The result is a breakthrough in the science of measurement that could power a new generation of ultra-precise quantum sensors operating at the scale of atoms.<\/p>\n
Moving uncertainty around<\/p>\n
The uncertainty principle makes clear there will always be a minimum amount of uncertainty in measurements. But you can think of it like air in a balloon: the air cannot escape, but you can freely move it around inside.<\/p>\n
Similarly, when measuring position and momentum, the total amount of uncertainty is fixed. But we can redistribute it between the two.<\/p>\n
Traditionally, this trade-off means making a choice. You can measure position precisely but lose information about momentum, or vice versa. <\/p>\n
Like the air in a balloon, you can never get rid of the uncertainty in a quantum measurement \u2013 but you can squeeze it around to suit your purposes. Our work takes a different approach. We push the uncertainty into a sensing range that is unimportant.<\/p>\n To understand this, let\u2019s try another analogy: imagine a clock with only one hand. If it\u2019s the hour hand, we know the hour exactly but only roughly know the minutes. If it\u2019s the minute hand, we can read minutes precisely but do not know the hour.<\/p>\n We apply this same idea to quantum measurements. We redistribute the uncertainty so that we can simultaneously track small changes in position and momentum around a chosen point, even if we do not know the absolute location of the point itself.<\/p>\n With this, we can detect very tiny changes in both position and momentum at once, beyond the limit of any classical sensor.<\/p>\n Using error-correcting codes for quantum sensing<\/p>\n How did we do this? We repurposed techniques originally designed to protect quantum computers from noise to enhance the precision of measurement devices. This idea was first proposed in a theoretical study<\/a> in 2017.<\/p>\n We performed our experiment using a trapped ion. This is a single electronically charged atom held in place and controlled with electric and magnetic fields. <\/p>\n![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/file-20250923-56-s4n0kd.jpg\")
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\n Bhautik Patel \/ Unsplash<\/a><\/p>\n