Quantum Particle Work Wins Nobel For French, US Scientists 38
thomst writes "Reuters is reporting that French scientist Serge Haroche and American David Wineland will share the 2012 Nobel Prize for Physics for their work on measuring quantum particles. (The article is very skimpy on details.)" The Associated Press article carried by the Washington Post is also quite thin, but along with the Reuters story says the Haroche and Wineland were selected for demonstrating "how to observe individual quantum particles without destroying them."
Schrodinger's cat (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Schrodinger's cat (Score:5, Funny)
I really don't get all this fuss about Schrödinger's cat. Now they can finally observe it, and they found out it was dead. As anything else that has been in a box since 1935. Where do I get my Nobel?
Re:Schrodinger's cat (Score:5, Funny)
Ok, so now we can see the cat.. now how do we pet it?
I think, PETA [slashdot.org] condemns everything related to Schrodinger's cat. Including petting it.
Re: (Score:2)
Most importantly, how do we post cute pictures of it on the Internet?
Go to the Source (Score:5, Informative)
http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/physics/laureates/2012/advanced-physicsprize2012.pdf
Physics World article (Score:4, Informative)
Physics World has a slightly more in-depth article [physicsworld.com].
Re:Physics World article (Score:5, Informative)
Some details on Serge Haroche's experiment:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_decoherence#Quantitative_measurement [wikipedia.org]
Really short summary is squirting individual atoms in a superposition state thru a microwave waveguide puts the field in the waveguide into a superposition. Not surprisingly figuring out the field inside a waveguide is something we're pretty good at after a couple decades of radar work etc. Now if you take two entangled atoms and squirt them thru the detector at different times, you can do/measure all sorts of interesting quantum effects by screwing around with the field in the waveguide.
I guess a /.ification of it, is if you're familiar with the concept of knowing if an ancient computer has a 1 or 0 because a lightbulb is on or off, this is the technological element a quantum computer would use to sorta display the 1 or 0 of a result, sorta.
There's a funny ancient computing analogy where you can't read a core memory, you can only write it and see if the energy required to write is consistent with it having been a 1 or 0 before it was overwritten. The analogy is you squirt an atom thru this guys lab experiment, what comes out isn't what came in, but you can work backwards to figure out what it must have been at the start, sorta.
Its a handy basic tool/technique for quantum "stuff". Kind of like being the inventor of the "test tube" or NMR or FT-IR or whatever.
Two linked articles (Score:3)
I opened both links in split screen- I read two articles on the subject at the same time, in tribute to the excellent quantum particle research.
Poor Sheldon... (Score:4, Funny)
... they gave the prize to _experimental_ physicists!
Source (Score:5, Informative)
Details (Score:2, Funny)
The article is very skimpy on details
Oh yes, when it's about quantum physics, please bring a lot of details, with formulas and all... It'd help me to assess how low is my understanding of quantum physics...
Why US flag? (Score:2, Insightful)
Now this might be petty but as a Swede it would be fun to poke at US nationalists a little :)
My questions is frankly; Why is there a US flag on this story? Yes, one of the scientist is from the US but the other is French.
Not withstanding the fact that the Nobel Prize is Swedish.
(This /. so I don't think there is anyone here that doesn't know were the Nobel Prize comes from)
Re:Why US flag? (Score:4, Insightful)
No, but it does have a science icon, which would have been more fitting. This is primarily a story about physics, not one about what happens in the US.
replacing 'french fries' icon back to french flag? (Score:2)
maybe the french flag was replaced with french fries long ago...
I remember some posters here indeed changed their sig. to some insult to the french national motto, you know, 'liberty/equality/fraternity' where US has 'in God we trust'.
We still have our issues here, like dying from silliness with the most important european homeopathy lab and huge sponsor, but still, we try to survive reasonably...
Re: (Score:2)
Perhaps there is a bias to include Americans, maybe not. But I think using the Wright brothers is the wrong example to pick if you want to prove your point. They did a lot more than just "happen to be around" when internal engines became light enough and powerful enough. Their realization of the need for and development of three axis control made controlled flight possible. Without proper control, the addition of and engine would have eventually led to a fate similar to Otto Lilienthal (http://en.wikipedia.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re: (Score:1)
You seem to not have much idea what you are talking about and are just trying to play at semantics instead. Quantum mechanics is a rigorous theoretical model, derived from a simply set of principles, e.g. not some phenomenology based on curve fitting. Just because it is probabilistic does not mean it is not a model (there are plenty of other theoretical models that are of practical use and probabilistic in a much less fundamental sense). Maybe someone will come up with a non-probabilistic one, but a lot
Re: (Score:2)
Just because it is probabilistic does not mean it is not a model
There seem to be a large number of /.ers who will never, ever believe this. I'm not sure why.
Re: (Score:2)
Oh yeah, the problem's hardly unique to QM, or even physics.
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
"It's at least strange that Nobel prices are rewarded such soon after those 'discoveries'"
Um, the work stretches back a couple of decades; a lot of it is based on Freedman's seminal work on Quantum Entanglement in the seventies. Freedman was on the short list this year, but he's moved on to Neutrinos.
It is nice, for me, to see good experimental Physics rewarded, rather than yet one more theory that just Strings us along.
oh? (Score:2)
We've resolved the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle?? /me throws his prototype compensator in the trash.
Nobel vs. Oscars (Score:1)
The full details... (Score:2)
The full details are here: http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/physics/laureates/2012/advanced-physicsprize2012.pdf [nobelprize.org]
The prize covers a range of work by groups lead by Wineland and Haroche including: sideband cooling of an ion in a trap, transfer of a quantum superposition of electronic states to a quantum superposition of vibrational modes of a trap, measuring the number of photons in the cavity in a quantum non-demolition measurement, and creation of a superposition of microwave field states and monitori