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Nobel Prize in Physics for Pioneers in the Field of Quantum Optics: Serge Herosh and David Weinland

In the press conference broadcast on the Nobel Prize website, it was emphasized that these studies may one day lead to the development of quantum computers.

Prof. Serge Harosh, winner of the 2012 Nobel Prize in Physics
Prof. Serge Harosh, winner of the 2012 Nobel Prize in Physics

The 2012 Nobel Prize in Physics was awarded to two pioneering researchers in the field of quantum optics - the precise control of photons, the basic units of light. The Frenchman Serge Heruch and the American David Weinland will share the prize, which is worth 1.5 million euros. This is in contrast to the initial estimates that talked about awarding a prize to the discoverer of the Higgs boson.

In the press conference broadcast on the Nobel Prize website, it was emphasized that these studies may one day lead to the development of quantum computers.
Harush became known when he provided proof of the quantum decoherence phenomenon in experiments, together with his colleagues at the École Normale Supérieure in Paris in 1996.

while Weinland works at the American Institute of Standards (NIST) in the physics laboratory in Boulder, Colorado. His research includes advances in the field of optics, in particular in the field of cooling ions using a laser in Paul traps, and using the trapped ions to perform quantum computing operations.
Their works in the field of quantum optics deal with individual photons and ions, the basic units of light on the one hand and matter on the other. Their research, states the Nobel Prize Committee, may lead to the advancement of the fields of communication and computing.

"The award was given to Weinland and Heruch for groundbreaking experimental methods that allow them to measure and manipulate individual quantum systems."

Light and matter, on the tiny scale of a single particle, behave in surprising ways as part of what we call quantum mechanics. Studies in light and matter at this level were unfeasible and could not even be dreamed of before the two developed solutions to capture, handle and measure individual photons and ions, which allowed them insight into the microscopic worlds that were once known only to theorists.

Their research will make it possible to develop applications of light-based clocks that will be more accurate than the atomic clocks that are at the heart of business systems today (for example in GPS satellites), as well as the field of quantum computing that may, if they succeed in overcoming many other obstacles - cause a revolution in home and business computing as we know it him.

From the scientific point of view, the important achievement of the two is that their techniques make it possible to maintain the quantum state of photons and ions respectively, which for decades scientists have tried to measure in the laboratory, and thus the ideas of quantum mechanics can be tested on a solid experimental basis. Among other things, this is the phenomenon of quantum entanglement - the connection between two distant particles, as well as the 'uncrackable code' of quantum encryption. Another phenomenon is quantum decoherence where the quantum properties disappear as a result of interactions with other matter.

This is the second award in the field of optics in recent years, the field of quantum decoherence was included among the winners of the 2005 Nobel Prize in Physics.

At the press conference that was broadcast on the Nobel Prize website, Harosh said: "I am lucky, I was on the street when you called and I immediately sat down on a bench. I did not expect this year's award."

8 תגובות

  1. I will add to what the anonymous said. He said 'inheritance is binding', an advertisement of a well-known bank says 'being number one is binding'. For me, the perception of a virtuous people is the one that obligates us to excellence. and not the other way around.
    For hundreds of years, the Jewish community, despite financial difficulties, set up a budget so that the children of the community, without financial dependence on their parents' situation, could learn to beware of "poor children from whom the Torah will come." Serge Harosh's mentor, the Jewish physicist from Algiers and Nobel Prize winner Claude Cohen-Tanoji, says that he learned from his father what he considers to be the basic characteristics of the Jewish tradition: research, study and the sharing of knowledge.

    And that is finally the point.

  2. It is not racist to say that the Jews are less than a percent of the world's population (12-15 million), that is 0.2%, and 22%
    Nobel Prize winners. You have to keep doing it and not be proud of it. to see the binding heritage and not the race theory of the chosen people. The atheists will say that it is the need of the minorities to prove themselves and that is fine. In addition, it is neither racist nor dark to say that in the creation of the Talmud, the exploratory spark, albeit in a different direction and with different rules of inquiry, manifested itself 2000 years ago, in the Jewish people and did not exist then in other nations, except perhaps Greece. The fact that today Orthodox Judaism and science are on both sides of the fence sometimes (hand over heart), does not mean that they are only opposites.

    Today, science and Judaism act as enemy schools to each other, but there is a similarity, and there is indeed also a contrast and a contradiction.

  3. I think in translation. I could not find in the original the sentences that appeared in the article and bothered me
    So, in my opinion, it is not a translation but additions that are not accurate.

  4. There are many inaccuracies in the article and many unclear things
    For example, the article states that
    "Another phenomenon is the quantum decoherence in which the quantum properties disappear as a result of interactions with other matter."
    Decoherence is not related to a specific interaction with matter but to the loss of coherence
    The quantum that originates from the spillover of quantum information into the environment or a kind of partial measurement of
    the quantum system by the environment.

    Also written
    "The 'uncrackable code' of quantum encryption" I don't know what this is about, what it is
    Uncrackable code? The claim is that a quantum computer will be able to crack existing ciphers in polynomial time
    In the cipher mode in place while it is exponential in the length of the cipher.

    The claim that appears in the article that
    "And also the field of quantum computing which may, if they manage to overcome many other obstacles - cause a revolution in home and business computing as we know it". It is a strange claim.
    The main change in home and business computing following the creation of a quantum computer will be information security. If
    Someone will have a quantum computer all the encrypted information that exists today will become hackable. The idea of ​​a computer
    Desktop quantum is complete nonsense for at least the next hundred years if at all.

  5. I wonder what madness will happen after the first quantum computer???
    Is it like the craze for Apple products?

    Probably more 🙂
    Something that should kick humanity forward.

    This is the place to come up with ideas and opinions about what will change in our lives when there is an atomic computer!

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