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A new approach to quantum computing — working with photons, or \.
But despite creating all these breakthrough technologies, physicists and philosophers who study quantum mechanics still haven’t come up with the answers to some big questions raised by the field’s founders. Given recent developments in quantum information science, researchers like me are using quantum information theory to explore new ways of thinking about these unanswered foundational questions. And one direction we’re looking into relates Albert Einstein’s relativity principle to the qubit.
Quantum computers
Quantum information science focuses on building quantum computers based on the quantum “bit” of information, or qubit. The qubit is historically grounded in the discoveries of physicists Max Planck and Einstein. They instigated the development of quantum mechanics in 1900 and 1905, respectively, when they discovered that light exists in discrete, or “quantum,” bundles of energy.
IOP Publishing has retracted a total of 350 papers from two different 2021 conference proceedings because an “investigation has uncovered evidence of systematic manipulation of the publication process and considerable citation manipulation.”
The case is just the latest involving the discovery of papers full of gibberish – aka “tortured phrases” – thanks to the work of Guillaume Cabanac, a computer scientist at the University of Toulouse, Cyril Labbé, of University Grenoble-Alpes and Alexander Magazinov, of Skoltech, in Moscow. The tool detects papers that contain phrases that appear to have been translated from English into another language, and then back into English, likely with the involvement of paper-generating software.
The papers were in the Journal of Physics: Conference Series (232 articles), and IOP Conference Series: Materials Science and Engineering (118 articles), plus four editorials.
Sometimes leaving well-enough alone is the best policy. Ask Teja Santosh Dandibhotla.
Upset that a paper of his had been retracted from the Journal of Physics: Conference Series, Santosh, a computer scientist at the CVR College of Engineering in Hyderabad, India, contacted us to plead his case. (We of course do not make decisions about retractions, we reminded him.)
Santosh’s article, “Intelligent defaulter Prediction using Data Science Process,” had been pulled along with some 350 other papers in two conference proceedings because IOP Publishing had “uncovered evidence of systematic manipulation of the publication process and considerable citation manipulation.”
Quantum computers have the potential to revolutionize our understanding of the world around us—and teach us how to manipulate it. The technology could enable the rapid design and development of life-saving drugs, simulate superconducting materials that would revolutionize technology and clean energy, and even offer insight into the underlying structure of space and time. Like the qubits that sit in superposition at the heart of quantum computers, the possibilities seem endless.
“Right now, you will find people who see quantum computing as a panacea,” says Susanne Yelin, a professor of physics in residence at Harvard’s Faculty of Arts and Sciences. “I am not one of them. But quantum computing could help us better understand fundamental physics, such as problems in condensed matter or particle physics. It could also advance quantum chemistry [which uses quantum physics to understand chemical systems]—and with it, better development of drugs and materials.”
At the Harvard Kenneth C. Griffin Graduate School of Arts and Sciences (Harvard Griffin GSAS), PhD physics students Maddie Cain, on whose dissertation committee Yelin sits, and Dolev Bluvstein are working to make the promise of quantum computing a reality. In the laboratory of Professor Mikhail Lukin, Cain and Bluvstein push the boundaries of science, advancing the prospects of transformative applications that could reshape our world.