Lifeboat Foundation

In my work, I build instruments to study and control the quantum properties of small things like electrons. In the same way that electrons have mass and charge, they also have a quantum property called spin. Spin defines how the electrons interact with a magnetic field, in the same way that charge defines how electrons interact with an electric field. The quantum experiments I have been building since graduate school, and now in my own lab, aim to apply tailored magnetic fields to change the spins of particular electrons.

Research has demonstrated that many physiological processes are influenced by weak magnetic fields. These processes include stem cell development and maturation, cell proliferation rates, genetic material repair, and countless others. These physiological responses to magnetic fields are consistent with chemical reactions that depend on the spin of particular electrons within molecules. Applying a weak magnetic field to change electron spins can thus effectively control a chemical reaction’s final products, with important physiological consequences.

Currently, a lack of understanding of how such processes work at the nanoscale level prevents researchers from determining exactly what strength and frequency of magnetic fields cause specific chemical reactions in cells. Current cell phone, wearable, and miniaturization technologies are already sufficient to produce tailored, weak magnetic fields that change physiology, both for good and for bad. The missing piece of the puzzle is, hence, a “deterministic codebook” of how to map quantum causes to physiological outcomes.

How do quantum particles exchange information? An intriguing hypothesis regarding quantum information has recently been validated through experimental verification conducted at TU Wien.

If you were to randomly pick an individual from a crowd who stands remarkably taller than the average, it’s quite likely that this person will also surpass the average weight. This is because, statistically, knowledge about one variable often gives us some insight into another.

Quantum physics takes these correlations to another level, establishing even more potent connections between disparate quantities: distinct particles or segments of a vast quantum system can “share” a specific amount of information. This intriguing theoretical premise suggests that the calculation of this “mutual information” is surprisingly not influenced by the system’s overall volume, but only by its surface.

A simple mechanical system built from aluminium rods uses vibrations to encode information, mimicking quantum computing in a non-quantum system.

By Karmela Padavic-Callaghan

University of ChicagoFounded in 1,890, the University of Chicago (UChicago, U of C, or Chicago) is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois. Located on a 217-acre campus in Chicago’s Hyde Park neighborhood, near Lake Michigan, the school holds top-ten positions in various national and international rankings. UChicago is also well known for its professional schools: Pritzker School of Medicine, Booth School of Business, Law School, School of Social Service Administration, Harris School of Public Policy Studies, Divinity School and the Graham School of Continuing Liberal and Professional Studies, and Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering.

Imagine using your cellphone to control the activity of your own cells to treat injuries and disease. It sounds like something from the imagination of an overly optimistic science fiction writer. But this may one day be a possibility through the emerging field of quantum biology.

Over the past few decades, scientists have made incredible progress in understanding and manipulating biological systems at increasingly small scales, from protein folding to genetic engineering. And yet, the extent to which quantum effects influence living systems remains barely understood.

Continue reading “Quantum physics proposes a new way to study biology—the results could revolutionize our understanding of how life works” »

This may sound like a science fiction scenario, but some physicists have proposed that this could be the case. In this article, we will explore the idea that our universe may be inside of a black hole, and what implications this would have for our understanding of cosmology and physics.

A black hole is a region of space where gravity is so strong that nothing can escape, not even light. According to Einstein’s theory of general relativity, black holes are formed when massive stars collapse at the end of their life cycle. The resulting singularity is a point of infinite density and zero volume, where the laws of physics break down.

Scientists discover possible connection between human brain and cosmos on a quantum scale.

Quantum effects improve the performance of magnetic induction tomography—an imaging technique that has promising medical applications.

A new search for an interaction between a particle’s intrinsic spin and Earth’s gravitational field probes physics in the regime where quantum theory meets gravity.

Our understanding of physics is supported by two theoretical pillars. The first is quantum field theory, which underpins the standard model of particle physics. And the second is Einstein’s theory of general relativity, which describes the nature of gravity. Both pillars have withstood numerous stringent tests and have had myriad predictions spectacularly confirmed. Yet they are seemingly irreconcilable, hinting at a deeper truth. The path toward reconciling these theories is obscured by the dearth of experiments probing phenomena at the intersection of quantum physics and gravity. Now a team of researchers from the University of Science and Technology of China (USTC), led by Dong Sheng and Zheng-Tian Lu, has stepped into this breach by searching for an interaction between a particle’s intrinsic quantum spin and Earth’s gravitational field with unprecedented sensitivity (Fig. 1) [1].

Over the past decades, researchers and companies worldwide have been trying to develop increasingly advanced quantum computers. The key objective of their efforts is to create systems that will outperform classical computers on specific tasks, which is also known as realizing “quantum advantage.”

A research team at D-Wave Quantum Inc., a Canadian quantum computing company, recently created a new quantum computing system that outperforms classical computing systems on optimization problems. This system, introduced in a paper in Nature, is based on a programmable spin glass with 5,000 qubits (the quantum equivalents of bits in classical computing).

“This work validates the original hypothesis behind quantum annealing, coming full circle from some seminal experiments conducted in the 1990s,” Andrew D. King, one of the researchers who carried out the study, told Phys.org.