Quantum mechanics is one of the most successful theories in science — and makes much of modern life possible. Technologies ranging from computer chips to medical-imaging machines rely on the ...

Physicist Paul Davies looks back at the past century of quantum mechanics—the most disruptive theory in the history of modern science.

More than a century before quantum mechanics was born, Irish mathematician William Rowan Hamilton stumbled onto an idea that would quietly foreshadow one of the deepest truths in physics. While ...

On May 7, 1981, influential physicist Richard Feynman gave a keynote speech at Caltech. Feynman opened his talk by politely rejecting the very notion of a keynote speech, instead saying that he had ...

One hundred years ago on a quiet, rocky island, German physicist Werner Heisenberg helped set in motion a series of scientific developments that would touch nearly all of physics. There, Heisenberg ...

The United Nations has proclaimed this year the International Year of Quantum Science and Technology. Official pronouncements about the IYQ tend to emphasize forward-looking technological applications ...

Quantum mechanics is one of the most successful theories in science — and makes much of modern life possible. Technologies ranging from computer chips to medical-imaging machines rely on the ...

Scientists are like prospectors, excavating the natural world seeking gems of knowledge about physical reality. And in the century just past, scientists have dug deep enough to discover that reality’s ...

A deceptively simple experiment that involves making precise measurements of the time it takes for a particle to go from point A to point B could cause a breakthrough in quantum physics. The findings ...