Scientists Just Discovered an Entirely New Way of Measuring Time
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- 31 Oct 2022
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Marking the passage of time in a world of ticking clocks and swinging pendulums is a simple case of counting the seconds between 'then' and 'now'.
Down at the quantum scale of buzzing electrons, however, 'then' can't always be anticipated. Worse still, 'now' often blurs into a haze of uncertainty. A stopwatch simply isn't going to cut it for some scenarios.
A potential solution could be found in the very shape of the quantum fog itself, according to researchers from Uppsala University in Sweden.
Their experiments on the wave-like nature of something called a Rydberg state have revealed a novel way to measure time that doesn't require a precise starting point.
Rydberg atoms are the over-inflated balloons of the particle kingdom. Puffed-up with lasers instead of air, these atoms contain electrons in extremely high energy states, orbiting far from the nucleus.
Of course, not every pump of a laser needs to puff an atom up to cartoonish proportions. In fact, lasers are routinely used to tickle electrons into higher energy states for a variety of uses.
In some applications, a second laser can be used to monitor the changes in the electron's position, including the passing of time. These 'pump-probe' techniques can be used to measure the speed of certain ultrafast electronics, for instance.
Inducing atoms into Rydberg states is a handy trick for engineers, not least when it comes to designing novel components for quantum computers. Needless to say, physicists have amassed a significant amount of information about the way electrons move about when nudged into a Rydberg state.
Being quantum animals, though, their movements are less like beads sliding about on a tiny abacus, and more like an evening at the roulette table, where every roll and jump of the ball is squeezed into a single game of chance.
The mathematical rule book behind this wild game of Rydberg electron roulette is referred to as a Rydberg wave packet. Read More…
