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The Final Frontier: Quantum Physics in Space

Within the last two decades, quantum physicists have been busy proposing experiments that could be done in space. At long last, their efforts seem to produce results. Lately, two more results have been published, both groups are rather well-known to qutools: Wheeler’s delayed choice experiment has been performed by Paolo […]

2017 Nobel Prize in Physics: Gravitational Waves (and Time Warps?)

This was quicker than expected: Only two years after the observation of gravitational waves (we reported on this) in September 2015, the The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences has decided to award the Nobel Prize in Physics 2017 to Rainer Weiss, Barry C. Barish and Kip S. Thorne, all members […]

Armadillos on the 13th floor

Electrons in van der Waals materials use shortcuts to travel fast People just love protons. On the other hand side: If they talk about electrons, they always tend to emphasize the negative aspects. Though there are some advantages being an electron, too. As scientists at the KU’s Ultrafast Laser Lab […]

Quantum is calling. It’s about your cat…

Do you remember „Anyone Can Quantum“? The epic quantum chess game between Paul Rudd and Stephen Hawking? We blogged about it here. Well, the team at Caltech’s Institute of Quantum Information and Matter and at Trouper Productions just made their second viral movie. It’s quite entertaining and maybe a little […]

Uncertainty is a game. Play it.

How did James Bond win at Casino Royale? Why do I always lose at Monopoly? Is it any use to join the imperial army in Skyrim? These are the topics of game theory. Or so you might think, because that’s just plainly wrong. „Game theory“ is a rather young and […]

Why is there „something“?

Maybe we are a little step further to explain why there is „something“ rather than „nothing“. Because the Standard model of physics – which worked quite well to describe the universe so far – tells us that there should be: (dramatic pause) Nothing at all. First there was just plain […]

Hydrogen? It’s a metal, Jim!

If hydrogen could be made into a metal, wonderful things could happen! Unicorns would dance in our streets, we could settle on Alpha Centauri, lions would turn to vegetarians and John Lennon would be president. But let’s not get over excited and better start at the fundamentals. Our periodic table […]