Nobel Prize In Physics Awarded For Quantum Mechanics

The 2025 Nobel Prize in Physics has been announced to 3 scientists from different nations, whose work has pushed quantum mechanics from a highly conceptual realm to physical devices you can actually hold. The winners are Michel Devoret (France), John Clarke (UK) and John M. Martins (USA).

Their experiments in the 1980s have bridged theory and engineering, paving the way for tomorrow’s quantum technologies, which we actually use today! In simpler terms, they showed decades ago that quantum effects, like tunnelling and discrete energy levels, can manifest in circuits large enough to be held.

What Nobel Committee Said

The Nobel Committee explained why this year's win is crucial for physics and tech world... "they have provided opportunities for developing the next generation of quantum technology, including quantum cryptography, quantum computers, and quantum sensors."

Olle Eriksson, Chair of the Nobel Committee for Physics, said:

It is wonderful to be able to celebrate the way that century-old quantum mechanics continually offers new surprises. Quantum mechanics is the foundation of all digital technology.

Nobel For Macroscopic Quantum Object

Nobel Committee noted that the winners' findings have "brought quantum mechanics from the subatomic world onto a chip."

Reaction of Nobel Laureates

The winners' comments suggest that this was unexpected and a meaningful recognition which they will cherish. John Clarke commented: "It never occurred to me that this might be the basis for Nobel prize." He almost collapsed out of surprise!

John M Martins opened his computer, and saw his picture alongside the other winners, and he was "in shock." Michel Devoret was instrumental in making long-term contributions in superconducting quantum circuits, and thankful for the recognition.

The royal society (UK) of which John Clarke is a fellow, said:

Their experiments revealed that the strange laws of quantum physics apply not only at the atomic scale, but in systems big enough to see and touch.

 

What the winners discovered

The key phenomena involved in the victory are quantum tunnelling and energy quantisation. Quantum tunneling is the phenomenon where a subatomic particle passes through a potential energy barrier that it shouldn't have enough energy to overcome, according to classical physics.

Quantum systems, like electron, can only absorb or emit energy in discrete packets (quanta). In many quantum systems, allowed energy levels are separated by well defined gaps; energy transitions happen when quantum systems, like electron, jump between energy levels.

The breakthrough of the laureates was to show that these effects, long thought to be limited to atoms, molecules or small particles, can appear in macroscopic — i.e. large — systems when engineered correctly.

To study the two phenomena, they carefully controlled parameters like current, voltage, and temperature, and measured the electrical behavior of the circuit which they built using superconducting materials. And all of this was done in the mid 1980s! Their pioneering work led to the technologies in the devices we use today, and will use tomorrow.

How Nobel winners are selected

The Nobel Prizes were established through the will of Alfred Nobel, a scientist, engineer and industrialist, who died in 1896 and left instructions that the bulk of his enormous fortune be used to found annual prizes in Physics, Chemistry, Physiology or Medicine, Literature, and Peace.

Alfred Nobel and Nobel Prize

Nobel Prize in physics is awarded every year, usually announced in early October. For each year’s Nobel Prize, the nomination process begins in the previous year.

Nomination forms are sent out anonymously to select individuals in the field, around 3000 reputed scientists, in September. They nominate candidates for the coveted prize before Jan 31 deadline, but they cannot nominate themselves.

The Nobel committee reduces the nominee list to a shortlist (often ~15 names) and eventually proposes up to three laureates for the prize. In the earlier days, the prize was also given to a single person as well.

Summing up

The 2025 Nobel Prize in Physics is a reminder that quantum mechanics is not just a set of bizarre formulas for electrons, but a living framework that can manifest in engineered devices. Clarke, Devoret, and Martinis converted quantum phenomena into electrical circuits, closing the gap between theory and practicality.

In awarding this prize, the Nobel Committee highlights that years of careful research in basic physics can lead to major technological change. It shows that big breakthroughs often start as simple questions explored with patience in the physics lab.

Organic Molecules Discovered On Saturn's Moon

Discovery of Organic Molecules

Scientists recently confirmed the presence of complex organic molecules in the icy plumes of Enceladus, the sixth largest moon of Saturn. These molecules, some of which are considered precursors to amino acids, the harbingers of life, were detected in ice particles ejected from fissures near the moon’s south pole. This suggests that the moon has the chemical ingredients necessary to support intelligent life.

