The United Nations has declared 2025 the International Year of Quantum Science and Technology, marking 100 years since the birth of quantum mechanics—a branch of physics that has completely changed how we understand the universe.
While quantum science may sound distant or complicated, it’s behind many things we use every day, including the phone or computer you’re using to read this article.
Quantum mechanics began in 1925 with the publication of groundbreaking scientific papers that explained how tiny particles like electrons and photons move and interact.
These particles make up everything around us, and understanding their behavior has led to the development of powerful technologies, from electronics to lasers to medical imaging.
Despite the complexity behind them, modern electronic devices feel simple and reliable to use. You tap your phone screen, and it responds immediately.
But under the surface, these devices rely on quantum rules that include a lot of uncertainty.
In fact, one of the core ideas in quantum physics is the uncertainty principle, which says you can’t know both the exact position and momentum of a particle at the same time. If you know where an electron is, you can’t say how fast it’s going—and vice versa.
This idea isn’t a limitation of our technology.
It’s a built-in rule of nature. In quantum science, we replace certainty with probability, using a mathematical tool called a wavefunction to describe what we know about a particle and to predict likely outcomes of experiments.
Although quantum mechanics is incredibly precise—some of its predictions have matched experiments to better than one part in a trillion—it still raises deep questions. Some scientists believe it’s just a tool for making predictions, while others think it should explain the true nature of reality. That debate continues to this day.
In the past 40 years, quantum science has also led to the idea of quantum computers, which use the strange rules of quantum mechanics to process information in entirely new ways. These machines could one day solve problems far beyond the reach of today’s best supercomputers.
At the University of Melbourne, researchers are already developing quantum algorithms and hardware in collaboration with IBM. They’re also using quantum science to build sensors and tools for future technologies.
These advancements could lead to faster drug discovery, new materials, and even deeper insights into dark matter and the fabric of the universe.
From a mysterious theory about invisible particles to real-world tools that power our daily lives, quantum science has come a long way—and the next century promises even more. That’s certainly worth celebrating.
Source: University of Melbourne.
