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Nature 431, 29 (2 September 2004) | doi:10.1038/431029a; Published online 1 September 2004

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Statistical physics:  Hear the noise

Simon Kos1 & Peter Littlewood1

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At the nanoscale, thermal fluctuations and noise dominate. But instead of being a hindrance, the details of the noise itself can reveal the physical properties of the system.

Almost two centuries ago, the atomic nature of matter was elegantly revealed by brownian motion — as exemplified by the random motion of pollen particles in water as they are bombarded by water molecules. Now Crooker et al.1 provide, on page 49 of this issue, a textbook demonstration of fluctuations at work in the spectroscopy of a small number of alkali atoms — a quantum version of brownian motion.

  1. Simon Kos and Peter Littlewood are in the Theory of Condensed Matter Group, Cavendish Laboratory, Madingley Road, University of Cambridge, Cambridge CB3 0HE, UK.
    e-mail: Email: pbl21@cam.ac.uk

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