The Quantum World

Just how real is reality, anyway?

Forget everything you thought you knew about reality.

The world is a seriously bizarre place. Things can exist in two places at once and travel backwards and forwards in time. Waves and particles are one and the same, and objects change their behavior according to whether they are being watched.

This is not some alternative universe but the realm of the very small, where quantum mechanics rules. In this weird world of atoms and their constituents, our common sense understanding of reality breaks down - yet quantum mechanics has never failed an experimental test.

What does it all mean?

For all its weirdness, quantum mechanics has given us many practical technologies including lasers and the transistors that underlie computers and all digital technology. In the future, it promises computers more powerful than any built before, the ability to communicate with absolut