Lifeboat Foundation

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Although hypersonic weapons might seem like relative newcomers, known advantages of these weapons are both self-evident and multi-faceted as they can be fired from much greater stand-off ranges while having vastly increased ability to defeat, circumvent or simply destroy enemy air and ballistic missile defenses.

USAF Research Laboratory is working round-the-clock on hypersonic weapons designed to come in the next 10–15 years, in order to “expand USAF’s mission options” in the next decades, as an increasingly contested airspace is emerging, limiting US strike capabilities.

The Pentagon has been aggressively pushing for hypersonic weapons development, especially after Russian advances in this field have left the US trailing behind. Given the implications associated with firing weapons able to travel at over five-times the speed of sound, a number of programs have been underway (reportedly, there are up to 8 US hypersonic programs currently underway).

“Think what we can do if we teach a quantum computer to do statistical mechanics,” posed Michael McGuigan, a computational scientist with the Computational Science Initiative at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Brookhaven National Laboratory.

At the time, McGuigan was reflecting on Ludwig Boltzmann and how the renowned physicist had to vigorously defend his theories of statistical mechanics. Boltzmann, who proffered his ideas about how atomic properties determine physical properties of matter in the late 19th century, had one extraordinarily huge hurdle: atoms were not even proven to exist at the time. Fatigue and discouragement stemming from his peers not accepting his views on atoms and physics forever haunted Boltzmann.

Today, Boltzmann’s factor, which calculates the probability that a system of particles can be found in a specific energy state relative to zero energy, is widely used in physics. For example, Boltzmann’s factor is used to perform calculations on the world’s largest supercomputers to study the behavior of atoms, molecules, and the quark “soup” discovered using facilities such as the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider located at Brookhaven Lab and the Large Hadron Collider at CERN.

The age of Quantum AI is upon us. AI needs processing power that current computers can’t provide but quantum computers could pick up the slack.

In 1946 the Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer, or the ENIAC, was introduced. The world’s first commercial computer was intended to be used by the military to project the trajectory of missiles, doing in a few seconds what it would otherwise take a human mathematician about three days. It’s 20,000 vacuum tubes (the glowing glass light bulb-like predecessors to the transistor) connected by 500,000 hand soldered wires were a marvel of human ingenuity and technology.

Imagine if it were possible to go back to the developers and users of that early marvel and make the case that in 70 years there would be ten billion computers worldwide and half of the world’s population would be walking around with computers 100,000,000 times as powerful as the ENIAC in their pants’ pockets.

You’d have been considered a lunatic!

A team from the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory has conducted a series of experiments to gain a better understanding of quantum mechanics and pursue advances in quantum networking and quantum computing, which could lead to practical applications in cybersecurity and other areas.

ORNL quantum researchers Joseph Lukens, Pavel Lougovski, Brian Williams, and Nicholas Peters—along with collaborators from Purdue University and the Technological University of Pereira in Colombia—summarized results from several of their recent academic papers in a special issue of the Optical Society’s Optics & Photonics News, which showcased some of the most significant results from optics-related research in 2019. Their entry was one of 30 selected for publication from a pool of 91.

Conventional computer “bits” have a value of either 0 or 1, but quantum bits, called “qubits,” can exist in a superposition of quantum states labeled 0 and 1. This ability makes quantum systems promising for transmitting, processing, storing, and encrypting vast amounts of information at unprecedented speeds.

IBM and the University of Tokyo will form the Japan – IBM Quantum Partnership, a broad national partnership framework in which other universities, industry, and government can engage. The partnership will have three tracks of engagement: one focused on the development of quantum applications with industry; another on quantum computing system technology development; and the third focused on advancing the state of quantum science and education.

Under the agreement, an IBM Q System One, owned and operated by IBM, will be installed in an IBM facility in Japan. It will be the first installation of its kind in the region and only the third in the world following the United States and Germany. The Q System One will be used to advance research in quantum algorithms, applications and software, with the goal of developing the first practical applications of quantum computing.

IBM and the University of Tokyo will also create a first-of-a-kind quantum system technology center for the development of hardware components and technologies that will be used in next generation quantum computers. The center will include a laboratory facility to develop and test novel hardware components for quantum computing, including advanced cryogenic and microwave test capabilities.

Authorities admit one death from hemorrhagic fever caused by the new virus.

Now a group at the center of Putin’s aspirations, the Russian Academy of Sciences, has dropped a bombshell into the plans. A commission set up by the academy has led to the retraction of at least 869 Russian scientific articles, mainly for plagiarism.

At least 869 academic papers have been retracted for flaws that included plagiarism. More could come.

Here on Earth, we pay quite a lot of attention to the sun. It’s visible to us, after all, and central to our lives. But it is only one of the billions of stars in our galaxy, the Milky Way. It’s also quite small compared to other stars – most are at least eight times more massive.

These massive stars influence the structure, shape and chemical content of a galaxy. And when they have exhausted their hydrogen gas fuel and die, they do so in an explosive event called a supernova. This explosion is sometimes so strong that it triggers the formation of new stars out of materials in the dead star’s surroundings.

But there’s an important gap in our knowledge: astronomers don’t yet fully understand how those original massive stars themselves are initially formed. So far, observations have only yielded some pieces of the puzzle.