What Rushkoff and Malik are describing is a new experience of physics for humans, more akin to magic or at least quantum mechanics than to the classical Newtonian physics on which the modern world was based.

FORBES: Om Malik's Data Darwinism And The New Physics Of Information

The sensors rely on quantum tunnelling, in which electrons take journeys that would not be allowed by the laws of classical physics, as long as the distances involved are tiny.

ECONOMIST: Monitor: Very handy | The

Here's why that matters so greatly: When we get down to this small size, the classical laws of physics change.

FORBES: Magazine Article

At the other end of the range, in objects larger than 50nm the laws of classical physics become increasingly dominant.

ECONOMIST: Small wonders

It better accounted for oddities of nature, such as anomalies in the orbit of Mercury, that classical physics, as formulated by Newton, could not explain.

WSJ: Researchers Spent $750 million��and 52 Years��Affirming Theory of Relativity