If successful scientific theories can be thought of as cures for stubborn problems, quantum physics was the wonder drug of the 20th century. It successfully explained phenomena such as radioactivity and antimatter, and no other theory can match its description of how light and particles behave on small scales.
The quantum world is now one of the most closely scrutinised areas of science, and throughout 2008 new discoveries have poured in.
Since its redesign in November, New51¶ŻÂț.com is making the last 12 monthsâ of articles free for everyone to read. Here, in case you missed them, are the yearâs top 10 in-depth articles about the quantum world.
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Four radical routes to a theory of everything
Einsteinâs theory of relativity does an equally good job at large scales. Quantum mechanics does a fantastic job of explaining the world of the very small. Until recently, physicists hadnât made much progress in finding ways to reconcile the two â but now theyâre spoilt for choice.
In the beginning there was the big bang, which produced the universe â but how? If the big bang made equal quantities of matter and antimatter, it should all have mutually annihilated. So why is there something rather than nothing?
Anyons: The breakthrough quantum computing needs?
A new class of particles that exists in only two dimensions could encode information in quantum computers. âAnyonsâ started out as little more than a theoretical fancy, but are now becoming a very real.
Do birds see with quantum eyes?
Migrating birds seem to be able to navigate by the Earthâs magnetic field, but nobody really understands how. A phenomenon called the âquantum Zeno effectâ might provide the answer. Itâs still theoretical, but we might finally be homing in on an explanation for birdsâ remarkable wayfinding ability.
Time may seem like a common-sense concept, but itâs one of the hardest things for physicists to account for â so much so that some have argued that it doesnât actually exist at all. Now a growing group of scientists are fighting to bring time back into the equation.
Itâs confirmed: Matter is merely vacuum fluctuations
If you thought you were made of something solid and substantial, think again. New calculations show that protons and neutrons, two of the major building blocks of all matter, are mostly made up of virtual particles.
Atomic logic: In search of shape-shifting circuits
Forget pressing a button and waiting for your hard drive to whirr into action. If one manâs idea works out, your computerâs circuits will materialise in front of you out of beams of light and a puff of gas â and youâll be able to transform its parts into any electronic circuitry you like.
There may be an entirely new type of particle out there, waiting to be discovered. These so-called âunparticlesâ are slippery customers: they can shift their identities, masquerade as fractions of particles, and even exude their own âungravityâ force.
Quantum effects may explain waterâs weirdness
We take water for granted, but it is actually one of the strangest substances known to exist, with a habit of ignoring rules about how materials are âsupposedâ to behave. Now it seems that the famous âuncertainty principleâ could help explain why water is such an oddball.
2008: Does time travel start here?
As it turned out, the answer to the question in our headline was ânoâ â because the Large Hadron Collider had barely started up before it broke down. But when itâs up and running again, will it create loops in time? Two Russian mathematicians think it might.
