Forgot to update this.

Since then we covered entanglement, Kraus Operators, vN measurements, basic idea of decoherence, POVMs, Local realism and CHSH inequality, quantum teleportation, no cloning, dense coding, BB84.

We have just started module 2: symmetries in QM.

Thank you Ironmoon :)

As we look to enter the age of quantum technology, we recognize the pioneering importance of the work of Clarke, Devoret, and Martinis.

Congratulations to the winners!

These experiments are not only of fundamental interest.

They laid the foundations for superconducting qubits (used in many designs of quantum computers), quantum sensors, quantum electronic circuits.

A major challenge was protecting the effect from being would destroyed by decoherence, which they pulled off.

tl/dr: The Nobel laureates showed that a piece of metal wire with billions of electrons behaves like a single quantum particle showing quantized energy and tunneling behavior.

The trio observed this macroscopic quantum tunneling directly.

Further, they found that the energy of this macroscopic quantum state is "quantized". The circuit can only occupy discrete energy levels, just like electrons in atoms.

In classical (pre-quantum) physics, if a particle's energy is less than the potential barrier, it cannot pass.

Quantum mechanically however, particles can "tunnel" through potential barriers.

For Josephson junctions, the aforementioned phase plays the role of the particle and tunnels through.

This is the phase difference between the two superconductors.

The phase acts like a particle moving in a “washboard” potential.

Pairs of electrons (Cooper pairs) can tunnel through this barrier. In a superconductor, billions of Cooper pairs form a collective (aka condensate).

The collective tunneling of these billions of electrons can be described by a single macroscopic quantum variable.

They did this for superconducting circuits i.e electric circuits made from materials that carry current with zero resistance at very low temperatures.

Inside such circuits lies the Josephson junction, a thin barrier between superconductors.

Quantum mechanical phenomena is usually confined to the microscopic world of atoms, electrons, photons.

Macroscopic objects do not behave quantumly because a phenomena called decoherence kills quantum effects.

Clarke, Devoret and Martinis demonstrated quantum behavior in macroscopic objects

Team Bennett!

Also Michael Berry.

Which books do you have in mind?

The long-standing problem with MWI of course is understanding where the probabilities come from. No satisfactory answers to the best of my knowledge.

Yeah, except for the collapse into a single possibility part (unless you subscribe to MWI)