This publication is essentially a compilation of the lecture notes taken by several people at the introductory course in quantum mechanics given by the authors in conjunction with Los Alamos ...

Quantum theory is often sold as a story about tiny particles, but its real disruption lands squarely on our everyday sense of what is real. At the smallest scales, the equations that power lasers, ...

One hundred years ago on a quiet, rocky island, German physicist Werner Heisenberg helped set in motion a series of scientific developments that would touch nearly all of physics. There, Heisenberg ...

It is rare for a scientific idea or theory to fundamentally change our perspective on reality. One such revolutionary moment is being celebrated in 2025, which the United Nations has declared to be ...

Physicists are rethinking one of quantum mechanics’ biggest puzzles: how fuzzy possibilities become definite reality. New research suggests that spontaneous “collapse” processes—possibly linked to ...

Quantum mechanics is one of the most successful theories in science — and makes much of modern life possible. Technologies ranging from computer chips to medical-imaging machines rely on the ...

But after reading Decoherence and Quantum Darwinism, a book published in March 2025 by the physicist Wojciech Zurek, I’m excited by the possibility of an answer that does away with all those fanciful ...

In a continuous pursuit to understand the fundamental laws that govern the universe, researchers have ventured deep into the realms of string theory, loop quantum gravity, and quantum geometry. These ...

Try as they might, scientists can’t truly rid a space or an object of its energy. But what “zero-point energy” really means is up for interpretation. Suppose you want to empty a box. Really, truly ...

In commemoration of the 100th anniversary of modern quantum mechanics, a survey asked physicists for their takes on some hot questions in quantum theory. Reading time 4 minutes In July 1925—exactly a ...