A British scientist has been awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics for pioneering work on quantum mechanics

British scientist, John Clarke, has been awarded The Nobel Prize in Physics along with his French and American scientific colleagues whose pioneering work paved the way for quantum computing. 

Clarke and his colleagues, French scientist Micheal H. Devoret and American John M. Martinis were awarded the prize 40 years after their experiments took place, something that came as a shock to Clarke. 

“To put it mildly, it was the surprise of my life. I’m completely stunned,” said Clarke in a press conference after the award was announced. He went on to credit the two other scientists, emphasising that these breakthroughs in quantum would not have been possible without their input. 

The scientists were awarded the prize for the “discovery of macroscopic quantum mechanical tunnelling and energy quantisation in an electric circuit," a development which opened the door for the advancement of quantum computing and cryptography.  

Quantum mechanics is the physical theory that describes how some of the smallest things in our universe work on the smallest imaginable scale, where traditional physics does not apply. In this intensely miniature world, the traditional rules of physics cannot explain how atoms, energy, momentum and even matter interact with each other and the world around them. 

By using quantum mechanics, scientists can produce powerful computer chips, power complex scientific research and even design new medicines by simulating how molecules interact. 

Clarke and his co-workers research focused on the phenomenon of quantum tunnelling, a bizarre phenomenon where tiny particles can pass through barriers that they would not have enough energy to pass through in classical physics. 

The easiest way to explain this phenomenon is to imagine throwing a tennis ball against a wall. In normal life, according to classical physics, the tennis ball will bounce back to you. But in the world of quantum mechanics, the tennis ball, when thrown at a wall with the same velocity, will sometimes pass straight through.  

The scientists’ experiments, which were conducted at the University of California, Berkley in 1984 and 1985, made progress in proving that these bizarre properties of the quantum world could be incorporated into a system that could be held in the hand. 

The scientists started by building an electrical circuit using two superconductors that can conduct electricity without any resistance, creating a system that runs without interference and in symmetry. They then separated the two superconductors with a thin layer of material that did not conduct any electricity, halting this process. In classical physics, this would stop all current from reaching the other side, but Clarke and his colleagues found that the entire system was able to pass through the barrier, creating a voltage readout on the other side. The usefulness of this discovery comes with its scale, as the qualities of quantum mechanics are often erased as experiments grow larger and Clarke's method provided a visual clue to the phenomenon. 

“It is wonderful to be able to celebrate the way that century-old quantum mechanics continually offers new surprises,” said Olle Eriksson, Chair of the Nobel Committee for Physics. “It is also enormously useful, as quantum mechanics is the foundation of all digital technology.”