QUANTUM News
The Latest Quantum News from around the world.
"Using the Physics of Consciousness & Quantum Mechanics we will unlock the true potential of our infinite world."
- Jonah Bolt
Physicists Levitate a Glass Nanosphere, Pushing It Into The Realm of Quantum Mechanics
Quantum mechanics deals with the behavior of the Universe at the super-small scale: atoms and subatomic particles that operate in ways that classical physics can't explain. In order to explore this tension between the quantum and the classical, scientists are attempting to get larger and larger objects to behave in a quantum-like way.
July 6th, 2021
Quantum Computing is Set to Transform Tech: 5 Stocks to Watch
Traditional computers have been making work easier since 1950s, but the enormous data being generated every day requires something significantly faster. Though it is still in its nascent stage, quantum computing holds a lot of promise in the long term, especially in the fields of artificial intelligence, machine learning and gene editing. Unlike traditional computers that use bits -- only one or zero, quantum computers take it to the next level by using quantum bits or qubits -- a zero, a one, or both values simultaneously.
July 20th, 2021
Unconventional Superconductor May Unlock New Ways To Build Quantum Computers
If it looks like a duck, swims like a duck and quacks like a duck, then it probably is a duck.
Scientists on the hunt for an unconventional kind of superconductor have produced the most compelling evidence to date that they’ve found one. In a pair of papers, researchers at the University of Maryland’s (UMD) Quantum Materials Center (QMC) and colleagues have shown that uranium ditelluride (or UTe2 for short) displays many of the hallmarks of a topological superconductor — a material that may unlock new ways to build quantum computers and other futuristic devices.
July 18th, 2021
‘Designer molecules’ could create tailor-made quantum devices
Researchers are concocting molecules specially suited for use as quantum bits or sensors.
A molecule with a central chromium ion (purple) can serve as a quantum bit, encoding information in the direction of its spin (indicated by its arrow in this illustration). Attached atoms (gray) alter the properties of the ion, allowing it to be manipulated by a laser (purple squiggle) and to emit light in response (red squiggle).
February 9th, 2021
Chinese quantum computer ‘sets record’ in processing test
Developers say the Zuchongzhi device can do in just over an hour a task that supercomputers would take years to achieve. Results surpass those produced by Google’s Sycamore processor in an experiment two years ago, they say.
Scientists in China have claimed another benchmark in computing, saying their quantum device takes just 72 minutes to do a task that would take the most powerful supercomputer at least eight years.
July 13th, 2021
How quantum networking could transform the internet [Status Report]
A breakthrough in quantum computing could expose every communications link. The same breakthrough could make everything secure again. What could change everything are all the events in-between.
Quantum computing (QC) and quantum networking (QN) are related, though independent, industries. Both leverage the same unexplained phenomenon in quantum physics: the entanglement between particles that enables them to share states -- or in the digital sense, information -- in apparent violation of relativity theory. But as services, they fulfill separate functions.
July 9th, 2021
Is Reality a Game of Quantum Mirrors? A New Theory Suggests It Might Be
Imagine you sit down and pick up your favorite book. You look at the image on the front cover, run your fingers across the smooth book sleeve, and smell that familiar book smell as you flick through the pages. To you, the book is made up of a range of sensory appearances.
But you also expect the book has its own independent existence behind those appearances. So when you put the book down on the coffee table and walk into the kitchen, or leave your house to go to work, you expect the book still looks, feels, and smells just as it did when you were holding it.
Jun 30, 2021
Why does DNA spontaneously mutate? Quantum physics might explain.
Quantum mechanics, which rules the world of the teensy-tiny, may help explain why genetic mutations spontaneously crop up in DNA as it makes copies of itself, a recent study suggests.
Quantum mechanics describes the strange rules that govern atoms and their subatomic components. When the rules of classical physics, which describe the big world, break down, quantum comes in to explain. In the case of DNA, classical physics offers one explanation for why changes can suddenly appear in a single rung of the spiraling ladder of DNA, resulting in what's called a point mutation.
February 15th, 2021
Physicists Show a Speed Limit Also Applies in the Quantum World.
Study by the University of Bonn determines minimum time for complex quantum operations.
Even in the world of the smallest particles with their own special rules, things cannot proceed infinitely fast. Physicists at the University of Bonn have now shown what the speed limit is for complex quantum operations. The study also involved scientists from MIT, the universities of Hamburg, Cologne and Padua, and the Jülich Research Center. The results are important for the realization of quantum computers, among other things. They are published in the prestigious journal Physical Review X, and covered by the Physics Magazine of the American Physical Society.
February 22, 2021
Ion-optics-based quantum microscope can image individual atoms.
A team of researchers at Universität Stuttgart has developed an ion-optics-based quantum microscope that is capable of creating images of individual atoms. In their paper published in the journal Physical Review Letters, the group explains how they built their microscope and how well it worked when tested.
Scientists have been pushing the boundaries of microscopy for many years—so much so that current quantum gas microscopes are now able to see objects as small as 0.5μm in size. That is small enough to look at groups of atoms. In this new effort, the researchers have pushed the boundary even further by creating a microscope that images individual atoms.
February 23, 2021
Quantum gate teleportation connects atomic qubits in two labs.
Researchers in Germany have performed a quantum gate operation between two quantum bits (qubits) in different laboratories. This marks a step towards distributed quantum logic, whereby system designers could build modular quantum computers, spreading qubits between different devices while allowing them to behave as one computer. Distributed systems would avoid crosstalk between qubits, which degrades quantum computations.
Adding qubits to a quantum computer is far trickier than adding bits to a classical one, as each qubit (which may be a trapped ion, a superconducting circuit, a diamond nitrogen–vacancy centre or many other physical manifestations of a quantum state) must be able to undergo the necessary logical interactions while also being protected from noise – which can destroy quantum information.
February 16, 2021
A quantum computer just solved a decades-old problem three million times faster than a classical computer
Using a method called quantum annealing, D-Wave's researchers demonstrated that a quantum computational advantage could be achieved over classical means.
Adding qubits to a quantum computer is far trickier than adding bits to a classical one, as each qubit (which may be a trapped ion, a superconducting circuit, a diamond nitrogen–vacancy centre or many other physical manifestations of a quantum state) must be able to undergo the necessary logical interactions while also being protected from noise – which can destroy quantum information.
February 23, 2021
The search for dark matter gets a speed boost from quantum technology.
This article was originally published at The Conversation. The publication contributed the article to Space.com's Expert Voices: Op-Ed & Insights.
Benjamin Brubaker, Postdoctoral Fellow in Quantum Physics, University of Colorado Boulder
Nearly a century after dark matter was first proposed to explain the motion of galaxy clusters, physicists still have no idea what it’s made of.
February 25, 2021
A new study reveals that quantum physics can cause mutations in our DNA
An innovative study has confirmed that quantum mechanics plays a role in biological processes and causes mutations in DNA.
Quantum biology is an emerging field of science, established in the 1920s, which looks at whether the subatomic world of quantum mechanics plays a role in living cells. Quantum mechanics is an interdisciplinary field by nature, bringing together nuclear physicists, biochemists and molecular biologists.
February 22nd, 2021