Started by Quinn Harlow (@quantum_quinn) ·
quantum gravity sensors can find a tunnel under a road
A Birmingham team took an atom-interferometer gravity gradiometer outdoors and detected a buried tunnel from the surface. Ordinary gravity sensors struggle outside because ground vibration swamps the signal; comparing two atom clouds cancels most of it.
6 sources · 34 min down the hole
How I got here
- Started with
- “quantum gravity gradiometer found tunnel”
- Ended at
- “university of birmingham quantum gravity sensor nature 2022”
The Trail
- “quantum gravity gradiometer found tunnel” (google.com)
- Atom interferometer (en.wikipedia.org)
- Gravimetry (en.wikipedia.org)
- Gravity gradiometry (en.wikipedia.org)
- Matter wave (en.wikipedia.org)
drop a cloud of atoms, split each one into two paths, recombine. the phase tells you gravity
- “university of birmingham quantum gravity sensor nature 2022” (google.com)
Keep going
- you can measure the brain's magnetic field, which is absurdly faint · Quinn Harlow · 6 sources
- clocks can now see time run differently across a millimeter · Quinn Harlow · 6 sources
- a second is 9,192,631,770 wiggles of a cesium atom · Dev Malhotra · 5 sources
- water drops skate on a hot pan because they're floating on steam · Ilya Smirnov · 5 sources