STOCKHOLM A French-American duo shared the 2012 Nobel Prize in physics Tuesday for inventing techniques to see the bizarre qualities of the quantum world, research which has brought to the construction of very precise clocks and assisted researchers take the steps toward building fast computer systems.

Serge Haroche of France and American David Wineland opened up the door to new experiments in quantum physics by showing how you can observe individual quantum contaminants while protecting their quantum qualities.

A quantum particle is one that's isolated from anything else. In cases like this, an atom or electron or photon assumes strange qualities. It may be in two places at once, for instance. It reacts somewhat like a wave. However these qualities are instantly transformed if this interacts with another thing, for example when somebody observes it.

Working individually, the two researchers, both 68, developed "ingenious laboratory techniques" that permitted these to manage and measure and control fragile quantum states, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences stated.

"Their ground-breaking techniques have enabled this area of research to consider the initial steps towards creating a new kind of fast computer according to quantum physics," the academy stated. "The research has additionally brought to the construction of very precise clocks that may become the future grounds for a brand new standard of time."

Haroche is really a professor at the College p France and Ecole Normale Superieure in Paris. Wineland is really a physicist at the National Institute of Standards and Technology, or NIST, and the College of Colorado in Boulder, Colorado.

The two scientists use opposite methods to examine, control and count quantum contaminants, the academy stated.

Wineland traps ions -- electric billed atoms -- and measures all of them with light, while Haroche controls and measures photons, or light contaminants.

Haroche stated he was out walking together with his wife as he got the call from the Nobel idol judges.

'I was at the street and passing a bench and so i could sit lower. It is extremely overwhelming.'

- Nobel prize champion Serge Haroche

"I had been in the street and passing a bench and so i could sit lower," Haroche told a news conference in Stockholm on the phone. "It is extremely overwhelming."

He stated his work in the arena of quantum physics could ultimately result in unimaginably fast computer systems.

"You can perform things that are prohibited by the laws and regulations of classical physics," he told The Connected Press.

Haroche also stated quantum research may help make Gps navigation moving systems better.

Wineland told AP he was sleeping when his wife clarified the phone at 3:30 a.m. local time in Colorado. He was absolutely shocked despite the fact that his title had show up before.

"But really I had not heard anything this time around. It had been certainly surprising and type of overwhelming at this time,Inch he stated. "Personally i think like I acquired a great deal wiser overnight."

Wineland required pains to notice that many people will work in the area. "To begin with, lots of people happen to be focusing on advanced computer systems and atomic clocks for any lengthy time. It's a little embarrassing to pay attention to just two individuals," he stated.

Requested how he'll celebrate, Wineland stated: "I'll most likely be pretty worn-out by today. I'll most likely possess a glass of vino and fall asleep."

Christopher Monroe, who similar work at the Joint Quantum Institute at the College of Maryland, stated the giving of the prize to the two men "isn't a large surprise in my experience ... It had been kind of apparent that they are a bundle.Inch

Monroe stated that because of the bizarre qualities of the quantum world, as he and Wineland labored together in the the nineteen nineties, they could place a single atom in two places concurrently.

At this time, it had not been obvious that trapping single atoms may help pave the method to fast quantum computer systems, he stated. That whole area "just fell into our laps,"' Monroe stated.

Within an regular computer, details are symbolized in bits, because both versions will be an zero or perhaps a one. However in a quantum computer, a person particle can basically represent a zero along with a one at the same time. If researchers could make such contaminants work together, some types of information might be completed with blazing speed.

To illustrate the invoice discounting, the procedure for finding what amounts could be increased together to make a given number. Which has implications for breaking codes, Monroe stated.

Quantum computer systems could significantly change individuals lives in the method in which classical computer systems did 20th century, but a complete-scale quantum computer continues to be decades away, the Nobel idol judges stated.

"The information could be incredibly considerably faster and exact and you would have the ability to use it for areas like metrology as well as for calculating the climate of the earth," stated Lars Bergstrom, the secretary of the prize committee.

The physics prize was the second of the 2012 Nobel Awards to become introduced, with the medicine award going Monday to stem cell pioneers John Gurdon of england and Japan's Shinya Yamanaka. Each award may be worth 8 million kronor, or about $1.2 million.

Only two women have won the physics prize since it was initially granted in 1901: Marie Curie in 1903 and Maria Goeppert-Mayer in 1963.

The awards will always be passed out on 12 ,. 10, the anniversary of prize founder Alfred Nobel's dying in 1896.