Breaking Heisenberg: Controlling the Quantum World
When many of us first learn quantum theory, it is presented as a paler, less complete version of classical theory–you can’t predict with certainty both a particle’s position and its momentum, you can’t measure a system without disturbing it, and you can’t even assign a local realistic value to what you have observed!. This perspective couldn’t be further from the truth. Quantum theory, rather than limiting what is possible, enables us to do things far and beyond the confines of the classical world. In particular, devices that take full advantage of the strange and wonderful properties of quantum theory can process information more powerfully than any device governed by the laws of classical physics (e.g., a Turing machine). To harness this power requires precise control of systems in order to bring the quantum properties that are typically manifest at microscopic levels, into our macroscopic world. I will describe some recent progress along these lines with some of the coolest stuff in the universe–laser-cooled atoms and photons.