The wall is no longer a barrier for the quantum world

Space · Published 24 October 2026 · Updated 24 October 2026 Swipe more like this →

In short: In our everyday lives, a ball thrown at a wall always bounces back. But in the quantum realm, particles can occasionally phase straight through solid barriers like ghosts. The 2025 Nobel Prize in Physics recognizes the groundbreaking proof that this bizarre behavior isn't just for tiny atoms—it happens on a scale we can hold in our hands.

Quantum mechanics is traditionally associated with the microscopic world, where single particles behave as clouds of probability rather than distinct objects. One of the most striking phenomena is 'quantum tunnelling,' where a particle passes through a barrier it theoretically lacks the energy to overcome. In classical physics, this is impossible; in the quantum world, it is a statistical reality that defies our intuition about solid matter.

John Clarke, Michel H. Devoret, and John M. Martinis received the 2025 Nobel Prize in Physics for showing that such phenomena happen on a macroscopic level, involving multiple particles instead of just one. Working at the University of California, Berkeley in 1984 and 1985, the trio developed an electrical circuit using two superconductors separated by a non-conducting material. They demonstrated that all charged particles in the superconductor could behave in unison as a single entity.

This 'scaled-up' quantum behavior allowed them to observe macroscopic tunnelling and energy quantisation within a system large enough to be held in the hand. By showing that these systems could absorb and emit energy in specific doses, they confirmed that quantum rules apply even to complex circuits. This discovery provided the foundational evidence necessary for modern technologies like quantum computing by proving that 'unruly' quantum effects can be controlled and engineered in our physical reality.

The significance lies in the shift from theory to engineering. By moving quantum mechanics out of the realm of abstract subatomic particles and into controllable electrical circuits, these physicists bridged the gap between the strange laws of the very small and the tangible world we inhabit.

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