In the peculiar world of quantum mechanics, particles exhibit both wave-like and particle-like properties, and they can be described as having wave functions. Out of this strange world, the possibility of new science emerges in collective duress. Think of duress as the mental equivalent of the stress someone feels when they realize they left the stove on after they drove away—it's the stress people feel about undefined future events, the ones that force them to experience a future they’d rather avoid.

Imagine that big objects, like human brains, have wave functions. In fact, everything that we think of as solid has a wave function that can be calculated. (Physicists calculate wave functions by solving Schrödinger's equation, which helps predict where a particle is likely to be and how it behaves over time.) Now imagine these wave functions could overlap, creating a bigger, shared wave function—like a roomful of tuning forks that lock onto one another with the same resonance when just one is struck. This idea is similar to how particles behave in quantum mechanics. When these wave functions overlap, they can form a larger wave function, leading to something called Bose-Einstein condensates (BECs). BECs are states........

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