Breaking Walls with Physics: The Cool Quantum Effect Behind the Nobel Prize Win
He recognized three scientists—John Clarke, Michel H. Devoret, and John M. Martinis—for demonstrating something that defies our intuition: that a particle can pass through a solid barrier without breaking it. This phenomenon, known as quantum tunneling, had already been observed in individual atoms. He explained it with a simple image: “If you throw a ball against a wall, you would expect it to bounce back. In the quantum world, it can pass through to the other side without breaking anything.” That leap—both literal and conceptual—is what the three researchers managed to reproduce.
## From the Subatomic World to the Visible
In the eighties, Clarke, Devoret, and Martinis built a superconducting electrical circuit where billions of electrons moved synchronized as if they were a single particle. In that system, they observed how the current “jumped” from one energy state to another without overcoming the barrier, but rather passing through it. It was the first time that the quantum tunneling effect was seen at that scale. They also discovered that energy did not flow continuously, but in small discrete packets, exactly as quantum mechanics predicts. The invisible became tangible.
## A Discovery with Consequences
Far from being a theoretical oddity, their discovery has had far-reaching consequences. The principles demonstrated by the three physicists are now the foundation of quantum computers, ultra-precision sensors, and quantum cryptography that will protect future communications. Quantum tunneling has ceased to be a laboratory curiosity and has become the cornerstone of the new technological era.
## The Mystery Continues
A century after the first debates on quantum mechanics, physics continues to find ways to challenge common sense. The Nobel Prize in Physics not only celebrates a discovery but also a paradox that redefines what is possible: that a wall is not always the end of the road, but the beginning of a new reality.
