A crucial number that rules the universe goes big in a strange quantum material. The fine-structure constant is about 10 times its normal value in a type of material called quantum spin ice ...

You would think that electrons would be easy enough to describe — but a quantum-mechanical property called "spin" makes that task much less straightforward.

The fact that electrons have the quantum property of spin is essential for our world as we know it. Yet physicists don’t think the particles are actually spinning.

Applying a transverse field, the system can be used to benchmark quantum annealing strategies which aim at reaching the ground state of the spin glass starting from the paramagnetic phase.