How can you tell a physicist from a normal person? If they ask “I wonder how small we can make a fridge?” instead of “Does that fridge hold enough beer,” you’re probably talking to a physicist. This is exactly the question posed in a recent Physical Review A paper. And the answer is about this big [holds thumb and finger really close together]. No seriously, it turns out that if you get it right, a fridge made from just a single quantum object, like an atom, is possible. Furthermore, while such a fridge can’t get to absolute zero, it can get arbitrarily close.

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A fridge small enough to chill quantum bottles of beer