Why Organic Molecules Support Life

Organic molecules are compounds primarily made of carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, and nitrogen, forming the building blocks of life, such as amino acids, sugars, and lipids. Their presence is crucial because they are the raw materials from which living organisms construct cells, proteins, and DNA. Without organic molecules, life as we know it cannot exist.

How Astronomers Found the Molecules

Astronomers analyzed data collected by the Cassini spacecraft, which flew directly through Enceladus’s geysers. Using onboard instruments, scientists examined the composition of ice grains and vapor, detecting carbon-rich molecules to their surprise. By studying the freshly ejected particles, they ensured that the molecules came from Enceladus’s subsurface ocean rather than being altered by space radiation.

The Cassini spacecraft, launched in 1997 as a joint mission by NASA, ESA, and the Italian Space Agency, spent 13 years exploring Saturn and its moons, studying the planet’s rings, atmosphere, and magnetic field. This discovery by Cassini is a huge success towards finding places in our own solar system which can support extraterrestrial life.

About Enceladus and Its Relation to Saturn

Enceladus is a small, icy moon orbiting Saturn and is famous for its bright, reflective surface. Compared to our Moon, diameter ~3500 km, Enceladus measures small, about only 500 kilometers in diameter and harbors a hidden ocean beneath its icy crust. The moon shoots geysers of water vapor and ice into space, which were studied by scientists through Cassini spacecraft. Enceladus’s relation to Saturn is not just orbital... its geysers feed particles into Saturn’s ring system.

What Scientists Have Said

Scientists have expressed excitement about the findings. One researcher noted, “These organic molecules are some of the freshest we’ve seen in the solar system, and they likely originate from Enceladus’s hidden ocean.” Another added, “Discoveries like this bring us closer to understanding whether life could exist beyond Earth.” 

Existence of Extraterrestrial Life

For life to exist beyond Earth, astronomers believe three main ingredients are necessary: liquid water, organic molecules, and a source of energy. Enceladus has all three, thanks to its subsurface ocean, detected organics, and heat from tidal forces. Scientists emphasize that while this doesn’t prove life exists, it makes Enceladus a prime candidate for habitability studies.

How Gold, Platinum And Uranium Formed?

The most remarkable discovery in all of astronomy is that the stars are made of atoms of the same kind as those on the earth: Richard Feynman.

Water makes up nearly 70% of human body by weight. The components - hydrogen is the most abundant element in the universe and oxygen was forged in the interiors of collapsing stars. While the body is this or that many years old the components are nearly as old as the universe itself!

The first atoms were made approximately 380,000 years after the big bang. Prior to this, the universe was a hot soup of ions and subatomic particles. But as the universe continually expanded, it became less dense and colder allowing the simple atoms of Hydrogen.

Humongous clouds of hydrogen were clumped together under the force of gravity and ancient stars began shaping up. Just like a cotton candy is spun from sugar solution, a star is spun from an uncountable number of Hydrogen atoms. How does a star continually burn? Its source of energy is nuclear - by converting Hydrogen to heavier elements, like Helium - the second most abundant element in the universe.

At the end of a star's life, its main fuel Hydrogen ran out and Helium is converted to further heavier elements like Oxygen and Carbon - building blocks of life. Thus, we can say that we are the children of stars. It is a profound realization that only few can truly appreciate. We are made of star stuff, said astronomer Carl Sagan. The nitrogen in our DNA, the calcium in our teeth, the iron in our blood, the carbon in our apple pies were made in the interiors of dying stars.

In the same capacity, physicist Lawrence M Krauss said - Every atom in your body came from a star that exploded. And, the atoms in your left hand probably came from a different star than your right hand. It really is the most poetic thing I know about physics: You are all stardust. 

Question is, where do rare elements like Gold, Platinum come from?

The answer is rare occurrences - supernova and neutron star mergers. That's what makes these elements so precious! An ordinary star, like our sun, will die a slow death by becoming a white dwarf first and it will gradually cool to a black dwarf.

On the contrary, stars which are 8 times heavier than the Sun will explode in a supernova, flinging debris miles around, destroying themself, leaving behind a crushed reactor core (a neutron star or black hole). Some heavy elements like iron, nickel, and a bit of gold/platinum can be formed during the core-collapse phase of a Type II supernova.

Even heavier elements - Uranium, which is extremely rare, is formed by the merger of neutron stars, a scarce event called kilonova. Also, most of the gold and platinum in the universe are forged during violent neutron star mergers, where extreme gravity and neutron-rich environments trigger rapid nucleosynthesis — in fact, a single merger can produce hundreds of Earth-masses worth of gold.

