The mind-bending mystery that drew a Nobel Prize-winning physicist to Perth

November 13, 2026 — 3:09pm

It’s not every day a Nobel Prize-winning physicist comes to town.

And the reason for his visit – to discuss a deep-space mystery involving the “missing” 85 per cent of the universe – is even more mind-expanding.

But for the past week, researchers and mathematicians have been deep in discussion on the subject of dark matter – elusive particles that are yet to be detected, but which, according to advanced scientific models, could make up as much as 85 per cent of the universe.

Candidates include theoretical particles dubbed “WIMPs” (weakly interacting massive particles), or “axions”, but actually identifying the missing material that, in essence, holds our universe together has proved one of the greatest challenges currently faced by physicists around the world.

And it’s the search for those particles that brought Professor John Martinis to Perth this week for the 21st Patras Workshop on Axions, WIMPs and WISPs at the University of WA.

Martinis, a Professor of Physics at the University of California, Santa Barbara, won the Nobel Prize for Physics last year for his pioneering work on quantum computing, which involves the production of ultra-advanced systems that can hold information in different positions simultaneously, rather than being limited to ones and zeroes, as is the case in current binary computers.

Because any signal from a dark matter candidate is thought to be so weak it would be drowned out by the surrounding noise of the portion of the universe we do know about, this is where quantum computing may be able to help.

Martinis’ research, and the quantum computers he helped develop, could assist other researchers in the hunt for the mystery particles that make up the universe’s dark matter.

It is a discovery he velieves would “change the way people think about fundamental physics”.

“A lot of the technology [used in the search for dark matter] is similar to what we do for quantum computers,” he told this masthead earlier this week, ahead of his speech on Tuesday evening.

“So it’s very interesting for me to come here and see what’s being developed, and maybe I’ll have an idea from quantum to help – maybe not, but at least it’s interesting to find this out.

“If they detect these particles, this is a huge discovery that’s going to change the way people think about fundamental physics, and it’s great that people are seriously looking at this.”

During Martinis’ speech at UWA, he touched on the research that led to his Nobel Prize, which involved the demonstration of a phenomenon known as “quantum tunnelling” on an electrical circuit built from superconductors.

Martinis said he was “fascinated” when he learned about quantum mechanics as a physics student – and it was the combination of that passion with his electronics hobby that led to his Nobel Prize-winning work alongside John Clarke and Michel H Devoret.

“It was a nice way to combine my desire to understand quantum mechanics better with my hobby, which was understanding how electronic devices work,” he said.

“And what was very interesting is we did some of the very first experiments on this, but this just turned into a big field. A lot of other people found that combination very powerful.

“People had ideas of building a quantum computer with these devices, and I was very fortunate that this turned into a big field.

“Even the field that we’re looking at today, that was kind of an offshoot of these early experiments, looking at very sensitive detectors and the like, and how to use them, it really came out of John Clarke’s lab.”

Professor James Arvanitakis, director of the Forrest Research Foundation, which brought Martinis to Perth for the Patras workshop, said the research involved a whole different way of looking at computing.

“I think one of the things that people find it really hard to understand is that they just think quantum is just a bigger computer, or a more powerful computer, but it’s a total different logic system the way it works,” he said.

“Because you know computers work on one-zeroes – binaries – but quantum has those things happening simultaneously.

“So it’s a radically different way that these systems work, and I think on the electronics part of it, it just can change the way that we do a whole bunch of research.”

Arvanitakis said it was exciting for young researchers to have the Nobel Prize winner sitting in the front row for their speeches at the conference.

“We’ve got currently 60 early career researchers, who come and live and work together from across all the different academic fields, and we fund big, brave science like big blue-sky science like the work that John has undertaken, because you don’t know where things are going to go today,” he said.

“And I think the questions that John was working on 30 years ago now could possibly change the way that you know computers work, and the way that AI works, and it could be so many incredible advances.”

The physicist’s trip to WA also served as a fact-finding mission, searching for opportunities where research may overlap.

“I would say at a minimum, I hope that I can encourage the young scientists, and I think that you’re doing some exciting experiments that are foundational experiments if you can detect these new particles,” Martinis said.

More:

• Quantum Computing
• Perth
• University of Western Australia

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