The quantum in our everyday: How this science gave us smartphones, GPS and more

Quantum mechanics is 100 years old this year. See how it allowed us to take the leap to chip-based devices. Up next: Smarter supercomputers, better pharma drugs

There’s a lot of our world that wouldn’t run, and certainly wouldn’t run as well, without the involvement of quantum mechanics. Here are just a few key things that come from our enhanced understanding of how the universe works, at the sub-atomic level.

* Phones, computers, TVs

Quantum mechanics governs how electrons move through materials. That sounds like we can control it. We can’t.

What we do instead is build mathematical frameworks that predict probable outcomes. Because every device that uses quantum mechanics involves trillions of particles, their combined effect allows us to ensure a certain set of outcomes, as energy races through circuits that have been given a specific function.

Put very simplistically, that is how quantum mechanics gave the world all its electronics — from the microwave oven to the cellphone and TV, and anything, in fact, that involves the use of a chip.

* Atomic clocks

The scientific definition of a second is based on the behaviour of atoms, specifically caesium ones. A second is essentially the time it takes for a caesium atom to vibrate or “tick” exactly 9,192,631,770 times. Quantum mechanics tells time how much time it is!

* GPS maps

Every global positioning system relies on atomic clocks. They are accurate up to a nanosecond (a billionth of a second). Here is why that matters.

The little dot on the map that indicates where you are, is not the result of one GPS satellite pinging off your phone. It is the result of at least four satellites, using the time taken for such a ping, to calculate distance.

If they can’t all calculate the exact time in exactly the same way, your phone can’t pinpoint your latitude, longitude and altitude — or tell exactly where you are.

* MRI scanners

Every MRI scan benefits from something called quantum spin.

Magnetic resonance imaging machines are essentially two giant magnets that force the water molecules in the human body to line up like compass needles. The machine then emits a powerful radio wave, which essentially flips the spin of the protons in the water. Protons in fat, muscle and abnormal or tumour tissue relax at different speeds and release slightly different signals in response.

Reading these signals allows the machine to render a detailed image of tissues and organs, down to millimetre and sub-millimetre scale.

WHAT’S NEXT?

The next quantum leaps are expected to be in computing, and drug development.

* Quantum computing

In February this year, Microsoft unveiled Majorana 1, the world’s first quantum processor. It stores information in a way that is more protected from noise and errors.

According to Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, this means quantum computing — faster, smarter, and more efficient computers, by orders of magnitude — should be feasible in just a few years, not decades as originally thought.

In an oft-ignored detail, quantum computing would not significantly change how you use your device. Quantum computers, like supercomputers, would be designed and used for specific tasks such as modelling, code-breaking and drug development.

What they could enable, on the average laptop, are features such as better AI deployment, and better protection from hacking and malware.

* Quantum drug development

When developing new drugs, researchers need to simulate how their molecules will interact — with each other, with human cells, and with disease cells.

These interactions depend on quantum forces between electrons and atoms; things like bonding, folding, and charge transfer.

Molecules, especially proteins, are too complex for even the world’s most powerful supercomputers to simulate perfectly. Current computers can only approximate these processes, and so drug design is often slow, expensive, and full of trial-and-error.

Drug molecules, like any others, are quantum objects, where electrons follow the rules of quantum mechanics. To truly understand how a drug would work, it would help to have a computer that speaks the same language as the molecules themselves.

Quantum computers are expected to directly simulate quantum systems, resulting in quicker drug development as well as more-effective drugs, tailor-made for specific treatments, and even for specific patients.