Scientists achieved the ‘impossible’ in 2024, teleporting a quantum state through more than 30 kilometers amid a torrent of internet traffic.
In 2024, a quantum state of light was successfully teleported through more than 30 kilometers (around 18 miles) of fiber optic cable amid a torrent of internet traffic – a feat of engineering once considered impossible.
The impressive demonstration by researchers in the US may not help you beam to work to beat the morning traffic, or download your favorite cat videos faster.
Gov. Wes Moore (D), who calls quantum computing a “lighthouse industry” for Maryland, has secured more than $1 billion in funding to help create a local industry hub.
PRESS RELEASE — Los Alamos National Laboratory has formed the Center for Quantum Computing, which will bring together the Lab’s diverse quantum computing research capabilities. Headquartered in downtown Los Alamos, the Center for Quantum Computing will consolidate the Laboratory’s expertise in national security applications, quantum algorithms, quantum computer science and workforce development in a shared research space.
“This new center of excellence will bring together the Laboratory’s quantum computing research capabilities that support Department of Energy, Defense and New Mexico state initiatives to achieve a critical mass of expertise greater than the individual parts,” said Mark Chadwick, associate Laboratory director for Simulation, Computing and Theory. “This development highlights our commitment to supporting the next generation of U.S. scientific and technological innovation in quantum computing, especially as the technology can support key Los Alamos missions.”
The center will bring together as many as three dozen quantum researchers from across the Lab. The center’s formation occurs at a pivotal time for the development of quantum computing, as Lab researchers partner with private industry and on a number of state and federal quantum computing initiatives to bring this high-priority technology closer to fruition. Laboratory researchers may include those working with the DARPA Quantum Benchmarking Initiative, the DOE’s Quantum Science Center, the National Nuclear Security Administration Advanced Simulation and Computing program’s Beyond Moore’s Law project, and multiple Laboratory Directed Research and Development projects.
The multiverse is often dismissed as speculation — a science-fiction idea with no place in serious physics. But for many theoretical physicists, the multiverse is not a fantasy. It is a conclusion.
In this video, we explore why the multiverse may be real.
This is not an argument based on imagination or popularity. It is based on what happens when modern physics is taken seriously. Well-tested ideas like cosmic inflation, quantum mechanics, and high-energy theory naturally lead to a picture in which our universe is not unique.
Drawing on ideas associated with Leonard Susskind, this documentary explains how the multiverse emerges as a consequence, not as an assumption. In inflationary models, different regions of space stop inflating at different times, producing universes with different properties. In theories with many possible vacuum states, the laws of physics themselves can vary from one region to another.
This framework helps explain one of the deepest puzzles in physics: fine-tuning. The constants of nature appear precisely adjusted for the existence of complex structures and life. In a single-universe picture, this looks mysterious. In a multiverse, it becomes a selection effect — we observe this universe because only certain universes can be observed at all.
The multiverse raises uncomfortable questions. It challenges prediction, explanation, and even the traditional goals of science. But discomfort is not a reason to reject a theory. If the multiverse is real, physics must adapt.
Physicists at Heidelberg University have developed a new theory that finally unites two long-standing and seemingly incompatible views of how exotic particles behave inside quantum matter. In some cases, an impurity moves through a sea of particles and forms a quasiparticle known as a Fermi polaron; in others, an extremely heavy impurity freezes in place and disrupts the entire system, destroying quasiparticles altogether. The new framework shows these are not opposing realities after all, revealing how even very heavy particles can make tiny movements that allow quasiparticles to emerge.
Entropy is one of the most profound and misunderstood concepts in modern science — at once a physical quantity, a measure of uncertainty, and a metaphor for the passage of time itself. Entropy: The Order of Disorder explores this concept in its full philosophical and scientific depth, tracing its evolution from the thermodynamics of Clausius and Boltzmann to the cosmology of the expanding universe, the information theory of Shannon, and the paradoxes of quantum mechanics.
At the heart of this study lies a critical insight: entropy in its ideal form can exist only in a perfectly closed and isolated system — a condition that is impossible to realize, even for the universe itself. From this impossibility arises the central tension of modern thought: the laws that describe equilibrium govern a world that never rests.
Bridging physics, philosophy, and cosmology, this book examines entropy as a universal principle of transformation rather than decay. It situates the second law of thermodynamics within a broader intellectual landscape, connecting it to the philosophies of Heraclitus, Kant, Hegel, and Whitehead, and to contemporary discussions of information, complexity, and emergence.
A research team affiliated with UNIST has developed stable and efficient chalcogenide-based photoelectrodes, addressing a longstanding challenge of corrosion. This advancement paves the way for the commercial viability of solar-driven water splitting technology—producing hydrogen directly from sunlight without electrical input.
Jointly led by Professors Ji-Wook Jang and Sung-Yeon Jang from the School of Energy and Chemical Engineering, the team reported a highly durable, corrosion-resistant metal-encapsulated PbS quantum dot (PbS-QD) solar cell-based photoelectrode that delivers both high photocurrent and long-term operational stability for photoelectrochemical (PEC) water splitting without the need for sacrificial agents. The research is published in the journal Nature Communications.
PEC water splitting is a promising route for sustainable hydrogen production, where sunlight is used to drive the decomposition of water into hydrogen and oxygen within an electrolyte solution. The efficiency of this process depends heavily on the stability of the semiconductor material in the photoelectrode, which absorbs sunlight and facilitates the electrochemical reactions. Although chalcogenide-based sulfides, like PbS are highly valued for their excellent light absorption and charge transport properties, they are prone to oxidation and degradation when submerged in water, limiting their operational stability.
This Review surveys progress in the development of carbon nanotubes as single-photon sources for emerging quantum technologies, with a focus on chemical synthesis and quantum defect engineering, computational studies of structure-property relationships, and experimental investigations of quantum optical properties.
Researchers in Australia have unveiled the largest quantum simulation platform built to date, opening a new route to exploring the complex behavior of quantum materials at unprecedented scales.
Reporting in Nature, a team led by Michelle Simmons at the University of New South Wales (UNSW) Sydney has demonstrated a platform they call “Quantum Twins”: a two-dimensional array of around 15,000 individually controllable quantum dots. The researchers say the system could soon be used to simulate a wide range of exotic quantum effects that emerge in large, strongly correlated materials.
As quantum technologies advance, it is becoming increasingly important to understand how advanced quantum materials behave under different conditions.
Concerns that quantum computers may start easily hacking into previously secure communications has motivated researchers to work on innovative new ways to encrypt information. One such method is quantum key distribution (QKD), a secure, quantum-based method in which eavesdropping attempts disrupt the quantum state, making unauthorized interception immediately detectable.
Previous attempts at this solution were limited by short distances and reliance on special devices, but a research team in China recently demonstrated the ability to maintain quantum encryption over longer distances. The research, published in Science, describes device-independent QKD (DI-QKD) between two single-atom nodes over up to 100 km of optical fiber.
