
Missing a complex opportunity
How Heron of Alexandria missed his chance to explore the unknown mathematical land of complex numbers.
Many problems in life are harder than the sum of their parts. If you have ever tried to control a group of toddlers you'll know this: two can make good company, three are a crowd and five a riot.
Creating polariton condensates in the vertices of an arbitrary graph and reading out the quantum phases that represent the absolute minimum of an XY Model. Image: Kirill Kalinin
Quantum particles that are both light and matter help solve infamous NP hard problems.