Researchers at the University of Southampton have accidentally solved a decades-old problem in quantum entanglement after leaving their equipment running over the late May bank holiday. The discovery occurred because nobody fancied making the trip in on the Monday.

The breakthrough centres on maintaining quantum coherence at room temperature, a challenge that has consumed millions in research funding across multiple continents. The Southampton team achieved it by going to Cornwall for three days and not thinking about it.

“We’d normally power everything down, but the protocol takes about four hours and frankly we all had trains to catch,” said Dr MichaelЕршинів, lead researcher on the project. “When we got back Tuesday, the particles had achieved stable entanglement. We thought the sensors were broken.”

The equipment in question, a £2.3 million quantum processing unit, was originally scheduled for installation in 2019. It arrived in 2021 due to what the university described as “supply chain issues”. It was then installed in the wrong building. Then the right building had a roof leak. By the time the apparatus was operational, two of the original research team had left academia entirely.

The accidental discovery has already attracted attention from institutions with considerably larger budgets. Representatives from MIT visited last week. They were reportedly baffled by the Southampton lab’s filing system, which consists of three different types of logbook, none of them completed since February.

“The trick seems to be benign neglect combined with structural underfunding,” explained Professor Janet Okonkwo, Director of the Institute for Quantum Research. “Our American colleagues keep trying to actively solve problems. We just leave things until they sort themselves out or the building gets condemned.”

Professor Okonkwo noted that the discovery would have been made sooner, but the lab was without a working kettle for six months and nobody could concentrate properly.

The university has reportedly received £400,000 in additional funding to continue the research. £180,000 of this will go toward addressing the roof leak. The remainder will cover three years of salary for a postdoc position, although the job listing specifies applicants must have their own laptop.

Dr Sharma confirmed the team plans to replicate the results by leaving equipment unattended over the August bank holiday. They will then take most of September off because everyone’s used up their teaching relief and needs a break.

The research has been submitted to Nature Physics. It is currently delayed because Reviewer 2 has comments and Reviewer 2 always has comments.