The Quantum Leaps physicists made in science and how it's changing our lives
TAMPA, Fla. - In 2022, John Clauser won the Nobel Prize for proving what Einstein thought was impossible and what can sound too weird to believe, but it’s true.
"Everybody told me I was nuts – that I would ruin my career, everybody knew what the results would be," said Clauser.
His work confirmed that tiny particles or photons behave differently based on whether we’re observing them, and that they lock into a specific place and time, because somebody observes them. Otherwise, they exist in multiple places at once — and move in all directions at once, or exist as a range of all possibilities – under the laws of quantum mechanics.
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"In quantum mechanics, essentially, anything that can happen happens. Anything that isn't forbidden is mandatory," said New York University physics professor Matthew Kleban.
Since that’s how it works in the world of very small things, physicists are exploring the possibility that’s how things also function in our larger world. This drives the theory that anything we can do also does really happen, and while our consciousness may follow one specific track — all scenarios play out in alternate timelines, or parallel universes (or what physicists call many worlds).
That’s driving the growing numbers of movies and shows that take this concept of a multi-verse and run with it.
"There may be these different timelines. There may be these timelines existing simultaneously. But there's no communication between them. The only communication between them happens for very, very small particles," Kleban said.
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Clauser’s Nobel Prize-winning experiments and the works of other quantum physicists also confirmed something else that seems weird, but also is driving extraordinary innovations in electronics.
They verified particles or photons have partner particles, and that they are somehow entangled, so that the act of observing one of them doesn’t just change the state of that one particle — it also instantly alters its partner particle — even if its partner particle is on the other side of the universe.
Engineers are using these laws and discoveries of quantum mechanics in our computers, and to improve encryption to make it harder for hackers to snoop on us.
"If we develop it, and then we can build it, many things will be more secure and that would impact everybody from the banks, to the governments, even your transactions you do with your credit card," said Dr. Eden Figueroa, Associate Prof. of Physics, SBU.
For example, they’re developing ways to transmit two streams of entangled photons — so if a hacker disturbs one — the other will instantly alter and sounds alarms.
"If you lose your photon you will realize it because it’s easy to check on if someone is eavesdropping on the information you’re transmitting," Figueroa said,