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When Light and Atoms Share a Common Vibe

An especially counter-intuitive feature of quantum mechanics is that a single event can exist in a state of superposition — happening both here and there, or both today and tomorrow.

Such superpositions are hard to create, as they are destroyed if any kind of information about the place and time of the event leaks into the surrounding — and even if nobody actually records this information. But when superpositions do occur, they lead to observations that are very different from that of classical physics, questioning down to our very understanding of space and time.

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By Amir Ebrahimi — Principal Software Engineer · ‎Unity Technologies

What opened quantum computing up for me was realizing that it’s even more connected to our physical universe than classical computing is.

I’m at Unity, where I have a day job developing software for Barracuda, our CPU/GPU optimized inference engine for neural networks. I’ve been working in the video game industry since 2003, which is usually on the cutting edge of technology, so it’s surprising that I had never heard about quantum computing until about three years ago — I don’t know if I was ignoring it or if I simply wasn’t exposed to it. Back in 2018, one of my coworkers who was already interested in quantum computing shared a few links to the IBM Quantum Experience, and explained that you could use a quantum computer online. I took a look and bookmarked it, but didn’t actually try it out.

Continue reading “I’ve Worked in Game Development My Whole Career — Here’s Why I’m Learning Quantum Computing” | >

CORVALLIS, Ore. — The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management issued the first-ever lease for a wave energy research project in federal waters off the U. S. West Coast to Oregon State University. “This is the first time a lease has been issued to support the testing of wave energy equipment in federal waters off the U. S. West Coast,” said BOEM Director Amanda Lefton.

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In the last decade, we’ve taken photos of a black holes, peered into the heart of atoms and looked back at the birth of the Universe. And yet, there are yawning gaps in our understanding of the Universe and the laws that govern it. These are the mysteries that will be troubling physicists and astronomers over the next decade and beyond.

Dark matter, the nature of time, aliens and supermassive black holes: these seven things will be puzzling astronomers for years to come.

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Right now, the entire electric VTOL scene is a house built on a foundation of faith. Faith that the hordes of researchers beavering away on next-gen battery technology will achieve an enormous energy density breakthrough, or faith that hydrogen fuel cell powertrains will prove safe, reliable and practical in an aviation context.

Both seem likely, eventually, but the urban air taxi industry is pushing to be up and running within five years, and right now there’s no powertrain on the market that can keep these energy-intensive vertical-lift birds in the air long enough to be practical in a commercial sense.

France’s Ascendance sees an opportunity for an intermediate step. The company was founded by four ex-Airbus employees who worked on the groundbreaking E-Fan project, which back in 2015 became the first electric aircraft to cross the English Channel. Now, the team is working on a hybrid initiative to make long-range, low-emissions VTOL flight a reality even before the battery and hydrogen guys make their breakthroughs.

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