Trio wins physics Nobel for quantum mechanical tunnelling | International

The Nobel jury noted that their work had "provided opportunities for developing the next generation of quantum technology, including quantum cryptography, quantum computers and quantum sensors". Quantum mechanics describes how differently things work on incredibly small scales. For example, when a normal ball hits a wall, it bounces back. But on the quantum scale, a particle will actually pass straight through a comparable wall -- a phenomenon called "tunnelling". "What these scientists were able to do was to basically do that, but on an electric circuit," Ulf Danielsson, secretary of the Nobel physics committee and a professor of theoretical physics at Uppsala University, told AFP. In experiments carried out in the 1980s, the scientists showed that quantum tunnelling can also...