38758563
submission
quax writes:
The recent physics Noble price awards highlighted the prospect of quantum computing. Yet, in the media reports there was no mentioning of the only company that claims to ship the first quantum computing device. This is despite some recent impressive computational feats that were accomplished on its hardware and published in Nature. The company seems to do all the right things, so why do they get so little mainstream coverage?
37930189
submission
quax writes:
In the wake of the Fukushima disaster the nuclear industry again faces massive opposition. Germany even decided to abandon nuclear energy altogether and the future of the industry is under a cloud of uncertainty in Japan. But one thing seems to be here to stay for a very, very long time: The radioactive waste that has half-lives measured in thousands of years.
But there is a technology under development in Belgium that could change all this: A sub-critical reactor design, driven by a particle accelerator that can transmute the nuclear waste into something that goes away within about two hundred years.
Could this lead to a revival of the nuclear industry and the reprocessing of spend reactor fuel?
37594345
submission
quax writes:
Recently news made the round that the Heisenberg Uncertainty principle was supposedly violated. (Slashdot reported on it here).
The underlying papers are quite mundane. But all caveats get stripped out in the reporting until only the wrong sensational twist remains.
Heisenberg did at some point speculate that the uncertainty relationship may be due to the measurements disturbing the system that is probed, but this idea has long been relegated to the dust bin of science history. So Robert R. Tucci deservedly demolishes this class of weak measurement experiments.
37533551
submission
quax writes:
Entanglement lies at the heart of quantum mechanics and irritated Einstein to no end who called it "spooky action at a distance".
More recently science learned how to use entanglement as an information processing and computing resource. For instance it was thought to be the foundational ingredient for inherently wiretap safe quantum cryptography.
Now a recent paper in Nature Physics showed that the underlying phenomenon of quantum teleportation can be achieved by using none-entangled separable states that only display a low degree of non-classical correlations.
These states are characterized by their Quantum Discord property. The latter may turn-out to be more important than entanglement for the young field of quantum computing.
Time to add a new term to your science vocabulary.
37359785
submission
quax writes:
Bettina Wulff faces an uphill battle for her reputation. Her husband had to resign as Germany's president due to corruption allegations and has many detractors. Apparently some of them started a character assassination campaign against his wife. At least that is, if you trust serious journalists who looked into the matter and stated that it is made up. Unfortunately though for Bettina Wulff, the rumors took off on the Internet. Now whenever you enter her name Google suggest the additional search terms "prostitute" and "escort". Google refuses to alter its search index.
What do you think, should Google be allowed to destroy somebody's reputation like this?
37022591
submission
quax writes:
In school you probably learned that the decay rate of radioactive matter is solely determined by the halftime specific to the element. There is no environmental factor that can somehow tweak this process. At least there shouldn’t be. Now a second study confirmed previous findings that the decay rate of some elements seems to be under the subtle and mysterious influence of the sun. As of now there is no theoretical explanation for this strange effect buried in the decay rate data.
36782501
submission
quax writes:
For almost a century, ever since Einstein published his theory of General Relativity, a truly unified theory has been evading physicists . After decades of efforts, String theory and other mainstream approaches (so far) failed to deliver. This article takes a look at why it is so hard to reconcile Einstein's masterpiece with Quantum Mechanics and why there's hope that newly proposed experiments may eventually rectify the situation.
36217483
submission
quax writes:
Diamonds are an incredibly versatile material. A recent slashdot stories report its use in medicine, another shows that exploiting is hardness can help to produce better phase change memory. Some synthetic diamonds are semi-conductors and could be made into chips that don’t require cooling. Nevertheless, diamonds never played an important role for computer technology. This may be about to change. Ironically it is this precious gem that could result in Quantum Computers cheap enough for the rest of us.
36001029
submission
quax writes:
Getting a scientific paper published that goes against the grain of conventional wisdom was never easy. Especially when it seems to contain an obvious glaring mistake. Fortunately despite already being some kind of pop celebrity with no shortage of fan mail, Einstein still opened letters he received from strangers. And this is how a trivial, fateful counting mistake was able to change the course of physics forever.
35826161
submission
quax writes:
How do you explain Quantum Computing to the uninitiated? Many expert have tried, although one of the leading ones rather settled for explaining why there is no easy explanation. As Feynman said in so many words, nobody really understands quantum mechanics. How the heck can it then be properly used as a computational resource? This article rounds up some noteworthy explanation attempts.
33527607
submission
quax writes:
Recently theoretical physicist Dr. Gates recalls his reaction to watching the movie the Matrix, when interviewed for NPR's "On Being" radio show:
The thought occurred to me, suppose there were physicists in this movie. How would they figure out that they lived in the Matrix? One way they might do that is to look for evidence of codes in the laws of their physics. But, you see, that's what had happened to me already.
So are we actually living in a simulated reality?
32805903
submission
quax writes:
Fringe theoretical physicist Joy Christian challenges quantum computing luminary Scott Aaronson. He bets double the amount that Scott promised anyone who proves Quantum Computing to be a mirage. Joy has some unconventional ideas and claims his work disproves the famous Bell inequality. Scott blogs about it an hilarity ensues.
If they stand by their bets, one of them will most likely lose a lot of money in the not to distant future.
32437885
submission
quax writes:
Although widely admired and loved, in the end he died like so many who came to extremes of fame or fortune — estranged from family and separated from old friends. The only person to witness his death in exile was a nurse, incapable of understanding his last words which were uttered in a language foreign to her.
31001335
submission
quax writes:
Quantum Computing has come a long way since the idea was born 30 years ago. It is a tall order to describe the entire history of this field in one blog post. But if Hawkins managed to get all of time treated in one book than surely three decades can be compressed like this. At least the point of inception writes itself: In the beginning there was Feynman.
30466893
submission
quax writes:
You may know the type, the kind of people who think they’ve read a quantum mechanics book after putting down Capra’s the Tao of Physics.
Ever wondered where they came from? This article has the unexpected answer.
