Quantum Particle Work Wins Nobel For French, US Scientists

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Quantum Particle Work Wins Nobel For French, US Scientists

Posted by timothy on Tuesday October 9, 2012 @12:44AM from the watch-them-blow-it-all-on-fancy-shoes dept.

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."

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Schrodinger's cat by Metabolife · 2012-10-09 00:50 · Score: 5, Funny

Ok, so now we can see the cat.. now how do we pet it?
1. Re:Schrodinger's cat by r1348 · 2012-10-09 01:01 · Score: 4, 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?
2. Re:Schrodinger's cat by Anonymous Coward · 2012-10-09 01:06 · Score: 5, Funny
  
  Ok, so now we can see the cat.. now how do we pet it?
  I think, PETA condemns everything related to Schrodinger's cat. Including petting it.
3. Re:Schrodinger's cat by E.+Edward+Grey · 2012-10-09 02:40 · Score: 2
  
  Most importantly, how do we post cute pictures of it on the Internet?
  
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  ---don't make me break out my red pen.
Go to the Source by Anonymous Coward · 2012-10-09 01:02 · Score: 5, Informative

http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/physics/laureates/2012/advanced-physicsprize2012.pdf
Physics World article by fishicist · 2012-10-09 01:05 · Score: 4, Informative

Physics World has a slightly more in-depth article.
1. Re:Physics World article by vlm · 2012-10-09 01:27 · Score: 5, Informative
  
  Some details on Serge Haroche's experiment:
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_decoherence#Quantitative_measurement
  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.
  
  --
  "Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
You're so very, very wrong by Anonymous Coward · 2012-10-09 01:06 · Score: 0

http://afternoonsnoozebutton.com/post/9395842065/breaking-news-schrodingers-cat-is-alive-and
It's A Trap! by Anonymous Coward · 2012-10-09 01:06 · Score: 0

Well, two actually; Ion Trap, and Photon Trap. But I'm Uncertain at this time as to which is which.
Two linked articles by MiniMike · 2012-10-09 01:07 · Score: 2

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... by Bazman · 2012-10-09 01:08 · Score: 3, Funny

... they gave the prize to _experimental_ physicists!
1. Re:Poor Sheldon... by Anonymous Coward · 2012-10-09 01:40 · Score: 0
  
  ... they gave the prize to _experimental_ physicists!
  Don't worry, Sheldon will get the Milner's Fundamentel Physics Prize. ^_^
Source by korpenkraxar · 2012-10-09 01:15 · Score: 5, Informative

How about going straight to the source instead? http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/physics/laureates/2012/press.html
hopeful by Anonymous Coward · 2012-10-09 01:16 · Score: 0

Well hopefully this doesn't turn out like the N-Ray. [french accent] luk it dosont get destroyed if you luk from ze corner of ze eye.
Details by hcs_$reboot · 2012-10-09 01:24 · Score: 1, 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...

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Why US flag? by cycler · 2012-10-09 01:28 · 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)
/C
1. Re:Why US flag? by Anonymous Coward · 2012-10-09 01:35 · Score: 0, Insightful
  
  In the US, people think that patriotism is a virtue.
2. Re:Why US flag? by Anonymous Coward · 2012-10-09 04:00 · Score: 0
  
  Because /. doesn't have a French flag icon?
3. Re:Why US flag? by Kidbro · 2012-10-09 04:32 · Score: 3, 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.
  
  --
  May we live long and die out
4. Re:Why US flag? by Anonymous Coward · 2012-10-09 08:47 · Score: 0
  
  Because things don't exist unless an American is involved with them in some way. Read Wikipedia to see how it works - for all discoveries they struggle to include a American inventor, and when they really can't find one, they run several paragraphs about the 'first American' to use whatever it was, making it look as if the subject did not really exist until someone did it over here.
  Heavier-than-air flight is a classic example - you would think that no one had done this until the Wright brothers. In fact, the first human was carried in a heavier-than-air machine sometime in the 1840s. The Wrights just happened to be the first ones (if you decide not to count Richard Pearse of New Zealand) who were around when sufficiently light motors had made sustained flight practical - and if they hadn't existed there were several independent inventors in Europe who were building exactly the same things, and would have been flying a year or so later.
  But you won't read that in the Wiki...
5. Re:Why US flag? by danceswithtrees · 2012-10-09 10:40 · Score: 1
  
