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Nature 408, 639-641 (7 December 2000) | doi:10.1038/35047177

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The quantum centennial

Anton Zeilinger1

  1. Anton Zeilinger is in the Institut für Experimentalphysik, Universität Wien, Boltzmanngasse 5, 1090 Wien, Austria.

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One hundred years ago, a simple concept changed our world view forever.

When Max Planck announced his quantum assumption in his talk at the German Physical Society in Berlin on 14 December 1900, nobody, including himself, realized that he was opening the door to a completely new theoretical description of nature. Quantum physics has had unsurpassed success in explaining many phenomena — from the structure of elementary particles, through the essence of chemical bonds or the nature of many solid-state phenomena, all the way to the physics of the early Universe.