The findings highlight something \u201coften ignored in the literature,\u201d or the cost of observation in quantum mechanics, according to the study. At the same time, the extra energy could present an opportunity to create more informative, ultra-precise clocks\u2014if physicists can find such a way, that is.<\/p>\n
\u201cQuantum clocks running at the smallest scales were expected to lower the energy cost of timekeeping, but our new experiment reveals a surprising twist,\u201d said Natalia Ares, study senior author and a physicist at Oxford University in the UK, in a release<\/a>. \u201cInstead, in quantum clocks the quantum ticks far exceed that of the clockwork itself.\u201d<\/p>\n Some (extremely condensed) background <\/p>\n Time is an extremely difficult concept in quantum mechanics; its\u00a0influence is weak or almost irrelevant in the quantum realm. Still, real-life devices are subjected to real-life phenomena that change according to time. For researchers, that means future quantum devices\u2014such as sensors or navigation systems<\/a>\u2014must contain ultra-precise internal clocks to minimize issues.<\/p>\n And then there\u2019s the measurement problem, with the famous Schr\u00f6dinger\u2019s cat<\/a> thought experiment best exemplifying this phenomenon. Quantum systems can exist in a superposition of various states, but when an observer tries to measure that system, there is only one answer. So the cat could be dead or alive, but we won\u2019t know until we open that box.<\/p>\n A normal clock automatically generates heat\u2014and therefore entropy<\/a>, or a measure of order\u2014as it ticks and records the passage of time. The effect of the heat is usually so tiny that it doesn\u2019t matter in most cases, leading most quantum researchers to ignore the effects of a clock\u2019s ticks for quantum devices, according to the researchers.<\/p>\n Measuring the quantum ticks <\/p>\n For their experiment, the team created a quantum clock running on two electrons hopping between two different regions. Each jump was equivalent to a \u201ctick\u201d of a regular clock. They tracked the changes in tiny electric currents and radio waves\u2014two different quantum signals\u2014and translated these changes into classical data for timekeeping. Then, the researchers compared the energy costs of the entropy created by the bouncing electron \u201cticks\u201d and the energy required to measure these ticks.<\/p>\n Surprisingly, they discovered that the latter \u201cnot only dwarfs the former but also unlocks greatly increased precision,\u201d according to the paper. That is, setting efficiency aside, the extra measurement energy actually allowed the team to more precisely control the clock.<\/p>\n Looking ahead, understanding such dynamics could be useful for synchronizing time-related operations inside advanced computers, Edward Laird, a physicist at the University of Lancaster in the UK uninvolved in the new work, told Physics Magazine<\/a>. The findings raise more fundamental questions about whether the very act of observation is what gives time direction, added the researchers.<\/p>\n \u201cBy showing that it is the act of measuring\u2014not just the ticking itself\u2014that gives time its forward direction, these new findings draw a powerful connection between the physics of energy and the science of information,\u201d explained Florian Meier, study co-lead author and a postdoctoral student at the Technische Universit\u00e4t Wien in Austria, in the statement.<\/p>\n As the researchers note in the paper, energy efficiency has been a consistent issue in the design of quantum technologies. So it\u2019s intriguing that, as it stands, the paper could be taken as an invitation to look away from the hardware and revisit some inherent paradoxes<\/a> in theoretical quantum mechanics.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Quantum technologies\u2014devices that operate according to quantum mechanical principles\u2014promise to bring users some groundbreaking innovations in whichever context…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":297803,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[49],"tags":[155281,199,1358,2048,79],"class_list":{"0":"post-297802","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-physics","8":"tag-metrology","9":"tag-physics","10":"tag-quantum-physics","11":"tag-quantum-technology","12":"tag-science"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/297802","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=297802"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/297802\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/297803"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=297802"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=297802"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=297802"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Quantum](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/quantum-clocks-experimental-setup-oxford.jpg\")
PhD student Vivek Wadhia sets up the dilution fridge inside which the quantum clock experiment was carried out. Credit: Martyna Sienkiewicz\/Oxford University <\/p>\n