  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.org/wiki/Otto_Lilienthal#Final_flight). Lilienthal's gliders were controlled by shifting weight around-- he died when his glider stalled. The Wright brother's ability to independently control pitch, yaw and roll is the breakthrough that truly made powered flight a reality.
Strange... by Anonymous Coward · 2012-10-09 01:51 · Score: 0

It's at least strange that Nobel prices are rewarded such soon after those 'discoveries', without further research, and especially, without further understanding of the matter.
I'm sure those are nice tricks, but it doesn't help on getting a better theoretical view on quantum mechanics. In other words: 'we don't understand at all how it works, we just try to observe how it works, but we can't explain it.'
So, Nobel prices are now awarded for 'monkey tricks', sorry to say, since i don't intend disrespect for those scientists involved. I'm just saying that as long we lack a satisfying theoretical model for quantum mechanics, there should be no prizes at all for this area of expertise.
1. Re:Strange... by Anonymous Coward · 2012-10-09 02:02 · Score: 3, Informative
  
  We have a really good theoretical model for quantum mechanics... called quantum mechanics. It has predictive results that agree with measurements really well. The only downside is the difficulty of some of the calculations mean more complex situations can take considerable time to apply the theory to. Also, some people might be upset that there is more than one interpretation, although to some degree that is more of a pedagogical issue. If you stick to the math, you get solid, quantitative results.
2. Re:Strange... by Anonymous Coward · 2012-10-09 02:14 · 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.
3. Re:Strange... by Anonymous Coward · 2012-10-09 02:23 · Score: 0
  
  You confuse 'model', 'math' and 'statistics'. Yes, statistics have a predictive value too, just as math based on those statistics. But statistics and math don't make up a theoretical model, they can only support it.
4. Re:Strange... by Anonymous Coward · 2012-10-09 02:30 · Score: 0
  
  Some three quarters or more of the Nobel prizes in physics is for experimental work, and many of the theorists that get the prize had been working closely with experimental results. And so far, no one has gotten a prize for work on string theory (although some string theorist got it for earlier work on topics such as QCD).
5. Re:Strange... by Anonymous Coward · 2012-10-09 02:40 · 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 of work has demonstrated that the most obvious ways to do so can not possibly explain actual data. To say a predictive axiomatic mathematical model is not a theoretical model is BS that makes it sound like you are saying, "It doesn't count because I don't like it."
6. Re:Strange... by Daniel+Dvorkin · 2012-10-09 07:11 · Score: 1
  
  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.
  
  --
  The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
7. Re:Strange... by Anonymous Coward · 2012-10-09 08:07 · Score: 0
  
  They might not realize how much that applies to, well beyond quantum mechanics. A large chunk of thermodynamics, fluid dynamics, and plasma physics deal explicitly with probability distributions of velocities, probabilistic collision operators, and averaging over various degrees of freedoms. At least those fields usually have some well defined conditions to indicate when various assumptions are valid, essentially becoming deterministic thanks to the law of large numbers. Although people attribute all sorts of probabilistic issues to chaos theory despite its deterministic roots...
8. Re:Strange... by Daniel+Dvorkin · 2012-10-09 09:02 · Score: 1
  
  Oh yeah, the problem's hardly unique to QM, or even physics.
  
  --
  The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
oh? by Tastecicles · 2012-10-09 02:00 · Score: 1

We've resolved the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle?? /me throws his prototype compensator in the trash.

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Operation Guillotine is in effect.
Inaccurate headline by Anonymous Coward · 2012-10-09 03:21 · Score: 0

Quantum Particle Work Wins Scorn And Accusations Of Blasphemy And Hersey From Chair Of US Science Committee For French, US Scientists
There, fixed the headline for you.
Nobel vs. Oscars by CMYKjunkie · 2012-10-09 03:43 · Score: 1

We will know that we have advanced as a society when the Nobel prizes are covered as in-depth and breathlessly as the Oscars.
The full details... by TheSync · 2012-10-09 05:24 · Score: 1

The full details are here: http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/physics/laureates/2012/advanced-physicsprize2012.pdf
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 monitoring their evolution to decoherence.
replacing 'french fries' icon back to french flag? by Herve5 · 2012-10-09 21:41 · Score: 1

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...

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Herve S.