the tool used to observe the system, and thus on the type of measurement performed. Now, a team of physicists at the University of Vienna, Austria, and the Austrian Academy of Sciences has taken this phenomenon to the extreme by performing measurements on two photons placed 144 km apart. … Read More
More Quantum Weirdness
Quantum physics is getting real — and getting really weird. If the strange properties of entanglement, teleportation and superposition can be harnessed, it could revolutionize computing, communication, banking and much, much more. That’s a big “if.” But several reports over the past few days suggest that folks are willing to spend millions of dollars to turn theory into reality: • Can … Read More
Quantum jumps are not objective events? Precisely.
The famous physicist Niels Bohr first conceived of the notion of quantum jumps, or quantum leaps, in 1913. Bohr understood quantum jumps as objective events in which an atom emits or absorbs a photon, causing an electron to jump from one energy level – or quantum state – to another inside the atom. But a few decades later, when physicists … Read More
The Meaning of Complementarity
By Amit Goswami, Ph.D. Quantum physics is finally coming of age. The film The Quantum Activist made famous the line “quantum physics is the physics of possibilities.” And the idea that consciousness chooses actuality from these possibilities must be getting well known too since even the New York Times columnist David Brooks commented in a recent column that quantum physics has … Read More