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Eureka! A research team featuring dozens of scientists working in partnership with Google‘s quantum computing labs may have created the world’s first time crystal inside a quantum computer. This is the kind of news that makes me want to jump up and do a happy dance. These scientists may have produced an entirely new phase of matter. I’m going to do my best to explain what that means and why I personally believe this is the most important scientific breakthrough in our lifetimes. However, for the sake of clarity, there’s two points I need to make first: 1. Time crystals...

Originally built to speed up calculations, a machine-learning system is now making shocking progress at the frontiers of experimental quantum physicsQuantum physicist Mario Krenn remembers sitting in a café in Vienna in early 2016, poring over computer printouts, trying to make sense of what MELVIN had found. MELVIN was a machine-learning algorithm Krenn had built, a kind of artificial intelligence. Its job was to mix and match the building blocks of standard quantum experiments and find solutions to new problems. And it did find many interesting ones. But there was one that made no sense. “The first thing I thought...

In a major scientific leap, University of Queensland researchers have created a quantum microscope that can reveal biological structures that would otherwise be impossible to see. This paves the way for applications in biotechnology, and could extend far beyond this into areas ranging from navigation to medical imaging. The microscope is powered by the science of quantum entanglement, an effect Einstein described as “spooky interactions at a distance.” Quantum Microscope Up Close UQ’s quantum microscope, ready to zero in on previously impossible-to-see biology. Credit: The University of Queensland Professor Warwick Bowen, from UQ’s Quantum Optics Lab and the ARC Centre...

The accelerating effort to understand the mathematics of quantum field theory will have profound consequences for both math and physics.Over the past century, quantum field theory has proved to be the single most sweeping and successful physical theory ever invented. It is an umbrella term that encompasses many specific quantum field theories — the way “shape” covers specific examples like the square and the circle. The most prominent of these theories is known as the Standard Model, and it is this framework of physics that has been so successful. “It can explain at a fundamental level literally every single experiment...

Quantum teleportation is a "disembodied" transfer of quantum states from one location to another. The quantum teleportation of a qubit is achieved using quantum entanglement, in which two or more particles are inextricably linked to each other. If an entangled pair of particles is shared between two separate locations, no matter the distance between them, the encoded information is teleported. In a paper published in PRX Quantum, the team presents for the first time a demonstration of a sustained, long-distance teleportation of qubits made of photons (particles of light) with fidelity greater than 90%. The qubits were teleported over a...

A Canadian teenager just took first place in a global science competition for her brilliant explanation of quantum tunneling.Maryam Tsegaye lives in Fort McMurray—a city that hit headlines for devastating reasons in 2016, when 88,000 people were forced from their homes due to wildfire.Now, thanks to her ability to explain tricky quantum physics theory with ease, this 17-year-old has taken top prize at the sixth annual international Breakthrough Junior Challenge.The challenge is a science video competition where young people showcase their knowledge of scientific principles in various fields.In a three-minute explainer, Maryam likened the behavior of electrons to how her...

Chinese scientists claim to have built a quantum computer that is able to perform certain computations nearly 100 trillion times faster than the world’s most advanced supercomputer, representing the first milestone in the country’s efforts to develop the technology. The researchers have built a quantum computer prototype that is able to detect up to 76 photons through Gaussian boson sampling, a standard simulation algorithm, the state-run Xinhua news agency said, citing research published in Science magazine. That’s exponentially faster than existing supercomputers. The breakthrough represents a quantum computational advantage, also known as quantum supremacy, in which no traditional computer can...

Who believes President Donald J. Trump would care about securing America with 400+ miles of new border fence, but he wouldn’t care about securing America’s terribly corrupt voting system with remarkably safe, quantum computing systems built on highly proven, blockchain technology? Why would President Trump defend us against illegal foreign invasion into our country but, not defend us against illegal foreign invasion into our voting systems? Why did President Trump unveil a brand new www.Quantum.gov Agency a few months ago? Why would President Trump add Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT), a remarkable new blockchain technology, to his list of Top 20...

The Chinese Communist Party (CCP)’s 13th Five-Year Plan is going to conclude this year. For the first time, quantum communications was part of the plan, and it was even listed as the second largest strategic emerging industry and a government-sponsored R&D project. But the project is likely to fail and is going to be a big investment failure.On Sept. 29, 2017, the regime’s mouthpiece Xinhua highly praised the official opening of the “Beijing-Shanghai Link”—a quantum secured communication fiber-optic link that connected Beijing and Shanghai. Pan Jianwei, the project’s leader and China’s top quantum physicist, indicated that this quantum link will...

