The modern world is built on the success humans have had in exploiting the forces and processes that control the material universe. The laws of quantum mechanics as formulated in the 1920s make it theoretically possible to understand and calculate most of these forces and processes.
The Science and Technology Facilities Council’s (STFC) task is to enable scientists like us to deploy the laws of quantum mechanics by developing theories and software that make them applicable to research in fields as disparate as materials science, biology, chemistry, and particle physics. Our software packages run on the most powerful computers in order to deliver technological progress that tackles the big societal challenges.
The possibilities are unbounded. We are currently developing and using software to investigate materials for hydrogen powered cars and for the production of nuclear and solar energy, atomically thin sheets for use in next-generation computers, collision processes by which radiation leads to damage to DNA, and on details of antimatter trapping at CERN.