Heisenberg and Euler could see this milestone on the horizon of extremes, yet I doubt they thought we'd reach it so quickly.
Science moves forward, at least in part, by pursuing extremes — seeking what's faster, hotter, more stable or more accurate than anything before. We take matter apart into ever smaller pieces, slam particles together at ever higher energies, and manufacture telescopic devices that see ever more deeply into space. In chasing such extremes, we often pass milestones, sometimes almost without noticing.
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Buchanan, M. Past the Schwinger limit. Nature Phys 2, 721 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1038/nphys448
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nphys448
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