Light does not “think” in any human sense. Still, under the right conditions, it can behave in a way that looks uncannily like a memory system.

Preserving quantum information is key to developing useful quantum computing systems. But interacting quantum systems are chaotic and follow laws of thermodynamics, eventually leading to information ...

A pair of photons enters an optical maze, and sometimes they leave as something new. Not new in the everyday sense, since both were still photons when they came out. But new in the way they share ...

One of the pieces of equipment for the quantum random number generator in the NIST Boulder laboratories. Very little in this life is truly random. A coin flip is influenced by the flipper’s force, its ...

The fragility and laws of quantum physics generally make the characterization of quantum systems time‑consuming. Furthermore, ...

A century ago, the strange behavior of atoms and elementary particles led physicists to formulate a new theory of nature. That theory, quantum mechanics, found immediate success, proving its worth ...

For the first time, scientists have observed electrons in graphene behaving like a nearly perfect quantum fluid, challenging a long-standing puzzle in physics. By creating ultra-clean samples, the ...

A pair of identical particles swapping places sounds like a small move. In quantum physics, it is a defining one. In everyday ...

We’re celebrating 180 years of Scientific American. Explore our legacy of discovery and look ahead to the future. This year is the International Year of Quantum Science and Technology, according to ...