This was confirmed in 2017 with the gravitational wave event GW170817, when astronomers observed a neutron star merger producing huge amounts of gold and platinum!

And now the data from the James Webb Space Telescope is helping astronomers identify the infrared signatures of freshly formed gold and platinum in distant kilonovae, offering real-time evidence of heavy metal birth in the early universe.

Summing up, everything we are made of, and whatever we have here on Earth, all life, magic and rare wonder, has come straight from the star factories. We are the universe. We are the successor of starry nights, catastrophic explosions and violent mergers.

7 Myths People Have About Quantum Physics

1. Quantum physics means everything is random

While uncertainty principle by Werner Heisenberg plays a key role in the field of quantum mechanics, the ability to predict other aspects of the atomic world, and that too with a great degree of accuracy is astounding. In other words, the quantum world is chaotic, mostly probabilistic, but not entirely driven by chance.

2. Quantum physics cannot be visualized

American physicist Richard Feynman once said, "Nobody understands quantum mechanics." The reason being, quantum physics is swamped by complex mathematical systems that very select people can comprehend. However, there are ways to visualize the mechanics of quantum world, like the wave function, and even Feynman diagrams are used to visualize the behavior of interacting subatomic particles.

3. Quantum physics supports mysticism

The spooky principles of quantum physics are often exaggerated by media and cause people to make wild claims. Due to a mix of misunderstanding and lack of evidence, people see quantum mechanics as a source of great spiritual and physical mystery. On the contrary, quantum mechanics is among the most well studied, predictable and accurate piece of sciences, and partly responsible for amazing technologies like the microprocessor on your cell phone, LASER, etc. The right thing to say would be, quantum physics supports modern and future technologies.

4. Quantum physics can explain everything in the universe

Some people think that quantum physics is the new golden religion. That quantum physics has answers to the origin of the universe, consciousness, life and God. Truth is, no one has answers to these big questions. The word "quantum" means "small", and quantum mechanics is a system of governing principles in the world of atoms, molecules and elementary particles. There are metaphysical regions beyond the empirical scope of quantum physics. So no, quantum mechanics cannot explain everything.

5. Particles can exist in two places at once

The square of the wave function's magnitude gives the probability of finding the particle in a specific location. While it is numerically true, that the wave function is spread over space, meaning, the particle could be at several places at one time. But in the end, this is not literal truth. Wave function is only a mathematical device, a number, or probability. Ultimately, the particle exists at only one location, we do not know which for sure. When measured (e.g., detected at a specific position), the wavefunction “collapses” to  that one state.

6. Einstein was an enemy of quantum physics

Not really. Albert Einstein used the quantum model of energy, as proposed by Max Planck, to explain the photoelectric effect, which is a phenomenon used in modern day solar panels. In fact, Einstein was awarded the Nobel Prize in physics for this very groundbreaking work. Nowadays, people generally quote Einstein's famous saying - "God does not play dice." The quote is nothing more than a reflection of Einstein's discomfort with quantum mechanics. Because in classical Newtonian mechanics, which everyone got attached to, everything was determined, and predictable. But in the atomic scales, which are beyond our imagination, predictability is our enemy. Randomness rules, because of Heisenberg's glorious uncertainty principle.

7. Particles switch between wave and particle nature

Actually, the microscopic world is so bizarre that we need pictures of macroscopic world, a ball (particle) or a ripple in water (wave), to comprehend what's really going on. Feynman quipped - "Electrons act like waves.. No they don't exactly. Electrons act like particles... No they don't exactly." It is a myth that subatomic particles morph back and forth between wave particle duality. But the electrons, protons, neutrons and other such "things" are neither particles nor waves. The particle and wave models are used by us because our human brain can think easily in that regard.

10 Unknown Facts About Physicist Max Born

Max Born (1882 - 1970) was a German British physicist and mathematician who was one of the pioneers in quantum mechanics. Born was also a great teacher and was doctoral advisor to physicists like Robert Oppenheimer and Maria Goeppert Mayer.

Born's work involving wave function is cool because it shows how the universe can be unpredictable and mysterious at its smallest scales, yet we can still make sense of it with mathematics. Born rule opened the door to discoveries that power modern gadgets like laser, LED and microprocessors.

