By Dr. Nivash Jeevanandam, Kingston Engineering College, Vellore
Three scientists won the Nobel Prize for proving that the bizarre laws of the quantum world—like particles passing through walls—are active inside something large enough to hold, specifically a coin-sized electrical circuit. They brought quantum mechanics into our everyday reality, pioneering the foundation for quantum computing.
Imagine holding in your hand a small electrical circuit — something no bigger than a coin — and being told that inside it, the mysterious laws that govern atoms and tiny particles are at play. Sounds unbelievable, right? Yet that’s exactly what three brilliant scientists — John Clarke, Michel H. Devoret, and John M. Martinis — proved through their groundbreaking experiments.
This year, they were awarded the 2025 Nobel Prize in Physics “for the discovery of macroscopic quantum mechanical tunnelling and energy quantisation in an electric circuit.” In simple terms, they showed that the strange, rule-breaking behaviour of quantum particles could also be seen in something large enough to hold, see, and measure — a stunning idea that connects the invisible world of atoms to our everyday reality.
To understand what they achieved, let’s first peek into the quantum world. In our daily lives, we expect things to behave in predictable ways. If you throw a ball at a wall, it bounces back — it never passes through the wall. But in the world of quantum mechanics, the rules are very different.
Tiny particles like electrons and photons can sometimes pass straight through barriers — a phenomenon known as quantum tunnelling. They can also exist in multiple places at once (superposition) or share a mysterious connection across distance (entanglement).
Another strange property is energy quantisation — energy doesn’t increase smoothly but jumps from one level to another, like stepping up stairs rather than walking up a ramp.
Normally, all these effects happen at scales so small that we can never see them directly. That’s why quantum physics has always seemed like a world apart — full of wonder, but far removed from our own.
Quantum to the Macroscopic World
In the 1980s, at the University of California, Berkeley, John Clarke and his team — including Michel H. Devoret and John M. Martinis — began experimenting with superconducting circuits. These are special circuits made of materials that can carry electricity with zero resistance, allowing current to flow endlessly without losing energy.
Their experiment was simple in design but profound in impact. They took two superconductors and separated them with a thin insulating layer — a setup known as a Josephson junction. Normally, current should not be able to cross that barrier. But to their astonishment, it did — not by breaking the rules of physics, but by following quantum ones.
The current had tunnelled through the barrier — a clear sign of macroscopic quantum tunnelling. Even more fascinating was what they observed next: the system absorbed and released energy in fixed amounts, not in a continuous flow. This was energy quantisation, but this time seen in a system big enough to touch.
In other words, they had successfully brought quantum behaviour out of the microscopic world and into our macroscopic one.
Their work changed how we think about the boundaries of nature. It proved that quantum mechanics isn’t just for atoms — it’s part of everything, even systems large enough to hold in your hand.
More importantly, their research laid the foundation for modern quantum technology. The same kind of superconducting circuits they built are now used in quantum computers, where each circuit acts as a qubit— the building block that allows these machines to perform calculations far beyond what normal computers can do.
Power of Patience
Reflecting on this year’s Nobel Prizes, Gautam Menon, Dean – Research at Ashoka University, shared a thoughtful insight:
“The Nobel Prizes this year especially emphasise the importance of long-term research in the basic sciences leading to unanticipated applications, whether in quantum devices and computing, new treatments for autoimmune disease or hydrogen storage.”
His words capture the spirit of this discovery — that deep, patient research in fundamental science often opens doors we didn’t even know existed.
What Clarke, Devoret, and Martinis achieved is nothing short of magical. They turned abstract quantum theory into something we can see, measure, and use. Their discovery reminds us that even the strangest corners of science can one day find a place in our everyday world — sometimes in something as ordinary-looking as an electric circuit.
In celebrating their Nobel Prize, we’re not just honouring three scientists; we’re celebrating a moment when the invisible became visible, and the mysteries of the quantum world stepped into the light of human understanding.
Dr. Nivash Jeevanandam — formerly a Senior Researcher and Author at the IndiaAI Portal (the National AI Portal of India, a joint initiative by NASSCOM and MeitY, Government of India) — has served as an Advisory Member for AI Initiatives at CEMCA, New Delhi. He is associated with the Department of Computer Science and Engineering, Kingston Engineering College, Vellore, Tamil Nadu. With over a decade of research writing experience and a Ph.D. in Information Technology and Computer Science, he blends scientific insight with storytelling, making him one of the leading voices in India’s AI ecosystem.
Source: The Nobel Prize