With the 2022 Nobel Prize In Physics, recognition has been made for quantum weirdness experiments and their potential real-world applications.
We all are subject to quantum laws at one level. These rules were difficult for Albert Einstein to understand. These rules are mostly hidden behind the scenes in computer chips, lasers, and the chemistry of atoms in materials. Applications that stem from this year’s Nobel prize take advantage of quantum features at larger scales. They include extremely secure communications and quantum computer that could eventually solve problems that no other conventional computer could in the entire lifetime of the universe.
This year’s prize is shared among three physicists. John Clauser and Alain Aspect confirmed that quantum mechanics rules really do govern the world. Anton Zeilinger, on the other hand, has used strange quantum behavior to create rudimentary applications no conventional technology can match. Each laureate will be awarded a third the prize money. This amounts to approximately $915,000.
“Today, we honor three physicists whose pioneering experiments showed us that the Strange world of entanglement … is not just the micro-world of atoms, and certainly not the virtual world of science fiction or mysticism, but it’s the real world that we all live in,” said Thors Hans Hansson, a member of the Nobel Committee for Physics, at a press conference announcing the award on October 4 at the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences (SN: 11/5/10).
“It was certainly very exciting to learn about the three laureates,” says physicist Jerry Chow of IBM Quantum in Yorktown Heights, N.Y. “Aspect, Zeilinger and Clauser — they’re all very, very well known in our quantum community, and their work is something that’s really been a big part of many people’s research efforts over many years.”
Aspect, of the Université Paris-Saclay and École Polytechnique in France, and Clauser, who now runs a company in California, showed that there are no secret back channelsTwo particles can exist as one entity even though their distances are not clear.SN: 12/29/14).
Zeilinger’s experiments at the University of Vienna that depend on quantum behavior include communications demonstrations, absolute secure encryption, and components critical for quantum computers. He pioneered another, widely misunderstood, application — quantum teleportation. This effect, unlike the teleportation between people and objects in science-fiction, involves the perfect transmission information about a quantum object to one place from another.
“I was always interested in quantum mechanics from the very first moments when I read about it,” Zeilinger said via phone at the news conference announcing the award. “I was actually struck by some of the theoretical predictions, because they did not fit the usual intuitions which one might have.”
In the early 20th century, quantum behavior was discovered that governs the world on small scales. It is like an electron moving around an atom. This revolutionized physics. Many of the world’s most prominent scientists, including Einstein acknowledged that quantum theories were valid. argued that they couldn’t be the true descriptionThey were not able to predict the likelihood of something happening in the real world.SN: 1/12/22). Einstein understood this to mean that there was hidden information that experiments couldn’t uncover.
Others believed that quantum behavior (often called strange) had no secrets ways of transmitting data. It was mostly a matter for debate and opinion until John Bell, physicist, made it a fact. A test was proposed in the 1960sIt was necessary to show that there are no hidden channels of communication between quantum objects (SN: 12/29/14). At the time it wasn’t clear that an experiment to perform the test was possible.
Clauser was the first to develop a practical experiment to confirm Bell’s test, although there remained loopholes his experiment couldn’t check that left room for doubt. His interest in science began early. Clauser became a scientist in 1959 and 1960. Competed in the National Science FairThe International Science and Engineering Fair, also known as ISSEF (International Science and Engineering Fair)SN: 5/23/59). The Society for Science runs the fair. Science News.)
Aspect This idea was taken furtherThis is to eliminate the possibility that quantum mechanics could have been a subset of classical physics.SN: 1/11/86). Clauser’s and Aspect’s experiments involved creating photon pairs that were entangled. This meant that they were basically one object. The photons remained entangled as they moved in different directions. This means that they exist together as one extended object. You can instantly determine the characteristics of the one by measuring their characteristics, regardless of how distant they might be.
Entanglement can be a difficult state of affairs. However, Clauser’s and Aspect’s experiments show that quantum effects cannot possibly be explained by hidden variables that could be indicative of non-quantum underpinnings.
Chow sees two things in this research. “There’s really an element of showing, from a philosophical point, that quantum mechanics is real,” he says. “But then, from the more practical standpoint … this same beautiful theory of quantum mechanics gives a different set of rules by which information is processed.” That, in turn, opens up new avenues for next-generation technologies like quantum computersCommunication (SN: 12/3/20).
Zeilinger’s experiments take advantage of entanglement to achieve feats that would not be possible without the effects that Clauser and Aspect confirmed. His experiments have been extended from the Lab to intercontinental distancesThis opens up the possibility of entanglement being put to practical useSN: 5/31/12). Interacting with one of the entangled particles can affect the other, making them key components of secure communications and encryption. Unauthorised persons outsiders trying to access a quantum communication would instantly be exposed because they would have broken the entanglement.
The active research into quantum computers that are based on entangled particle technology has been a key topic. Quantum computers can encode information and perform calculations that combine both one and zero, instead of the traditional ones and zeros. They can do calculations that no digital computer could match in theory. Zeilinger’s quantum teleportation experimentsOffer a way to transfer the information such quantum computers rely upon (SN: 1/17/98).
“This [award] is a very nice and positive surprise to me,” says Nicolas Gisin, a physicist at the University of Geneva in Switzerland. “This prize is very well-deserved, but comes a bit late. Most of the work was done at home. [1970s and 1980s], but the Nobel Committee was very slow, and now is rushing after the boom of quantum technologies.”
Gisin states that this boom is taking place on a global level. “In the U.S. and in Europe and in China, billions — literally billions of dollars are poured into this field. So, it’s changing completely,” he says. “Instead of having a few individuals pioneering the field, now we have really huge crowds of physicists and engineers that work together.”
Even though some of the most complicated quantum applications are still in development, the experiments by Clauser, Aspect, and Zeilinger bring quantum physics and its strange implications to the macroscopic realm. Their contributions validate some of the key, once controversial ideas of quantum mechanics and promise novel applications that may someday be commonplace in daily life, in ways that even Einstein couldn’t deny.
Maria Temming contributed reporting.
