posted on 10/05/2022 06:00
(Source: AFP)
They took quantum mechanics out of the purely theoretical realm and pointed out ways in which this strange subatomic world is revolutionizing technology. Thanks to research by Frenchman Alain Aspect, 75, American John Clauser, 79, and Austrian Anton Zeilinger, 77, supercomputers are being developed with unprecedented speed, ultraprecise sensors and unbreakable encryption systems.
The discovery of a mechanism called quantum entanglement, by which two particles are perfectly connected regardless of the distance between them, earned the trio the Nobel Prize in Physics, announced yesterday by the Swedish Academy of Sciences. According to the Nobel Committee, the reason given for the award is that the laureates “carried out innovative experiments with entangled quantum states, in which two particles behave as a unit, even when they are separate”.
Theoretically predicted, the property of subatomic elements to behave in this way puzzled none other than Albert Einstein. A classic metaphor to explain quantum entanglement asks you to imagine two boxes, each containing a coin. If someone in the northern hemisphere plays heads or tails and the result is heads, the other player in the southern hemisphere will immediately draw tails.
It sounds like fiction, but the experiments of Aspect, Clauser and Zeilinger have shown that not only is it perfectly possible, but contrary to what many mystics want there is nothing esoteric about it. In 2019, with the trio’s knowledge, Scottish scientists from the University of Glasgow captured the phenomenon in four images of photons (subatomic particles) in various phase changes for the first time.
teleportation
“It’s not like the Star Trek movies or anything,” Zeilinger said at a press conference. “But the point is, using entanglement, you can transfer all the information carried by one object to another place where the object is reconstituted,” he explained. The research of the Austrian is dedicated to quantum teleportation. In the interview, the physicist modestly explained that he had not expected the award. “I was very surprised when I got the call,” he said.
In 2010, Zeilinger and John Clauser won the Wolf Prize for advances in quantum teleportation research. Clauser is responsible for putting into practice the ideas of the Irishman John Bell, who developed the most important theorem in quantum physics. According to the Nobel Committee, “some gaps remained after John Clauser’s experiment,” and it was up to Frenchman Alain Aspect to fill this gap through experiments as well. The professor at the University of ParisSaclay thanked the Nobel Prize winner and credited Albert Einstein with “part of the credit” for discovering quantum entanglement.
“It is becoming increasingly clear that a new type of quantum technology is emerging,” Anders Irbäck, chair of the Nobel Committee for Physics, said on the prize’s website. “We see that the work of the laureates with entangled states is of great importance, even beyond the fundamental questions about the interpretation of quantum mechanics.”
global market
According to physicist Enrique Solano, who founded two quantum technology companies in Spain (Kipu Quantum and Quanvia), when in 1900 Einstein, Max Planck, Erwin Schrödinger and Werner Heisenberg founded quantum theory, “with Aspect, Clauser and Zeilinger, an era of quantum information experiments begins, the connection of the principles of quantum physics with information processing comes and with it the quantum computing”. Because of the phenomenon of quantum entanglement, “it is suspected that very soon, five years from now, we will have quantum computers that can perform calculations in a fraction of a second that would take thousands of years with today’s supercomputers.”
“We’re talking about a branch of theoretical physics that has moved into quantum technologies, a business so well established that governments in Europe, Asia and the United States are investing thousands of euros in it, and there’s already a global market around them around. ‘ continues Solano. Google, IBM and Intel are some of the companies investing in quantum computing.
“With their pioneering experiments on quantum entanglement, Aspect, Clauser and Zeilinger have taken quantum mechanics from its philosophical beginnings going back almost a century to the present day,” comments Penelope Lewis of the North American Institute of Physics. “Their experiments laid the groundwork for incredible advances in quantum computing and cryptography, technologies with the potential to transform the modern world. It’s a great way to connect the past, present and future of applied physics.”
