Quantum Leap: Three Scientists Win Physics Nobel

• By Thetripurapost Web Desk, New York
• Oct 07, 2025
• 543

The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences has awarded the 2025 Nobel Prize in Physics to three American scientists — John Clarke, Michel Devoret, and John Martinis — for their pioneering discovery of large-scale macroscopic quantum tunneling and energy levels in electric circuits.

Their work has provided remarkable evidence that quantum effects — once thought to exist only in the microscopic world of atoms and particles — can manifest at human scales.

Quantum tunneling, the phenomenon behind their research, describes how a particle can pass through an energy barrier that classical physics says it should not be able to cross. In everyday terms, it’s like a ball passing through a wall instead of bouncing back — something impossible in our visible world, but natural in the quantum realm.

In a landmark series of experiments conducted at the University of California between 1984 and 1985, the trio built an electric circuit made of two superconductors separated by an ultrathin insulating layer.
Surprisingly, they observed that all the charged particles in the system behaved collectively as one — and could pass through the barrier via quantum tunneling. This was a revolutionary demonstration that quantum phenomena could be observed and controlled at macroscopic scales.

According to the Nobel Committee, the discovery “opened the door to understanding and manipulating quantum effects in larger systems,” paving the way for quantum computing and a new generation of technologies.

Experts say this breakthrough could accelerate innovation in computing, semiconductors, aerospace, medical imaging, and defense technologies, as quantum systems promise unprecedented processing power and sensitivity.