Physics & Astronomy

Texas A&M University physics professor M. Suhail Zubairy once proposed a scenario to his freshman class: If he were to throw a ball against a wall, common sense tells us that there is no probability it can go through the wall to reach the other side. But by the principles of quantum mechanics, under certain conditions, it is possible.

“Do you believe this to be true?” he asked the class.

One student who knew better raised his hand. “Dr. Zubairy, I’ll believe anything you tell me about quantum mechanics.”

It’s the murky scientific conjectures of quantum mechanics that indeed require an open mind — and even one of the greatest, renowned theoretical physicist Albert Einstein, was bewildered by them. Zubairy’s hypothetical [...]