PITY THE POOR LUDDITES:

TO FIND SOME of the coldest objects in the universe, you don't have to go much further than your local university. There, a physicist may be using laser light and magnets to cool atoms below a stunning -450 Fahrenheit. They might use these ultracold atoms to sense even the weakest magnetic fields in the room, or to build a clock accurate to within a quadrillionth of a second. But they probably could not take these sensors or clocks outside of their lab, as they tend to be large and fragile.

Now, a team of physicists at the University of Nottingham have shown that 3D-printing parts for these ultracold quantum experiments allows them to shrink their apparatus to just a third of its usual size. Their work, published in the journal Physical Review X Quantum in August, could open the door to a quicker and more accessible way to make smaller, more stable, customized setups for experiments.

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