News tagged with quantum physics
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 ...
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 ...
Trade-off coding for quantum communication provides more benefits than previously thought
(Phys.org) -- In optical communication systems, the overall performance depends on the strategy used to transmit photons from one location to another. In previous attempts to optimize this performance, scientists ...
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 ...
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 ...
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 ...
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 ...
Why we've got the cosmological constant all wrong
(PhysOrg.com) -- Some scientists call the cosmological constant the "worst prediction of physics." And when todays theories give an estimated value that is about 120 orders of magnitude larger than the ...
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 ...
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 ...
Fake violations of Bell tests reinforce importance of closing loopholes
(PhysOrg.com) -- In quantum mechanics, Bells inequalities serve as a test of nonclassical behavior: if something (such as a light source) violates Bells inequalities, then it can be considered to involve quantum ...
New way to store light could prove useful for optical communication
(PhysOrg.com) -- Due to its high data carrying capacity and low loss, light can serve as an ideal information carrier. However, due to the high speed at which it travels, light is difficult to store. Because ...
Quantum correlations -- without entanglement
(PhysOrg.com) -- Few people doubt the "quantumness" of entanglement. Quantifying the quantum correlation of entanglement is something that is relatively regular right now. However, things change a bit when it comes to quantum ...
Large scale qubit generation for quantum computing
(PhysOrg.com) -- "Many people are trying to build a quantum computer," Olivier Pfister tells PhysOrg.com. "One to the problems, though, is that you need hundreds of thousands of qubits. So far, scalability has been someth ...
Don't have all the information? In the quantum world, that doesn't matter
(PhysOrg.com) -- When it comes to the rules of the quantum world, it seems that almost everything goes against intuition. In the case of the way ignorance of the whole implies ignorance of at least one of its parts, the situation ...
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
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