Editorial

Leaps, big and small

A new mobile phone, a financial reform or a diagnostic method – in everyday life, game-changing innovations are often called quantum leaps. This definition can even be found in the prescriptive German language dictionary, the Duden. However, a quantum leap is originally anything but big. The term was introduced about one hundred years ago to describe a process in the world of atoms: the tiny leap or  – physically more precisely – the transition of an electron in an atom from one energy state to another. No wonder quantum leap as a metaphor for great progress causes raised eyebrows in many physicists. Hopefully this will not happen to you when, in our cover story, Prof. Q*bit gives you a glimpse of his everyday life in the quantum world and you read up on the current status of the race for the first quantum computer.

From there, it is just a small leap to the next pages: right into the correlation of brain scans and personality traits as well as diseases, the influence of smelling and seeing on our taste, and the question of whether the climate target of 1.5 degrees is achievable at all.

We hope you enjoy reading!

Your effzett editorial team