New evidence that the quantum world is even stranger than we thought .journalist-note { background-color: #ebd99f; padding: 0.5rem 0.75rem; } <p> .journalist-note p { margin: 0 !important; } Note to journalists: Journalists visiting campus should follow visitor health guidelines. Experimental evidence of quasiparticles called anyons has been found by a team of scientists at Purdue University. Electrical interference in the experiment created a pattern which the researchers called a “pyjama plot”; jumps in the interference pattern were the signature of the presence of anyons. (Purdue University image/James Nakamura) WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. — New experimental evidence of a collective behavior of...

University of Chicago's Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering announced the discovery of a simple modification that allows quantum systems to stay operational—or "coherent"—10,000 times longer than before. Though the scientists tested their technique on a particular class of quantum systems called solid-state qubits, they think it should be applicable to many other kinds of quantum systems and could thus revolutionize quantum communication, computing and sensing. Quantum states need an extremely quiet, stable space to operate, as they are easily disturbed by background noise coming from vibrations, temperature changes or stray electromagnetic fields. Thus, scientists try to find ways to keep...

What is the fundamental nature of reality? Is space-time — the four-dimensional fabric of our universe — ultimately smooth at the tiniest of scales, or something else? It seems impossible to measure, but with the power of advanced telescopes peering through billions of light-years of distance, researchers are beginning to look down. Deep down.

The news: Honeywell, a US company best known for its home thermostats, has announced that it has built the world’s most powerful quantum computer. While all eyes were on IBM and Google, which last year knocked heads over quantum supremacy, Honeywell has been working quietly on quantum tech that it plans to make available to clients via the internet in the next three months. How it works: Most quantum computers, including those being developed by IBM and Google, are built around superconducting qubits, which use supercooled circuits. Honeywell’s quantum computer uses a different technology, called ion traps, which hold ions—the...

After more than 50 years on the air, Star Trek has become a sort of universal vision of the future. Where other stories imagine a world torn by war, or at the mercy of technology run wild, Star Trek imagines, if not the best possible future, one very close to it. Creator Gene Roddenberry's vision of humanity in the 23rd and 24th centuries unifies the planet, does away with grand-scale internal conflict, erases the need for a money-based economy, and opens up a whole galaxy of possibilities for the human species. The result is a people working together to create...

In this video I use a type II superconductor to perform a quantum locking demonstration using YCBO (Yttrium barium copper oxide). I then explain in depth how superconductors and quantum locking (Flux pinning) works. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8GY4m022tgo&t=370s

The theoretical notion of a 'quantum heat engine' has been around for several decades. It was first introduced around sixty years ago by Scovil and Schulz-DuBois, two physicists at Bell Labs who drew an analogy between three-level masers and thermal machines. In the years that followed, other researchers have developed a variety of theories building on the ideas of Scovil and Schulz-DuBois, introducing proposals of thermodynamic cycles at the quantum scale. Very recently, physicists have started testing some of these theories in experimental settings. One of these experiments was carried out by a team of researchers at the University of...

Here’s what quantum supremacy does—and doesn’t—mean for computing And no, super-powerful computers are not about to take over by Martin Giles Sep 24, 2019 Google Google has reportedly demonstrated for the first time that a quantum computer is capable of performing a task beyond the reach of even the most powerful conventional supercomputer in any practical time frame—a milestone known in the world of computing as “quantum supremacy.”The ominous-sounding term, which was coined by theoretical physicist John Preskill in 2012, evokes an image of Darth Vader–like machines lording it over other computers. And the news has already produced some outlandish...

Google researchers have reportedly achieved “quantum supremacy” The news: According to a report in the Financial Times, a team of researchers from Google led by John Martinis have demonstrated quantum supremacy for the first time. This is the point at which a quantum computer is shown to be capable of performing a task that’s beyond the reach of even the most powerful conventional supercomputer. The claim appeared in a paper that was posted on a NASA website, but the publication was then taken down. Google did not respond to a request for comment from MIT Technology Review.Why NASA? Google struck...

The more entanglement in the so-called Hilbert space—the realm where quantum information processing can take place—the better. Previous photonic approaches were able to reach 18 qubits encoded in six entangled photons in the Hilbert space. Purdue researchers maximized entanglement with a gate using four qudits—the equivalent of 20 qubits—encoded in only two photons. In quantum communication, less is more. "Photons are expensive in the quantum sense because they're hard to generate and control, so it's ideal to pack as much information as possible into each photon," said Poolad Imany, a postdoctoral researcher in Purdue's School of Electrical and Computer Engineering....

A recent test has confirmed the predictions of quantum trajectory theory, which describes what happens during the long-mysterious “collapse” of a quantum system.Imagine if all our scientific theories and models told us only about averages: if the best weather forecasts could only give you the average daily amount of rain expected over the next month, or if astronomers could only predict the average time between solar eclipses. In the early days of quantum mechanics, that seemed to be its inevitable limitation: It was a probabilistic theory, telling us only what we will observe on average if we collect records for...