If successful scientific theories can be thought of as cures for stubborn problems, quantum physics was the wonder drug of the 20th century. It successfully explained phenomena such as radioactivity and antimatter, and no other theory can match its description of how light and particles behave on small scales.
The quantum world is now one of the most closely scrutinised areas of science, and throughout 2008 new discoveries have poured in.
Since its redesign in November, New快猫短视频.com is making the last 12 months鈥� of articles free for everyone to read. Here, in case you missed them, are the year鈥檚 top 10 in-depth articles about the quantum world.
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Four radical routes to a theory of everything
Einstein鈥檚 theory of relativity does an equally good job at large scales. Quantum mechanics does a fantastic job of explaining the world of the very small. Until recently, physicists hadn鈥檛 made much progress in finding ways to reconcile the two 鈥� but now they鈥檙e spoilt for choice.
In the beginning there was the big bang, which produced the universe 鈥� but how? If the big bang made equal quantities of matter and antimatter, it should all have mutually annihilated. So why is there something rather than nothing?
Anyons: The breakthrough quantum computing needs?
A new class of particles that exists in only two dimensions could encode information in quantum computers. 鈥淎nyons鈥� started out as little more than a theoretical fancy, but are now becoming a very real.
Do birds see with quantum eyes?
Migrating birds seem to be able to navigate by the Earth鈥檚 magnetic field, but nobody really understands how. A phenomenon called the 鈥渜uantum Zeno effect鈥� might provide the answer. It鈥檚 still theoretical, but we might finally be homing in on an explanation for birds鈥� remarkable wayfinding ability.
Time may seem like a common-sense concept, but it鈥檚 one of the hardest things for physicists to account for 鈥� so much so that some have argued that it doesn鈥檛 actually exist at all. Now a growing group of scientists are fighting to bring time back into the equation.
It鈥檚 confirmed: Matter is merely vacuum fluctuations
If you thought you were made of something solid and substantial, think again. New calculations show that protons and neutrons, two of the major building blocks of all matter, are mostly made up of virtual particles.
Atomic logic: In search of shape-shifting circuits
Forget pressing a button and waiting for your hard drive to whirr into action. If one man鈥檚 idea works out, your computer鈥檚 circuits will materialise in front of you out of beams of light and a puff of gas 鈥� and you鈥檒l be able to transform its parts into any electronic circuitry you like.
There may be an entirely new type of particle out there, waiting to be discovered. These so-called 鈥渦nparticles鈥� are slippery customers: they can shift their identities, masquerade as fractions of particles, and even exude their own 鈥渦ngravity鈥� force.
Quantum effects may explain water鈥檚 weirdness
We take water for granted, but it is actually one of the strangest substances known to exist, with a habit of ignoring rules about how materials are 鈥渟upposed鈥� to behave. Now it seems that the famous 鈥渦ncertainty principle鈥� could help explain why water is such an oddball.
2008: Does time travel start here?
As it turned out, the answer to the question in our headline was 鈥渘o鈥� 鈥� because the Large Hadron Collider had barely started up before it broke down. But when it鈥檚 up and running again, will it create loops in time? Two Russian mathematicians think it might.
