STOCKHOLM: Three scientists won the Nobel Prize in physics Tuesday for research on the strange behaviour of subatomic particles called quantum tunneling that enabled the ultra-sensitive measurements achieved by MRI machines and laid the groundwork for better cellphones and faster computers.
The work by John Clarke, Michel H. Devoret and John M. Martinis, who work at American universities, took the seeming contradictions of the subatomic world – where light can be both a wave and a particle and parts of atoms can tunnel through seemingly impenetrable barriers – and applied them in the more traditional physics of digital devices. The results of their findings are just starting to appear in advanced technology and could pave the way for the development of supercharged computing.
