Lifeboat Foundation

To keep his Universe static, Einstein added a term into the equations of general relativity, one he initially dubbed a negative pressure. It soon became known as the cosmological constant. Mathematics allowed the concept, but it had absolutely no justification from physics, no matter how hard Einstein and others tried to find one. The cosmological constant clearly detracted from the formal beauty and simplicity of Einstein’s original equations of 1915, which achieved so much without any need for arbitrary constants or additional assumptions. It amounted to a cosmic repulsion chosen to precisely balance the tendency of matter to collapse on itself. In modern parlance we call this fine tuning, and in physics it is usually frowned upon.

Einstein knew that the only reason for his cosmological constant to exist was to secure a static and stable finite Universe. He wanted this kind of Universe, and he did not want to look much further. Quietly hiding in his equations, though, was another model for the Universe, one with an expanding geometry. In 1922, the Russian physicist Alexander Friedmann would find this solution. As for Einstein, it was only in 1931, after visiting Hubble in California, that he accepted cosmic expansion and discarded at long last his vision of a static Cosmos.

Einstein’s equations provided a much richer Universe than the one Einstein himself had originally imagined. But like the mythic phoenix, the cosmological constant refuses to go away. Nowadays it is back in full force, as we will see in a future article.

“Measuring tBLG devices: the cryostat insert used in the experiments. (Courtesy: J Lau)” Measuring tB.

Measuring time might not seem like that complex of a thing. After all, we rely on simply counting seconds between the “then” and the “now.” But when you really start to break time down to the quantum level, things begin to get a bit foggier.

Self-testing is a promising method to infer the physics underlying specific quantum experiments using only collected measurements. While this method can be used to examine bipartite pure entangled states, so far it could only be applied to limited kinds of quantum states involving an arbitrary number of systems.

Researchers at Sorbonne University, ICFO-Institute of Photonic Sciences and Quantinuum recently introduced a framework for the quantum network-assisted self-testing of all pure entangled states of an arbitrary number of systems. Their paper, published in Nature Physics, could inform future research efforts aimed at certifying quantum phenomena.

“I was a postdoctoral researcher in Barcelona in 2014 in the group of Antonio Acín when the first author, Ivan Šupić and I began working on self-testing quantum states together,” Matty Hoban, one of the researchers who carried out the study, told Phys.org. “That is, certifying that you have systems in particular quantum states without trusting the devices and treating them as black boxes (called the device-independent setting). Part of this work involved exploring different kinds of scenarios of trust.”

Quantum processors are computing systems that process information and perform computations by exploiting quantum mechanical phenomena. These systems could significantly outperform conventional processors on certain tasks, both in terms of speed and computational capabilities.

While engineers have developed several promising quantum computing systems over the past decade or so, scaling these systems and ensuring that they can be deployed on a large-scale remains an ongoing challenge. One proposed strategy to increase the scalability of quantum processors entails the creation of modular systems containing multiple smaller quantum modules, which can be individually calibrated and then arranged into a bigger architecture. This, however, would require suitable and effective interconnects (i.e., devices for connecting these smaller modules).

Researchers at the Southern University of Science and Technology, the International Quantum Academy and other institutes in China have recently developed low-loss interconnects for linking the individual modules in modular superconducting quantum processors. These interconnects, introduced in Nature Electronics, are based on pure aluminum cables and on-chip impendence transformers.

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Finally, a rational exploration of what ChatGPT actually knows and what that means.

Try out my quantum mechanics course (and many others on math and science) on Brilliant using the link https://brilliant.org/sabine. You can get started for free, and the first 200 will get 20% off the annual premium subscription.

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Physicists have created a novel type of analog quantum computer capable of addressing challenging physics problems that the most powerful digital supercomputers cannot solve.

A groundbreaking study published in Nature Physics.

As the name implies, Nature Physics is a peer-reviewed, scientific journal covering physics and is published by Nature Research. It was first published in October 2005 and its monthly coverage includes articles, letters, reviews, research highlights, news and views, commentaries, book reviews, and correspondence.

In episode 13 of the Quantum Consciousness series, Justin Riddle discusses how microtubules are the most likely candidate to be a universal quantum computer that acts as a single executive unit in cells. First off, computer scientists are trying to model human behavior using neural networks that treat individual neurons as the base unit. But unicellular organisms are able to do many of the things that we consider to be human behavior! How does a single-cell lifeform perform this complex behavior? As Stuart Hameroff puts it, “neuron doctrine is an insult to neurons,” referring to the complexity of a single cell. Let’s look inside a cell, what makes it tick? Many think the DNA holds some secret code or algorithm that is executing the decision-making process of the cell. However, the microscope reveals a different story where the microtubules are performing a vast array of complex behaviors: swimming towards food, away from predators, coordinating protein delivery and creation within the cell. This begs the question: how do microtubules work? Well, they are single proteins organized into helical cylinders. What is going on here? Typically, we think of a protein’s function as being determined by its structure but the function of a single protein repeated into tubes is tough to unravel. Stuart Hameroff proposed that perhaps these tubulin proteins are acting as bits of information and the whole tube is working as a universal computer that can be programmed to fit any situation. Given the limitations of digital computation, Roger Penrose was looking for a quantum computer in biology and Stuart Hameroff was looking for more than a digital computation explanation. Hence, the Hameroff-Penrose model of microtubules as quantum computers was born. If microtubules are quantum computers, then each cell would possess a central executive hub for rapidly integrating information from across the cell and to turn that information into a single action plan that could be quickly disseminated. Furthermore, the computation would get a “quantum” speed-up in that exponentially large search spaces could be tackled in a reasonable timeframe. If microtubules are indeed quantum computers, then modern science has greatly underestimated the processing power of a single cell, let alone the entire human brain.

~~~ Timestamps ~~~
0:00 Introduction.
3:08 “Neuron doctrine is an insult to neurons”
8:23 DNA vs Microtubules.
14:20 Diffusion vs Central Hub.
17:50 Microtubules as Universal Computers.
23:40 Penrose’s Quantum Computation update.
29:48 Quantum search in a cell.
33:25 Stable microtubules in neurons.
35:18 Finding the self in biology.

Continue reading “Microtubules are Biological Computers: searching for the mind of a cell” »