Pengfei Wang

A gunner adjusts the eyepiece of a telescope: one more click, and the blurry blob becomes a crisp image. Climate scientists at the Institute of Atmospheric Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, made a similar adjustment to their model ICM.

A typical quantum bit is destroyed by the slightest disturbance — heat, magnetic fields. Physicists made a pair of atoms work together so that disorder wouldn't erase the record. Information was encoded not in each atom individually, but in the difference of their states — like the tension of a rope between two buoys.

In the crystal lattice of diamond, defects occasionally appear: a nitrogen atom grabs a foreign spot, and next to it gapes a void. Such a flaw turns into a supersensitive diamond compass: its magnetic needle quivers at the slightest external field. Paradoxically, a blemish that lowers a stone's value has become a coveted tool for physicists.