Physicists just found a tiny glitch in time itself

Quantum mechanics has always challenged our everyday understanding of reality. In the quantum world, particles can exist in a superposition of states, meaning they can occupy multiple possible positions or configurations at the same time. Physicists describe these possibilities mathematically using a wavefunction.

That picture is very different from ordinary life, where an object appears to be in one place and one state at a time. To bridge that gap, standard quantum mechanics says that when a quantum system is measured or observed, its wavefunction collapses into a single definite outcome.

Now, with support from the Foundational Questions Institute, FQxI, an international team of physicists has explored a more radical possibility. Their work suggests that certain alternatives to standard quantum mechanics, known as quantum collapse models, could have surprising consequences for the nature of time itself and for the ultimate precision of clocks.