Most of the parts are in place and functioning, but Degen and Tao still need to obtain the refrigeration unit that will cool the system to just above absolute zero.

To reach the ground state, physicists had to cool their beams to nearly absolute zero. They also had to make the quanta as large as possible by making a beam stiffer to increase its frequency.

But cool this graphene down to near absolute zero and something extraordinary happens: the electrons speed up dramatically.