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Nobody understands quantum mechanics,” Richard Feynman famously said. Long after Max Planck’s discovery in 1900 that energy comes in separate packets or quanta, quantum physics remains enigmatic. It is vastly different from how things work at bigger scales, where objects from baseballs to automobiles follow Newton’s laws of mechanics and gravitation, consistent with our own bodily experiences. But at the quantum level, an electron is a particle and a wave, and light is a wave and a particle (wave-particle duality); an electron in an atom takes on only certain energies (energy quantization); electrons or photons can instantaneously affect each other over arbitrary distances (entanglement and teleportation); a quantum object exists in different states until it is measured (superposition, or popularly, Schrödinger’s cat); and a real physical force emerges from the apparent nothingness of vacuum (the Casimir effect).

For a theory that nobody understands, quantum physics has changed human society in remarkable ways. It lies behind the digital technology of integrated circuit chips, and the new technology of light-emitting diodes moving us toward a greener world. Scientists are now excited by one of the more elusive notions in quantum physics, the idea of ephemeral “virtual” photons, which could make possible non-invasive medical methods to diagnose the heart and brain. These connections illustrate the flow of ideas from scientific abstraction to useful application. But there is also a counter flow, where pragmatic requirements generate deep insight. The universal laws of thermodynamics have roots in efforts by 19th-century French engineer Sadi Carnot to make the leading technology of the time, the steam engine, more efficient. Similarly, the growth of quantum technology leads to deeper knowledge of quantum. The interplay between pure theory, and its outcomes in the everyday world, is a continuing feature of science as it develops. In quantum physics, this interaction traces back to one of its founders, Danish physicist Niels Bohr

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Quantum Theory

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If there’s one equation that people learn about physics — and no, not Einstein’s E = mc² — it’s Newton’s F = ma. Despite the fact that it’s been in widespread use for some ~350 years now since Newton first put it forth in the late 17th century, it rarely makes the list of most important equations. Yet it’s the one that physics students learn more than any other at the introductory level, and it remains important as we advance: through our undergraduate educations, through graduate school, in both physics and engineering, and even when we move on to engineering, calculus, and some very intense and advanced concepts.

F = ma, despite its apparent simplicity, keeps on delivering new insights to those who study it, and has done so for centuries. Part of the reason why it’s so undervalued is because it’s so ubiquitous: After all, if you’re going to learn anything about physics, you’re going to learn about Newton, and this very equation is the key statement of Newton’s second law. In addition, it’s just three parameters — force, mass, and acceleration — related through an equals sign. While it might seem like there’s very little to it, the truth is that there’s a fantastic world of physics that opens up when you investigate the depths of F = ma. Let’s dive in.

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When describing any object that’s acted upon by an outside force, Newton’s famous F = ma is the equation that describes how its motion will evolve with time. Although it’s a seemingly simple statement and a seemingly simple equation, there’s an entire Universe to explore encoded in this seemingly straightforward relationship. (Credit: Dieterich01/Pixabay)

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The Universe’s normal matter consists, humbly, of atoms.

Every atom’s nucleus contains protons, whose number determines that element’s properties.

Over 100 elements, sortable into a periodic table, are presently known.

Only eight processes occur to create them all.

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The Universe itself, through a variety of nuclear processes involving stars and stellar remnants, as well as other means, can naturally copiously produce nearly 100 elements of the periodic table. There are only 8 total processes, both natural and human-made, that cause them all. (Credit: ESO/L. Calçada/M. Kornmesser)

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PARTICLES that also act like waves; the “spooky action at a distance” of entanglement; those dead-and-alive cats. Small wonder people often trot out physicist Richard Feynman’s line that “nobody understands quantum mechanics”. With quantum theory, we have developed an exceedingly successful description of how fundamental reality works. It also amounts to a full-frontal assault on our intuitions about how reality should work.

Or does it? “It only seems strange to us because our immediate everyday experience of the world is so very limited,” says Sean Carroll at the California Institute of Technology. Intuitive-feeling classical physics is largely devoted to describing macroscopic objects – the things we see and feel directly in the world around us. “It should not be surprising that this breaks down when we push it into domains that we never experience directly,” says Carroll.

There is a big difference between seeming strange and being strange, too. “If quantum mechanics is right, it can’t truly be strange – it’s how nature works,” says Carroll. You can say something similar, after all, about other areas of physics, such as Albert Einstein’s space-and-time-warping theories of relativity. Their effects only truly kick in at close to light speed, or in humongous gravitational fields of the sort, we never experience, so their picture of the world seems alien to us.

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Are you in the market for a loophole in the laws that forbid perpetual motion? Knowing you’ve got yourself an authentic time crystal takes more than a keen eye for high-quality gems.

In a new study, an international team of researchers used Google’s Sycamore quantum computing hardware to double-check their theoretical vision of a time crystal, confirming it ticks all of the right boxes for an emerging form of technology we’re still getting our head around.

Similar to conventional crystals made of endlessly repeating units of atoms, a time crystal is an infinitely repeating change in a system, one that remarkably doesn’t require energy to enter or leave.

Though such a thing comes close to breaking certain laws of thermodynamics, the fact that the system’s entropy doesn’t increase means it should sit on the right side of physics.

In reality, such a crystal might look like an oscillation of some sort that doesn’t synchronize with the rest of the system’s rhythms. A laser tapping out a steady beat on your time crystal, for example, might make its particles’ spins flip only on every other tap.

This recalcitrant flip-flopping is a signature time crystal behavior and has been used as evidence for the design and production of time crystals in past experiments.

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The chip used in the creation of a time crystal. (Google Quantum AI)

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