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When it comes to something as complex as space-time, intuition comes in different ways, depending on the level of science you have access to, writes Chanda Prescod-Weinstein.
Quantum collaboration demonstrates in Chicagoland the first steps toward functional long-distance quantum networks over deployed telecom fiber optics, opening the door to scalable quantum computing — https://bit.ly/3QXe780
Australopithecus fossils in South Africa are one million years older than initially thought. This could rewrite the story of human evolution.
Research led by Monash and RMIT Universities in Melbourne has found a way to create an advanced photonic integrated circuit that builds bridges between data superhighways, revolutionizing the connectivity of current optical chips and replacing bulky 3D-optics with a wafer thin slice of silicon.
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A quantum simulator at Rice University is giving physicists a clear look at spin-charge separation, the quantum world’s version of the magician’s illusion of sawing a person in half.
The government doesn’t need to watch you to know exactly who you are. The market for data about our most intimate selves is booming.
‘The more analyses we perform, the more kinds of exotic hadrons we find’
In the last two years, researchers have discovered a tetraquark made up of two charm quarks and two charm antiquarks, and two “open-charm” tetraquarks consisting of a charm antiquark, an up quark, a down quark and a strange antiquark.
“The more analyses we perform, the more kinds of exotic hadrons we find. We’re witnessing a period of discovery similar to the 1950s, when a ‘particle zoo’ of hadrons started being discovered and ultimately led to the quark model of conventional hadrons in the 1960s. We’re creating ‘particle zoo 2.0,” LHCb physics coordinator Niels Tuning said in a statement.
Last year, researchers also found the first-ever instance of a “double open-charm” tetraquark with two charm quarks and an up and a down antiquark.
A network in which data transmission is perfectly secure against hacking? If physicists have their way, this will become reality one day with the help of the quantum mechanical phenomenon known as entanglement. For entangled particles, the rule is: If you measure the state of one of the particles, then you automatically know the state of the other. It makes no difference how far away the entangled particles are from each other. This is an ideal state of affairs for transmitting information over long distances in a way that renders eavesdropping impossible.
A team led by physicists Prof. Harald Weinfurter from LMU and Prof. Christoph Becher from Saarland University have now coupled two atomic quantum memories over a 33-kilometer-long fiber optic connection. This is the longest distance so far that anyone has ever managed entanglement via a telecom fiber.
The quantum mechanical entanglement is mediated via photons emitted by the two quantum memories. A decisive step was the researchers’ shifting of the wavelength of the emitted light particles to a value that is used for conventional telecommunications. “By doing this, we were able to significantly reduce the loss of photons and create entangled quantum memories even over long distances of fiber optic cable,” says Weinfurter.