News tagged with quantum physics

Research group creates longer lived and more efficient quantum memory

(Phys.org) -- One of the main sticking points to creating a true quantum computer capable of performing meaningful work, is the problem of storing quantum state information in memory. Recent efforts have resulted in highly ...

Physics / Quantum Physics

created May 30, 2012 | popularity 5 / 5 (8) | comments 0 | with audio podcast report

Two stopped light pulses interact with each other

(Phys.org) -- For the first time, physicists have experimentally demonstrated the interaction of two motionless light pulses. Because the stopped light pulses have a long interaction time, it increases the ...

Physics / General Physics

created May 08, 2012 | popularity 4.1 / 5 (16) | comments 8 | with audio podcast feature

Repulsive polaron: Austrian physicists realize elusive quasiparticles

(Phys.org) -- In quantum physics physical processes in condensed matter and other many-body systems can often be described with quasiparticles. In Innsbruck, for the first time Rudolf Grimm’s team of ...

Physics / Quantum Physics

created May 23, 2012 | popularity 5 / 5 (8) | comments 1 | with audio podcast

Efficient and tunable interface for quantum networks

(Phys.org) -- Quantum computers may someday revolutionize the information world. But in order for quantum computers at distant locations to communicate with one another, they have to be linked together in ...

Physics / Quantum Physics

created May 23, 2012 | popularity 5 / 5 (5) | comments 0 | with audio podcast

Does the quantum wave function represent reality?

(Phys.org) -- At the heart of quantum mechanics lies the wave function, a probability function used by physicists to understand the nanoscale world. Using the wave function, physicists can calculate a system's ...

Physics / Quantum Physics

created Apr 25, 2012 | popularity 4.7 / 5 (38) | comments 136 | with audio podcast feature

Novel probe for ultracold quantum matter developed

(Phys.org) -- In a paper published in the May 20, 2012 edition of the journal Nature Physics, a research group from the Department of Physics and Astronomy at Stony Brook University reports the development and de ...

Physics / Quantum Physics

created May 23, 2012 | popularity 3 / 5 (2) | comments 0 | with audio podcast

A magnetic approach to lattices

(Phys.org) -- JQI experimentalists under the direction of Ian Spielman are in the business of using lasers to create novel environments for neutral atoms. For instance, this research group previously enticed ...

Physics / General Physics

created May 22, 2012 | popularity 5 / 5 (4) | comments 0 | with audio podcast

Why we've got the cosmological constant all wrong

(PhysOrg.com) -- Some scientists call the cosmological constant the "worst prediction of physics." And when today’s theories give an estimated value that is about 120 orders of magnitude larger than the ...

Physics / General Physics

created Mar 05, 2012 | popularity 4.5 / 5 (41) | comments 152 | with audio podcast feature

Physicists propose test for loop quantum gravity

(PhysOrg.com) -- As a quantum theory of gravity, loop quantum gravity could potentially solve one of the biggest problems in physics: reconciling general relativity and quantum mechanics. But like all tentative ...

Physics / Quantum Physics

created Jan 03, 2012 | popularity 4.3 / 5 (34) | comments 106 | with audio podcast feature

Physicists search for new physics in primordial quantum fluctuations

(PhysOrg.com) -- Inflation, the brief period that occurred less than a second after the Big Bang, is nearly as difficult to fathom as the Big Bang itself. Physicists calculate that inflation lasted for just ...

Physics / Quantum Physics

created Mar 26, 2012 | popularity 4.6 / 5 (26) | comments 99 | with audio podcast feature

Fast photon control brings quantum photonic technologies closer

(PhysOrg.com) -- Using photons instead of electrons to transmit information could lead to faster and more secure ways to communicate, among other advantages. Now a team of physicists has taken another step toward realizing ...

Physics / Optics & Photonics

created Feb 13, 2012 | popularity 5 / 5 (9) | comments 2 | with audio podcast feature

143 is largest number yet to be factored by a quantum algorithm

(Phys.org) -- While factoring an integer is a simple problem when the integer is small, the complexity of factorization greatly increases as the integer increases. When the integer grows to more than 100,000 ...

Physics / Quantum Physics

created Apr 11, 2012 | popularity 4.7 / 5 (19) | comments 10 | with audio podcast feature

Time travel experiment demonstrates how to avoid the grandfather paradox (Update)

(PhysOrg.com) -- Among the many intriguing concepts in Einstein’s relativity theories is the idea of closed timelike curves (CTCs), which are paths in spacetime that return to their starting points. As ...

Physics / General Physics

created Mar 01, 2011 | popularity 4.6 / 5 (38) | comments 91 | with audio podcast feature

Quantum strategy offers game-winning advantages, even without entanglement

(PhysOrg.com) -- Quantum correlations have well-known advantages in areas such as communication, computing, and cryptography, and recently physicists have discovered that they may help players competing in ...

Physics / Quantum Physics

created Mar 13, 2012 | popularity 4.6 / 5 (11) | comments 1 | with audio podcast feature

Researchers engineer molecular magnets to act as long-lived qubits

(PhysOrg.com) -- Some physicists today are investigating the possibility of using molecular magnets as information storage units in future quantum computers. Molecular magnets are molecules whose magnetic ...

Physics / General Physics

created Mar 21, 2012 | popularity 4.8 / 5 (14) | comments 0 | with audio podcast feature

Quantum mechanics

Quantum mechanics is a set of principles underlying the most fundamental known description of all physical systems at the submicroscopic scale (at the atomic level). Notable among these principles are simultaneous wave-like and particle-like behavior of matter and radiation ("Wave–particle duality"), and the prediction of probabilities in situations where classical physics predicts certainties. Classical physics can be derived as a good approximation to quantum physics, typically in circumstances with large numbers of particles. Thus quantum phenomena are particularly relevant in systems whose dimensions are close to the atomic scale, such as molecules, atoms, electrons, protons and other subatomic particles. Exceptions exist for certain systems which exhibit quantum mechanical effects on macroscopic scale; superfluidity is one well-known example. Quantum theory provides accurate descriptions for many previously unexplained phenomena such as black body radiation and stable electron orbits. It has also given insight into the workings of many different biological systems, including smell receptors and protein structures.

For more information about Quantum mechanics, read the full article at Wikipedia.
This text uses material from Wikipedia and is available under the GNU Free Documentation License.