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  1. To thermalize, or not to thermalize? Intuition tells us that an isolated physical system subjected to a sudden change (i.e., quenching) will evolve in a way that maximizes its entropy. If the system is in a pure, zero-entropy quantum state, it is expected to remain so even after quenching. How do we then reconcile statistical mechanics with quantum laws? To address this question, Kaufmanet al.used their quantum microscope to study strings of six rubidium atoms confined in the wells of an optical lattice (see the Perspective by Polkovnikov and Sels). When tunneling along the strings was suddenly switched on, the strings as a whole remained in a pure state, but smaller subsets of two or three atoms conformed to a thermal distribution. The force driving the thermalization was quantum entanglement. Science, this issue p.794; see also p.752 
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