Menu

Blog

Page 7635

Mar 2, 2020

The magnet that didn’t exist

Posted by in categories: materials, quantum physics

In 1966, Japanese physicist Yosuke Nagaoka predicted the existence of a rather striking phenomenon: Nagaoka’s ferromagnetism. His rigorous theory explains how materials can become magnetic, with one caveat: the specific conditions he described do not arise naturally in any material. Researchers from QuTech, a collaboration between TU Delft and TNO, have now observed experimental signatures of Nagaoka ferromagnetism using an engineered quantum system. The results were published today in Nature.

Familiar magnets such as the ones on your refrigerator are an everyday example of a phenomenon called . Each electron has a property called ‘spin’, which causes it to behave like a miniscule magnet itself. In a ferromagnet, the spins of many electrons align, combining into one large magnetic field. This seems like a simple concept, but Nagaoka predicted a novel and surprising mechanism by which ferromagnetism could occur—one that had not been observed in any system before.

Mar 2, 2020

National Security Commission on AI Requests New Ideas; RAND Responds

Posted by in categories: robotics/AI, security

Last summer, the National Security Commission on Artificial Intelligence asked to hear original, creative ideas about how the United States would maintain global leadership in a future enabled by artificial intelligence. RAND researchers stepped up to the challenge.


“Send us your ideas!” That was the open call for submissions about emerging technology’s role in global order put out last summer by the National Security Commission on Artificial Intelligence (NSCAI). RAND researchers stepped up to the challenge, and a wide range of ideas were submitted. Ten essays were ultimately accepted for publication.

The NSCAI, co-chaired by Eric Schmidt, the former chief executive of Alphabet (Google’s parent company), and Robert Work, the former deputy secretary of defense, is a congressionally mandated, independent federal commission set up last year “to consider the methods and means necessary to advance the development of artificial intelligence, machine learning, and associated technologies by the United States to comprehensively address the national security and defense needs of the United States.”

Continue reading “National Security Commission on AI Requests New Ideas; RAND Responds” »

Mar 2, 2020

San Jose opens first tiny home community for formerly homeless residents

Posted by in category: habitats

Each 80-square-foot structure has a single bed, desk and chair, shelves and air conditioner/heater.

Mar 2, 2020

Asteroid warning: NASA tracks a 4KM killer rock on approach — Could end human civilisation

Posted by in category: space

Just laser it will go off course.


AN ASTEROID capable of ending human civilisation if it hits will approach our planet in April, NASA’s asteroid trackers have confirmed.

Mar 2, 2020

SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy is getting a giant cloak for key military missions

Posted by in categories: Elon Musk, military, space travel

Elon Musk’s giant rocket is getting a bizarrely-shaped tower.

Mar 2, 2020

Deep learning rethink overcomes major obstacle in AI industry

Posted by in category: robotics/AI

Rice University computer scientists have overcome a major obstacle in the burgeoning artificial intelligence industry by showing it is possible to speed up deep learning technology without specialized acceleration hardware like graphics processing units (GPUs).

Computer scientists from Rice, supported by collaborators from Intel, will present their results today at the Austin Convention Center as a part of the machine learning systems conference MLSys.

Many companies are investing heavily in GPUs and other specialized hardware to implement deep learning, a powerful form of artificial intelligence that’s behind digital assistants like Alexa and Siri, facial recognition, product recommendation systems and other technologies. For example, Nvidia, the maker of the industry’s gold-standard Tesla V100 Tensor Core GPUs, recently reported a 41% increase in its fourth quarter revenues compared with the previous year.

Mar 2, 2020

As delivery drones multiply, they may need to protect themselves

Posted by in category: drones

The Doppler effect will help them to do so.

Science and technology Feb 27th 2020 edition.

Mar 2, 2020

Scientists Are Building a Quantum Teleporter Based on Black Holes

Posted by in categories: computing, cosmology, quantum physics

If it works, they would be able to input quantum information into one “black hole” circuit, which would scramble, then consume it. After a little while, that information would pop out of the second circuit, already unscrambled and decrypted. That sets it apart from existing quantum teleportation techniques, Quanta reports, as transmitted information emerges still fully scrambled and then needs to be decrypted, making the process take longer and be less accurate as an error-prone quantum computer tries to recreate the original message.

While the idea of entangled black holes and wormholes conjures sci-fi notions of intrepid explorers warping throughout the cosmos, that’s not quite what’s happening here.

Rather, it’s an evocative way to improve quantum computing technology. Recreating and entangling the bizarre properties of black holes, University of California, Berkely researcher Norman Yao told Quanta, would “allow teleportation on the fastest possible timescale.”

Mar 2, 2020

Realization of efficient quantum gates with a superconducting qubit-qutrit circuit

Posted by in categories: computing, quantum physics

Circa 2019 the quantum computer could control time.


Scientific Reports volume 9, Article number: 13389 ( 2019 ) Cite this article.

Mar 2, 2020

Trillions of Earths, 300 Sextillion Stars Say Scientists

Posted by in category: space

The universe just got a lot more crowded. According to a new study, there may be three times as many stars in the universe as previously thought. How many? Three-hundred sextillion. How many is 300 sextillion? Behold:

300,000,000,000,000,000,000,000

That is, as the Associated Press points out, three trillion times 100 billion.