The fundamental postulates of quantum mechanics rest upon the fact that the Hamiltonian, which quantifies the energy of the system, is given by a Hermitian operator. This means that the complex conjugate and transpose of the Hamiltonian should be equal to itself. Almost a century after the formulation of quantum mechanics, researchers are now trying to break free from this constraint — non-Hermitian Hamiltonians, which do not satisfy the aforementioned property, are now a new frontier of exploration in both theoretical and experimental physics. Paolo Hermignini is part of the project and is a Postdoctor in Condensed Matter and Quantum Optics at Fysikum.