New technique uses fraction of measurements to efficiently find quantum wave functions

The result of every possible measurement on a quantum system is coded in its wave function, which until recently could be found only by taking many different measurements of a system and estimating a wave function that best fit all those measurements. Just two years ago, with the advent of a technique called direct measurement, scientists discovered they could reliably determine a system's wave function by "weakly" measuring one of its variables (e.g. position) and "strongly" measuring a complem...