Australian National University

Artificial intelligence developed by a group of Australian research teams has replicated a complex experiment which won the Nobel Prize for Physics in 2001.

The intelligent machine learned how to run a Bose-Einstein condensation – isolating an extremely cold gas inside a beam of laser light – in under an hour, something the team "didn't expect". Results have been published in the Scientific Reports journal. The algorithm has also been uploaded to GitHub for other researchers working on "quantum experiments". "A simple computer program would have taken longer than the age of the universe to run through all the combinations and work this out," said Paul Wigley, co-lead researcher of the study and professor at the School of Physics and Engineering at the Australian National University.


The gas was cooled to 1 microkelvin before the artificial intelligence was "handed control" of three laser beams in which to trap the gas. It also did things that "surprised" the team. "It did things a person wouldn't guess – such as changing one laser's power up and down and compensating with another," said Wigley. "It may be able to come up with complicated ways humans haven't thought of to get experiments colder and more precise".

Due to their sensitivity, Bose-Einstein condensates can be used for "mineral exploration or navigation systems", recognising precise changes in magnetic fields or gravitational forces. A system that can "set itself up every morning...and compensate for any overnight fluctuations" could make this technology "much more useful for field measurements", the team say. "You could make a working device to measure gravity that you could take in the back of a car" said co-lead researcher Michael Hush. "The artificial intelligence would recalibrate and fix itself no matter what." "It's cheaper than taking a physicist everywhere with you."