Circuits for complex quantum calculations are typically limited by their size and intricacy.
A new quantum-inspired algorithm has cracked a problem so massive that conventional supercomputers struggle to even approach it. Researchers used the method to simulate extraordinarily complex quantum materials known as quasicrystals, opening the door to powerful new quantum devices and ultra-efficient electronics. The work could help scientists design advanced topological qubits and materials for future quantum computers.
An international collaboration between a French quantum startup and a major Taiwanese electronics manufacturer has yielded a new open-source tool for exploring a critical area of quantum computing. Quobly and Taiwan’s Hon Hai Research Institute, the R&D arm of Foxconn, jointly released a numerical toolbox dedicated to the Quantum Phase Estimation (QPE) algorithm, described as a cornerstone of fault-tolerant quantum computing with major applications in quantum chemistry and materials science. While QPE’s theoretical benefits are understood, simulating its practical resource needs has proven difficult; the toolbox aims to bridge this gap by allowing researchers to explore implementations and their implications. The tool focuses on practical, interpretable numerical experiments, enabling full circuit executions for up to 20 qubits and circuits ranging from 1,000 to 100,000 gates on standard laptops.
Quantum Phase Estimation Toolbox for Molecular Systems
While the theoretical underpinnings of QPE are well established, simulating its practical demands has proven a significant hurdle, limiting exploration beyond simplified models. The toolbox addresses this gap by offering a platform for practical, interpretable numerical experiments, allowing scientists to investigate QPE implementations without requiring access to full-scale quantum hardware, which is currently unavailable. Built upon advanced tensor network techniques and the open-source quimb library, the toolbox facilitates the preparation of initial states using DMRG and matrix product states, and allows encoding of molecular Hamiltonians into quantum circuits through methods like trotterization and qubitization. Researchers can directly compare standard QPE with the single-ancilla Robust Phase Estimation (RPE) method, analyzing circuit depth, gate counts, and potential error sources.
If you could take an apple and break it into smaller and smaller parts, you would find molecules, then atoms, followed by subatomic particles like protons and the quarks and gluons that make them up. You might think you hit the bottom, but, according to string theorists, if you keep going to even smaller scales—about a billion billion times smaller than a proton—you will find more: tiny vibrating strings.
Developed in the 1960s, string theory proposes that everything in the universe is made from invisible strings. The theory arose as a possible solution to the problem of “quantum gravity,” the quest to align quantum mechanics, which describes our world at the smallest scales, with the general theory of relativity, which explains how our universe works on the largest scales (and includes gravity). Researchers have tried to reconcile the two theories—asking, for example, how gravity behaves in the quantum realm—but their equations go berserk, or in mathematical terms, go to infinity.
String theory is a mathematical solution that tames the unruly infinities. It purports that all particles, including the graviton—the hypothetical particle believed to convey the force of gravity—are generated by very small vibrating strings. The math behind string theory requires the strings to vibrate in at least 10 dimensions, rather than the four we live in (three for space and one for time), which is one of the reasons some scientists are not convinced that string theory is correct. But perhaps the biggest challenge for the theory is the ultrahigh energies required for testing it: Such an experiment would require a particle collider the size of a galaxy.
Developed in the 1960s, string theory proposes that everything in the universe is made from invisible strings. The theory arose as a possible solution to the problem of “quantum gravity,” the quest to align quantum mechanics, which describes our world at the smallest scales, with the general theory of relativity, which explains how our universe works on the largest scales (and includes gravity). Researchers have tried to reconcile the two theories—asking, for example, how gravity behaves in the quantum realm—but their equations go berserk, or in mathematical terms, go to infinity.
String theory is a mathematical solution that tames the unruly infinities. It purports that all particles, including the graviton—the hypothetical particle believed to convey the force of gravity—are generated by very small vibrating strings. The math behind string theory requires the strings to vibrate in at least 10 dimensions, rather than the four we live in (three for space and one for time), which is one of the reasons some scientists are not convinced that string theory is correct. But perhaps the biggest challenge for the theory is the ultrahigh energies required for testing it: Such an experiment would require a particle collider the size of a galaxy.
What is a physicist to do? One way they can probe the theory is to turn to a “bootstrap” approach, in which researchers start with certain assumptions they believe to be true about the universe, and then see what laws emerge out of those assumptions. In a new paper titled “Strings from Almost Nothing,” accepted for publication in Physical Review Letters, Caltech researchers, and their colleagues at New York University and Institut de Fisica d’Altes Energies in Barcelona, have done just that. From a couple of basic assumptions about how particles should scatter off one another at very high energies, they derived the elements of string theory.
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What if gravity is just entropy in disguise? Professor Erik Verlinde joins me to argue that gravity isn’t a fundamental force—it’s thermodynamic, emerging from quantum information the way gas pressure emerges from molecules bouncing around. We explore why spacetime may be stitched together by entanglement, and how dark energy and dark matter both pop out automatically without extra particles or parameters. Verlinde explains why the cosmological constant problem is a red herring, and why there may be no final theory of physics. When asked where the universe comes from, his answer is one word: chaos.
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TIMESTAMPS: 00:00:00 — Thermodynamic Gravity and Information 00:06:35 — Beyond Effective Field Theory 00:13:08 — Turtles All The Way Down 00:25:41 — Entropy as a Force 00:36:31 — Entanglement and Spatial Connectivity 00:47:31 — Deriving Inertia and F=ma 00:56:41 — De Sitter Space Challenges 01:02:01 — Dark Matter and Milgram 01:11:51 — The Emergence of Time 01:21:01 — Statistical Gravity Fluctuations 01:27:01 — Quantum Computational Complexity 01:36:01 — Physics Intuition and Mentorship 01:47:31 — Beauty, Garbage, and Chaos.
We proved that our Universe was made from AI Algorithm.
What if spacetime itself is the result of a gigantic self-learning quantum neural network? 🤯🌌
A new framework called the Universal Bridge Theorem (UBT) proposes a deep equivalence between:
🧠 Neural network training.
and.
🌌 The evolution of spacetime geometry.
The proposal combines:
Insulators are materials in which electrons cannot move freely. Past theoretical studies predicted the existence of an unusual insulating state dubbed obstructed atomic insulator (OAI), in which electrons are localized inside a crystal, while their centers of charge lie in empty spaces between atoms, rather than on the atoms themselves.
Two independent research teams, one at Princeton University and Donostia International Physics Center (DIPC), and the other at Columbia University recently observed signatures of this long-theorized quantum state in two different transition metal dichalcogenides, niobium diselenide (NbSe₂) and tungsten diselenide (WSe₂). Their papers, both of which were published in Nature Physics, could open new possibilities for the study of topological quantum phenomena.