54808997
submission
quax writes:
Slashdot first reported on the Canadian start-up company that attempts piston powered nuclear fusion back in 2009. This new blog post takes a look at where they are now, and give some additional behind the scene info. For instance, a massive experimental rig for magnetized target fusion in the US is currently underutilized, because ITER's increasing cost absorbs all the public fusion research funding. Yet, because this Shiva Star device is located in an Air Force base, security restrictions prevent any meaningful cooperation with a none US company. Even if US researchers would love to rent this out in order to advance the science of magnetized target fusion, this is a no go.
Is this just security paranoia, or should the US preferably not use experimental facilities rather than allowing foreign companies to conduct experiments with them?
49466447
submission
quax writes:
The controversy to what extend Quantum Computing is over-hyped, has been supercharged with the recent success of D-Wave selling their version of a quantum computer. This caused a significant backlash from some researchers, who argue that the machine is not 'quantum' enough and doesn't conclusively demonstrate a speed-up over classical computing.
This kind of heated argument is part and parcel of the scientific discourse, yet often leads to abandonment cycles that see promising research avenues neglected, only to be rediscovered decades later. Is this inevitable? Simple human nature reasserting itself? Or is there a more rational way to determine where to focus research?
47105479
submission
quax writes:
If the company General Fusion succeeds in demonstrating the viability of their approach, the international ITER project will be pretty late to the party. Surprisingly this company managed to stick tightly to their development schedule in developing their reactor for Magnetized Target Fusion. This approach has never been tried at this scale, and it will be the first time to demonstrate net energy gain equivalent in this manner (the equivalent meaning, that if the pure deuterium mix in the test was replaced with one containing tritium you would get more power out than you put in).
The next big question will be if this can become commercially viable. The mechanical stresses the reactor will have to withstand are huge, so demonstrating that this can actually run continuously will be no small feat.
46420385
submission
quax writes:
Within the same week two major Quantum Information Technology milestones where announced: The Los Alamos National Labs unveiled that they've been operating a scalable quantum encrypted network for the last two years (link to original paper).
There have been commercial quantum encryption devices on the market for quite some time now, but these have been limited to point to point connections. Having a protocol that allows the seamless integration of quantum cryptography into the existing network stack raises this to an entirely different level.
Just days after this news came the announcement that the company D-Wave, that claims to ship the first quantum computing device, aced a test when their machine was put into direct comparison with conventional hardware. It wasn't even close. For the class of problems that the D-Wave machine is designed for, the next best algorithm on a regular CPU performed several thousand times worse.
45225121
submission
quax writes:
In the most influential textbook on the matter Michael Nielsen and Isaac Chuang wrote:
"Quantum Computing and Quantum Information Science has taught us to think physically about computation. (...) Indeed in the broadest terms we have learned that any physical theory, not just quantum mechanics, may be used as the basis for a theory of information processing and communication."
This is exactly what the Kish Cypher Encryption protocol is doing by exploiting thermodynamics in an unexpected fashion. Could this become an easier to implement alternative to Quantum Cryptography, providing unhackable networks?
43548793
submission
quax writes:
Feynman famously quipped that "nobody understands" quantum mechanics. But after almost a century shouldn't there be at least some consensus on how to interpret this theory? Ever since the famous argument between Bohr and Einstein over the EPR paradox, conventional wisdom was that Bohr's Copenhagen Interpretation will carry the day, but when surveying 33 leading experts at a quantum foundation conference, less than half voted that way.
Is it time for yet another paradigm change?
42344085
submission
quax writes:
Science and engineering is not free of fads. Sometimes they start with a bang and end up vilified as pathological science just like cold fusion did. But could something seemingly as established as Quantum Computing fall into the same category?
Some physicists are seriously proposing exactly that. The author argues that the amount of publications on Quantum Computing has reached an unsustainable plateau and that the ratio of one experimental to thirty theoretical papers demonstrates how little this field is actually grounded in reality.
But what if the shoe is on the other foot? Could it be that these animosities are actually more a reflection on the state of modern physics?
41616899
submission
quax writes:
Whenever Quantum Computing is dragged out to get some mainstream exposure it is the same old story: If we finally get these powerful machines then the end of all encryption is here and the sky is falling.
This article makes the case that there is much more to Quantum Computing than that, and that all the hand-wringing is not only pre-mature but also rather silly. Current quantum computing devices cannot defeat our standard encryption yet, but are at a point where they can already be a valuable new computing resource. On the other hand when considering how modern cryptography works, and when taking into account the progress made on Quantum Cryptography, the often repeated threat from Quantum Computers to the privacy of a encrypted data appears to be completely overblown.
40991919
submission
quax writes:
The first quantum computing devices have hit the market, while the juggernauts of the IT industry are still in research mode. So what is the difference between what you can buy now, and what IBM and Microsoft are researching? Turns out, unlike modern digital computers, the quantum computing field is far more diverse in terms of design and hardware approaches. This article attempts to sort this out and predicts a timeline for this nascent IT sector.
39828925
submission
quax writes:
Solving linear equations is one of the most common mathematical problems, and it is a fairly easy one that everybody learns to work in school. Surprisingly, a new algorithm has been found that improves over established methods within the domain of finite fields.
This algorithm is poised to find widespread use in applications as diverse as cryptography and quantum error correction.
The article provides links to the original paper and illustrates the concept of finite fields.
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?
