Thanks in part to David Wineland, a new "super computer" that could be more powerful than anything existing today may one day be created.
For Wineland's research, opposite French counterpart Serge Haroche, in finding ways to measure quantum particles without destroying them, both men were awarded the Nobel Prize in physics, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences announced today.
Born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Wineland's work has been heralded by the committee as a groundbreaking effort that has "opened the door to a new era of experimentation with quantum physics."
Having described his work as a "parlor trick," Wineland's research involves hitting an atom with laser light, which according to quantum theory would have a 50 percent chance of moving it, and observing the atom at two different locations, 80 billionths of a meter apart.
Essentially, it allows for an object to be in two places at once.
This feat could, in theory, allow scientists to one day build a kind of "quantum computer" that would be able to conduct far more complicated calculations and hold substantially more data than current computer models.
Other scientists, spoken to by Reuters, have hailed the feat as extraordinary, bringing an idea conceivable only in science fiction to life.
"This year's Nobel Prize recognizes some of the most incredible experimental tests of the weirder aspects of quantum mechanics," Jim Al-Khalili, professor of physics at the University of Surrey in Britain, told Reuters. "Until the last decade or two, some of these results were nothing more than ideas in science fiction or, at best, the wilder imaginations of quantum physicists. Wineland and Haroche and their teams have shown just how strange the quantum world really is and opened up the potential for new technologies undreamt of not so long ago."
"Through their ingenious laboratory methods Haroche and Wineland, together with their research groups, have managed to measure and control very fragile quantum states, which were previously thought inaccessible for direct observation," the Nobel Committee said. "The new methods allow them to examine, control and count the particles."
Wineland works at the US National Institute for Standards and Technology in Boulder, Colo.
More comments from the scientific community celebrating Wineland and Haroche's achievement can be seen on the Nobel committee's YouTube page.