Abstract

The enormous progress in the science driven modern technology has fundamentally transformed the human society, creating all kinds of comfort of the modern civilization. Science is now positioned to initiate a new ‘control age’, instead of being only able to ‘observe’ and ‘interpret’ the quantum world. The pressing needs of ‘post-Moore’ information era, the world-scale energy and environment crisis, as well as the human dream of establishing ‘dialogue’ between biological and non-biological matter call for the ability to control the matter, energy and information at the atomic, molecular, even the electronic level. The modern instrumentation allows for observing, manipulating single atoms/molecules, creation and detection of single electron charge/spin and single photon. The central issue is to understand and to control the mysterious emergent properties of the quantum matter. Several examples of the emergent phenomena will be illustrated, while the BCS theory of superconductivity will be used to explain some peculiar features of these phenomena like symmetry breaking. Some current challenges in studying the quantum matter will be outlined.