A pair of identical particles swapping places sounds like a small move. In quantum physics, it is a defining one.

The new experiment demonstrated a bizarre quantum effect from the double-slit experiment at an unprecedented scale. When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.

I keep coming back to a strange idea: what if everything we know about quantum physics is already encoded inside a single atom? Not in a mystical sense, but in the very real way that one tiny system ...

The word “ atom ” is from the Greek word atomos, which means “uncuttable”. This is the smallest particle in the universe that behaves “normally”. Normal behaviour for a particular atom means that it ...