10 hidden facts about Max Born

⚛️ 1. Max Born started his academic journey with mathematics. He was more interested in abstract mathematical ideas than physics. However, this changed when the quantum revolution began in Europe and Max went on to work on wave function, a key element in quantum physics.

🎓 2. Max Born was classmates with Albert Einstein's future wife and mathematician, Mileva Maric, who is said to have collaborated with Einstein on special relativity. Born and Mileva studied together at ETH Zurich.

💡 3. Max Born co-invented matrix mechanics with physicist Werner Heisenberg, but rarely gets credit for his work. Born was the first to realize the mathematics involved was non commutative matrices.

🏆 4. Max Born won the Nobel prize in 1954, for work he did in 1920s. It took nearly 25 years for the scientific community to recognize Born rule, which provides the probability of finding a particle in a specific state when a measurement is made.

Born is second from the right in the second row, between Louis de Broglie and Niels Bohr.

✈️ 5. Being a Jewish, Max Born fled Nazi Germany as he was politically vocal against the government. He escaped to Cambridge, with only one suitcase.

🎵 6. Born was a talented painter and musically gifted. He used to collab with other scientists including Albert Einstein. They played sonatas together, Einstein on violin and Born on piano.

📜 7. Born wrote letters to Einstein challenging determinism. He defended quantum indeterminacy, while Einstein famously replied, “God does not play dice with the universe.”

☮️ 8. Max Born was a strong advocate of peaceful use of science. After world war 2, he became a critic of nuclear weapons and signed Russel Einstein manifesto aiming for global disarmament.

🧳 9. Born never returned to Germany even after the second world war was over. He became a British citizen and chose to stay in the UK.

🧬 10. Musical genius ran in the family as Max Born's granddaughter is British Australian singer Olivia Newton-John, who sold over 100 million records.

5 quotes of Max Born

🔬 1. I am now convinced that theoretical physics is actually philosophy.

🧪 2. In science, we are in a jungle and find our way by trial and error, building our road behind us as we proceed.

🌍 3. The belief that there is only one truth and that oneself is in possession of it, seems to me the deepest root of all that is evil in the world.

🪐 4. Science is not only the basis of technology but also the material for a sound philosophy.

🧠 5. Physics as we know it will be over in six months.

Politicians Should Listen To Carl Sagan FAST!

Carl Sagan was an American astronomer who actively campaigned against nuclear weapons and pointed out the potential dangers, like a nuclear winter. Given that Israel and Iran are at war, while Russia and Ukraine have been going at it since years now, it is important for politicians to set aside their egos and read this wonderful, humanizing speech by Carl Sagan.

Background

The Pale Blue Dot is an image that was taken by NASA at Carl Sagan’s suggestion. The astonishing picture came from Voyager 1, a spacecraft launched in 1977 to study the outer solar system. When Voyager was about to exit the solar system, it turned around one last time to take a farewell photo. Earth appears as a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena, Sagan quipped.

The picture is evidence enough of our tininess in the universe. The enormity of space cannot be comprehended from our comfortable air conditioned rooms, but when you look at a picture like Pale blue dot, something moves you from the inside. That yearning to find our place in the Cosmos and persistent urge to "make it big" in Earth lingo, are challenged by this point of pale light.

Significance

Sagan used this image to challenge arrogance and nationalism. He pointed out that there is no hope that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves. We have to protect our fragile planet, which is the only place we know of in the universe that supports life in all its glory.

In gaming terms, Earth is a checkpoint, a reminder that life happened here. The problem is, our intelligence has become quite dangerous in modern times. Blinded by power and ego. Therefore, politicians must find a few seconds from their busy schedules and take a look at Pale blue dot.

According to Carl Sagan, astronomy is a humbling experience and presents a possibility of peace. When we recognize how small our disputes look from the perspective of the universe and that earth is the only home we will ever know we will cherish it more perhaps. Sagan once said: "If a human disagrees with you, let him live. In a hundred billion galaxies, you will not find another."

Technicals

Pale blue dot was taken in February, 1990 from a staggering distance of 6 billion km. Of the 640,000 individual pixels in the image, Earth appears as a tiny pixel suspended in a ray of sunlight. A narrow angle camera aboard Voyager 1 was used to capture Earth's location. Earth looks blue in the photograph primarily because of Rayleigh scattering of sunlight in its atmosphere.

Excerpt

Here is a small excerpt from pale blue dot speech by Carl Sagan which every politician should read: The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot.

There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we've ever known.