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This award involved some clever engineering to set up quantum effects in a macroscopic system, but was there any new physics involved here? (Still better than
by Metacelsus 1y ago
This award involved some clever engineering to set up quantum effects in a macroscopic system, but was there any new physics involved here?
(Still better than last year's award which wasn't really physics at all!)
- SiempreViernes 1y agoThey discovered that the theory worked in a regime it hadn't been tested before; I'm not sure what "new physics" means in your sentence: it is a core assumption of physics that it's rules are always true, that all physics has always existed.
- averne_ 1y agoNew physics in this context means previously unknown effects or mechanisms, or even a new theory/framework for an already understood phenomenon. Using "physics" in this way is common amongst academics.
- IAmBroom 1y agoDo you have two aliases on HN, or are you simply presuming to speak for the OP?
- geremiiah 1y agoComments like these make me realize most people have no clue what science is really like.
- bananaflag 1y agoI don't think so, I just think they expect that Nobel Prize level physics should feel less incremental, and everything that doesn't involve a revolution in physics (like supersymmetry) or at least an expected confirmation of an old revolution (like the Higgs boson or gravitational waves) feels incremental.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- Sharlin 1y agoIt would be pretty crazy to have enough big breakthroughs in physics to warrant a prize every year. I guess that’s how it was for a brief period in the early 1900s.
- wslh 1y agoGreat experiments are an essential part of physics.
- dkural 1y agoFrom that viewpoint of all of chemistry and biology is just a consequence of theoretical physics. A lot of the 'consequences' of physics are very surprising and not at all obvious from the fundamental equations. There's a great paper you might want to read: https://www.tkm.kit.edu/downloads/TKM1_2011_more_is_different_PWA.pdf https://www.tkm.kit.edu/downloads/TKM1_2011_more_is_differen... He also won a Nobel by the way. Many great discoveries follow from new instrumentation leading to better and novel data, and less often some conceptual leap. This is why the genius of Einstein is all the more remarkable in coming up with relativity. Interestingly, he got his Nobel for something else :)
- Metacelsus 1y agoThanks, this context helped.
- Roark66 1y agoExactly, also in it's goal to "demonstrate quantum tunneling macroscopically" haven't we had tunneling diodes for quite a while? The device uses tunneling for its basic functionality
- NetMageSCW 1y agoIn those cases doesn’t the tunneling occur one electron at a time, and so not macroscopic?
- IAmBroom 1y agoI thought this too, at first. Then I read the article, and discovered it was about more than Josephson gaps and Schottky diodes.
- EvgeniyZh 1y agoIt's highly non-trivial claim that macroscopic system can have quantized energy levels and exhibit measurable quantum effects. You can't just solve Shroedinger equation of 10^24 particles to show that.
- whatshisface 1y agoThat is what BCS theory does.
- Romario77 1y agoThis could be one of the building blocks of quantum computing. You can have a macro system behave in quantum way. This is a practical implementation of something that was only theoretically possible or observed on very small scale.
- cyberax 1y ago> This award involved some clever engineering to set up quantum effects in a macroscopic system, but was there any new physics involved here? There's a tradition of Nobel Prizes awarded for clever experiments, even if they do not uncover new fundamental laws.