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Austrian physicist Anton Zeilinger addresses a news conference at the Institute for Quantum Physics at the University of Vienna, October 4, 2022 after he was awarded the 202 Nobel Prize in Physics. On October 4, 2022, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences decided to award the 2022 Nobel Prize in Physics to Anton Zeilinger and two other physicians specializing in quantum mechanics. (Photo by JOE KLAMAR / AFP) Caption: AFP
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U.S. physicist John Clauser poses at his home in Walnut Creek, California October 4, 2022 after receiving the Nobel Prize in Physics along with Austrian Anton Zeilinger and French Alain Aspect for pioneering discoveries in the field of quantum mechanics for quantum computers , networks and secure encrypted communication. (Photo by Remi Vorano / AFP) Photo: AFP
transformative applications
“Quantum mechanics contradicts many of the everyday ways we perceive the world around us. Yet experiment after experiment over the years particularly those of today’s (yesterday’s) award winners have demonstrated not only the fundamental applicability of the theory, but also its tremendous power. Perhaps the most transformative application is quantum computing, which gives us access to complex calculations efficiently and quickly. Over time, realworld applications may include developing drugs and vaccines faster, improving the efficiency of batteries, increasing the accuracy of weather forecasts, and protecting data with quantum encryption, among other things.”
Michael H. Moloney, executive director of the American Academy of Physics
A “terrifying” phenomenon
Credit: AFP
If the reader is struck by the concept of quantum entanglement, they are certainly not alone. The genius Albert Einstein questioned the phenomenon, calling it “terrifying”. Even today, many physics graduates cannot understand the phenomenon, Chris Phillips, a physicist at Imperial College London, told AFP.
Entanglement or entanglement is a mechanism whereby two quantum particles are perfectly correlated regardless of the distance between them. For example, a photon (particle of light) passing through a special glass to create two photons. These two resulting particles “do not have the same color as the original one, but they are entangled because they were formed from the same photon,” explains Phillips. “If you measure one of these photons, the other will be affected immediately no matter how far apart they are.”
Phillips found this “extremely strange” phenomenon in his lab, working with two entangled beams of photons. “When I put my hand on one of these bars, something immediately happens in the other bar across the room: a needle moves, recording the phenomenon.”
The fact that something can happen simultaneously, even over large distances, invalidates the socalled “place principle”, according to which what happens in one place should not affect what happens in a distant place. In 1964, Northern Irish physicist John Stewart Bell developed a theory to see if these “hidden variables” that so troubled Einstein existed. But laboratory experiments were lacking. The French physicist Alain Aspect succeeded two decades later. He proved that two “entangled” light particles affect each other instantaneously and repeatedly.
In an interview with the Nobel, Aspect admitted that after all these years, he still has trouble accepting the “mental picture” of this principle, “which is something ‘totally crazy'”. His awardwinning colleagues, the Austrian Anton Zeilinger and the American John Clauser, also tested Bell’s theorem and came to the same conclusion: the phenomenon can only be explained with this principle of “nonlocality”.
However, the great mystery remains 100 years after Einstein: why does this phenomenon occur? “We have to be humble about the physics,” explains Chris Phillips. “It just exists.”
Who are you
John Clauser (USA)
Born in the USA in 1942, he decided in the 1960s to study John Bell’s quantum theories. Clauser thought he could test Bell’s ideas in a lab, but leading physicists of the day reacted with contempt. He proposed the test independently of his radio astronomy dissertation and conducted it with collaborators at the University of California, Berkeley in 1972.
Alain Aspect (France)
Born in France in 1947, he is currently a professor at the University of ParisSaclay and the Ecole Polytechnique. Interest in the quantum world began with a book by Claude CohenTannoudji on the subject (CohenTannoudji received the Nobel Prize in 1997), which in turn led him to John Bell.
Anton Zeilinger (Austria)
The physicist Anton Zeilinger, known as the “quantum pope”, born in Austria in 1945, became one of the bestknown scientists in his country when he succeeded in 1997 in quantum teleportation of light particles for the first time. Using the properties of quantum entanglement, he encrypted the first bank transaction in this way in Vienna in 2004.