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Scientists have successfully teleported a three-dimensional quantum state. The international effort between Chinese and Austrian scientists could be crucial for the future of quantum computers.

The researchers, from Austrian Academy of Sciences, the University of Vienna, and University of Science and Technology of China, were able to teleport the quantum state of one photon to another distant state. The three-dimensional transportation is a huge leap forward. Previously, only two-dimensional quantum teleportation of qubits has been possible. By entering a third dimension, the scientists were able to transport a more advanced unit of quantum information known as a “qutrit.”

Continue reading “Are Teleporting Qutrits the Future of Computing?” »

Developers who want to understand the complicated new field of computing can tune in for free weekly lectures.

We probably think we know gravity pretty well. After all, we have more conscious experience with this fundamental force than with any of the others (electromagnetism and the weak and strong nuclear forces). But even though physicists have been studying gravity for hundreds of years, it remains a source of mystery.

In our video Why Is Gravity Different? We explore why this force is so perplexing and why it remains difficult to understand how Einstein’s general theory of relativity (which covers gravity) fits together with quantum mechanics.

Continue reading “To Understand Gravity, Toss a Hard Drive into a Black Hole” »

The Raspberry Pi 400 comes with 4GB RAM, a faster Raspberry Pi 4 and a built-in heatsink to keep it cool.

Researchers at MIT and the University of Waterloo have developed a high-power, portable version of a device called a quantum cascade laser, which can generate terahertz radiation outside of a laboratory setting. The laser could potentially be used in applications such as pinpointing skin cancer and detecting hidden explosives.

Until now, generation of terahertz radiation powerful enough to perform real-time imaging and fast spectral measurements required temperatures far below 200 Kelvin (−100 degrees Fahrenheit) or lower. These temperatures could only be achieved with bulky equipment that limited the technology’s use to a laboratory setting. In a paper published in Nature Photonics, MIT Distinguished Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences Qing Hu and his colleagues report that their terahertz quantum cascade laser can function at temperatures of up to 250 K (−10 degrees Fahrenheit), meaning that only a compact portable cooler is required.

Terahertz quantum cascade lasers, tiny chip-embedded semiconductor laser devices, were first invented in 2002, but adapting them to operate far above 200 K proved to be so difficult that many people in the field speculated that there was a fundamental physical reason preventing it, Hu says.

Borrowing a page from high-energy physics and astronomy textbooks, a team of physicists and computer scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) has successfully adapted and applied a common error-reduction technique to the field of quantum computing.

In the world of subatomic particles and giant particle detectors, and distant galaxies and giant telescopes, scientists have learned to live, and to work, with uncertainty. They are often trying to tease out ultra-rare particle interactions from a massive tangle of other particle interactions and background “noise” that can complicate their hunt, or trying to filter out the effects of atmospheric distortions and interstellar dust to improve the resolution of astronomical imaging.

Also, inherent problems with detectors, such as with their ability to record all particle interactions or to exactly measure particles’ energies, can result in data getting misread by the electronics they are connected to, so scientists need to design complex filters, in the form of computer algorithms, to reduce the margin of error and return the most accurate results.

For those that like really fast personal computers. 😃

Considering how powerful computers nowadays need to be, I think everyone will benefit overall.

These workloads are comprised of a fixed amount of work, so we can plot the task energy against the time required to finish the job (bottom axis), thus generating a really useful power chart. Bear in mind that faster compute times, and lower task energy requirements, are ideal.

Continue reading “AMD Ryzen 9 5950X and 5900X Review: Zen 3 Breaks the 5 GHz Barrier” »

The first quantum revolution brought about semiconductor electronics, the laser and finally the internet. The coming, second quantum revolution promises spy-proof communication, extremely precise quantum sensors and quantum computers for previously unsolvable computing tasks. But this revolution is still in its infancy. A central research object is the interface between local quantum devices and light quanta that enable the remote transmission of highly sensitive quantum information. The Otto-Hahn group “Quantum Networks” at the Max-Planck-Institute of Quantum Optics in Garching is researching such a “quantum modem”. The team has now achieved a first breakthrough in a relatively simple but highly efficient technology that can be integrated into existing fiber optic networks. The work is published this week in Physical Review X.

The Corona pandemic is a daily reminder of how important the internet has become. The World Wide Web, once a by-product of basic physical research, has radically changed our culture. Could a quantum internet become the next major innovation out of physics?

It is still too early to answer that question, but basic research is already working on the quantum internet. Many applications will be more specialized and less sensual than video conferencing, but the importance of absolutely spy-proof long-distance communication is understandable to everyone. “In the future, a quantum internet could be used to connect quantum computers located in different places,” Andreas Reiserer says, “which would considerably increase their computing power!” The physicist heads the independent Otto-Hahn research group “Quantum Networks” at the Max-Planck-Institute of Quantum Optics in Garching.

SpaceX’s Starlink satellite cluster has been receiving much headline space recently as it continues adding satellites at a breathtaking pace. Much of this news coverage has focused on how it’s impacting amateur skygazers and how it could benefit people in far-flung regions. But technical details do matter, and over on Casey Handmer’s blog, there was a recent discussion of one of the most important aspects of how Starlink actually operates—what will it do with its data?

In networking lingo, data is quantized into “packets,” which are sets of ones and zeros that computers can understand. In the case of Starlink, these packets will bounce between ground stations and a series of satellites parked in nine separate low-Earth orbits. Each orbit will contain a number of satellites, and each satellite’s covered territory will overlap with the satellites to the north and south of it. When the constellation is complete, every spot on Earth will be covered by at least two Starlink satellites.

Continue reading “How will Starlink’s packet routing work?” »