Quantum mechanics describes the weird behavior of microscopic particles. Using quantum systems to perform computation promises to allow researchers to solve problems in areas from chemistry to cryptography that have so many possible solutions that they are beyond the capabilities of even the most powerful nonquantum computers possible.

this year’s Nobel physics prize was announced, “for the discovery of macroscopic quantum-mechanical tunnelling and energy quantisation in an electric circuit”.

John J. Hopfield and Geoffrey E. Hinton shared the prize for work on discoveries that helped computers learn more in the way the human brain does, providing the building blocks for developments in ar...