For more than two decades, physicist Wang Enge of Peking University trained his attention on the most familiar substance on Earth, convinced that water's apparent simplicity concealed profound mysteries at the quantum scale. His team has now made the first precise measurement of a single hydrogen bond and discovered that hydrogen atoms can tunnel through energy barriers in coordinated leaps — a phenomenon that classical models of water had long overlooked. Recognized with China's highest honor for fundamental research in 2025, their work reframes water not as a settled subject but as a frontie