Physicists at the University of Sussex have tamed one of the most counterintuitive phenomena of modern science in their quest to develop a new generation of machines capable of revolutionizing the way we can solve many problems in modern science.
The strange and mysterious nature of quantum mechanics is often illustrated by a thought experiment, known as Schrӧdinger's Cat, in which a cat is theoretically both dead and alive simultaneously.
According to a new study published this week in Physical Review A, Sussex physicists have now managed to create a special type of "Schrӧdinger's" cat using new technology based on trapped ions (charged atoms) and microwave radiation.
Like the cat, the researchers made these ions exist in two states simultaneously by creating 'entanglement', an effect that challenges the very fabric of reality itself.
Trapped ions are leading the race towards constructing a new type of computer able to solve certain problems with unprecedented speeds by taking its power from a theory called 'quantum physics'.
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