Biao Wu

In the quantum world, chaos usually means an increase in entropy — a measure of disorder. But physicists have found an exception: a many-particle system remains chaotic, yet its entropy barely exceeds a tiny value. The reason is a rule akin to restricting the movement of cooks in a cramped kitchen.

Two sheets of graphene, pressed together through an ultra-thin spacer thinner than a human hair, work like a pair of mutual ironing boards: each layer smoothes out the other's bumps. Under these ideal conditions, electrons become incredibly light, and quantum marvels—like the fractional quantum Hall