10/10/2026
Now I know why you started reading Isaac Newtons laws of attraction 🤣
A quantum computer just recreated a strange effect where magnetic flux can stop quantum motion without directly pushing on the particle.
Researchers using a hybrid trapped-ion quantum computer simulated the Aharonov–Bohm effect, a phenomenon first predicted in 1959.
In the experiment, a quantum particle could tunnel around two possible paths. With no magnetic flux, it moved normally. But when flux was introduced, the two quantum paths interfered with each other so strongly that the tunnelling was almost completely suppressed — leaving the system effectively “frozen” in its starting state.
The important part: the particle didn’t need to pass through the magnetic field itself. In quantum mechanics, the magnetic flux can still change the particle’s phase and therefore its behaviour.
This isn’t matter literally being frozen in space. It’s quantum motion being stopped through interference — a powerful demonstration of how quantum computers can simulate physics that becomes extremely difficult for classical machines.
Sources: Nature Physics | University of Oxford Department of Physics
Credit: University of Oxford / research team
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