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Not only could they transform quantum computing, they’re a candidate for dark matter.

A team of Chinese physicists from Shanghai’s Jiaotong University have proof beyond a reasonable doubt of the existence of the Majorana fermion — a special particle that could potentially revolutionize quantum computing.

“The search for this particle is for condensed-matter physicists what the Higgs boson search was for high-energy particle physicists,” said Leonid Rokhinson, an associate professor of physics at Purdue University, who was the first to detect the signature of the fermion in 2012 but was not involved in this study, in a 2012 press release. “It is a very peculiar object because it is a fermion yet it is its own antiparticle with zero mass and zero charge.”

Continue reading “Proof Beyond a Reasonable Doubt That Majorana Fermions Exist” »

Physicists working with the Large Hadron Collider beauty experiment (LHCb) have discovered what appears to be an entire family of new particles that our current physics models can’t explain.

The existence of these new forms of matter, known as tetraquarks, challenges our current understanding of the role they play inside the protons and neutrons that make up atoms — the fundamental building blocks of everything we know and love in the Universe.

Continue reading “Physicists have discovered what looks like an entire family of new particles in the LHC” »

Is quantum technology the future of the 21st century? On the occasion of the 66th Lindau Nobel Laureate Meeting, this is the key question to be explored today in a panel discussion with the Nobel Laureates Serge Haroche, Gerardus ‘t Hooft, William Phillips and David Wineland. In the following interview, Professor Rainer Blatt, internationally renowned quantum physicist, recipient of numerous honours, Council Member and Scientific Co-Chairman of the 66th Lindau Meeting, talks about what we can expect from the “second quantum revolution”.

Blatt has no doubt: quantum technologies are driving forward a technological revolution, the future impact of which is still unclear. Nothing stands in the way of these technologies becoming the engine of innovations in science, economics and society in the 21st century. Early laboratory prototypes have shown just how vast the potential of quantum technologies is. Specific applications are expected in the fields of metrology, computing and simulations. However, substantial funding is required to advance from the development stage.

Professor Blatt, the first quantum revolution laid the physical foundations for trailblazing developments such as computer chips, lasers, magnetic resonance imaging and modern communications technology. In the Quantum Manifest published in mid-May, researchers now talk about the advent of a second quantum revolution. What exactly does this mean?

Continue reading “Quantum technologies to revolutionize 21st century” »

Awesome!

What if industrial waste water could become fuel? With affordable, long-lasting catalysts, water could be split to produce hydrogen that could be used to power fuel cells or combustion engines.

By conducting complex simulations, scientists showed that adding lithium to aluminum nanoparticles results in orders-of-magnitude faster water-splitting reactions and higher hydrogen production rates compared to pure aluminum nanoparticles. The lithium allowed all the aluminum atoms to react, which increased yields (Nano Letters, “Hydrogen-on-demand using metallic alloy nanoparticles in water”).

Continue reading “Atomic-scale simulations predict how to use nanoparticles to increase hydrogen production” »

Great that they didn’t have to use a super computer to do their prescribed, lab controlled experiments. However, to limit QC to a super computer and experimental computations only is a big mistake; I cannot stress this enough. QC is a new digital infrastructure that changes our communications, cyber security, and will eventually (in the years to come) provide consumers/ businesses/ and governments with the performance they will need for AI, Biocomputing, and Singularity.

A group of physicists from the Skobeltsyn Institute of Nuclear Physics, the Lomonosov Moscow State University, has learned to use personal computer for calculations of complex equations of quantum mechanics, usually solved with help of supercomputers. This PC does the job much faster. An article about the results of the work has been published in the journal Computer Physics Communications.

Senior researchers Vladimir Pomerantcev and Olga Rubtsova, working under the guidance of Professor Vladimir Kukulin (SINP MSU) were able to use on an ordinary desktop PC with GPU to solve complicated integral equations of quantum mechanics — previously solved only with the powerful, expensive supercomputers. According to Vladimir Kukulin, personal computer does the job much faster: in 15 minutes it is doing the work requiring normally 2–3 days of the supercomputer time.

Continue reading “No need in supercomputers” »

If the “hints” of new particles turn out to be nothing but noise, it’s a nightmare scenario for many. But one physicist hopes for the nightmare to be real.

Want to simulate the creation of the Universe — use QC.

Scientists have for the first time simulated the creation of particle and antiparticle pairs in a quantum computer.

(Photo : gr8effect / Pixabay)

Continue reading “The Beginning of the Universe? Quantum Computer Could Simulate Particle Physics” »

We now have a way to do tracibility in QC.

Shutterstock.

Chinese scientists won a major victory recently, by proving that the Majorana fermion — a particle we’ve found tantalizing hints of for years — genuinely exists. This discovery has huge implications for quantum computing, and it might change the world. But how?

Continue reading “How The Majorana Fermion Is Going To Change The World” »

This video is worthless. I hear a person who is out of touch with the QC work and isn’t even aware all of the work going on. Frankly, QC is being worked on by big tech (Amazon, Google, Microsoft, D-Wave, IBM), governmental labs and incubators, limited set of start ups who are also (in many cases tied to big tech), and university research labs. Therefore, I don’t really find this soapbox video that informative as well as not in touch with where QC is today. It appears to me that this guy has sour grapes over not being engaged.

At least if you’re going to get on a soapbox and try to talk about QC like you’re somehow an expert or informed; at least make sure you know what has been shown, reported, and in development currently that has been publically announced so that you don’t look like you’re an un-informed consultant doing a superficial presentation and didn’t even bother doing the due diligence 1st. Otherwise, you just discredited your VC/ firm to the public and to those working on QC.

Continue reading “Quantum Computing: A Primer” »