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A fast-growing field turns the extreme fragility of quantum states into a feature, since tiny disturbances change them in measurable ways.

What is this field called?

Quantum sensing
Quantum sensors exploit how easily quantum states are disturbed to measure magnetic fields, gravity, and time with extraordinary precision. Atomic clocks, a kind of quantum sensor, underpin GPS.

Quantum sensing is the field, and it turns what is normally a weakness of quantum systems, extreme sensitivity to disturbance, into a strength. Because a quantum state can be disrupted by an extraordinarily small change in its environment, such as a faint magnetic field, a tiny shift in gravity, or a minuscule interval of time, scientists use carefully prepared quantum states as detectors that register changes with far more precision than conventional instruments allow.

Quantum tunneling refers to particles passing through energy barriers they classically shouldn't cross, and quantum annealing is an optimization technique for finding low-energy solutions to certain problems; neither describes using fragility itself as a detector's operating principle.

Atomic clocks, a well-known type of quantum sensor, are precise enough that GPS satellites must correct for tiny relativistic time differences caused by their orbital speed and altitude, illustrating just how sensitive these instruments can be.

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