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Quantum computing technology is within reach due to an innovative method that overcomes the significant challenge of scaling up these prototypes.

The invention, by a University of Bristol physicist, who gave it the name ‘counterportation’, provides the first-ever practical blueprint for creating in the lab a wormhole that verifiably bridges space, as a probe into the inner workings of the universe.

It’s easy to envisage other universes, governed by slightly different laws of physics, in which no intelligent life, nor indeed any kind of organized complex systems, could arise. Should we therefore be surprised that a universe exists in which we were able to emerge?

That’s a question physicists including me have tried to answer for decades. But it is proving difficult. Although we can confidently trace cosmic history back to one second after the Big Bang, what happened before is harder to gauge. Our accelerators simply can’t produce enough energy to replicate the that prevailed in the first nanosecond.

But we expect that it’s in that first tiny fraction of a second that the key features of our universe were imprinted.

American billionaire Elon Musk has begun preparing the public for the failed launch of the Starship spacecraft. But the head of SpaceX promises that the launch will be impressive.

Here’s What We Know

Starship will be used in 2025 to land humans on the moon as part of the Artemis III mission. The spacecraft is also due to take part in manned missions to Mars 20 years from now. However, it needs at least one successful flight test to begin with.