{"id":113571,"date":"2020-09-29T15:22:29","date_gmt":"2020-09-29T22:22:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2020\/09\/schrodingers-web-offers-a-sneak-peek-at-the-quantum-internet"},"modified":"2020-09-29T15:22:29","modified_gmt":"2020-09-29T22:22:29","slug":"schrodingers-web-offers-a-sneak-peek-at-the-quantum-internet","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2020\/09\/schrodingers-web-offers-a-sneak-peek-at-the-quantum-internet","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Schr\u00f6dinger\u2019s Web\u2019 offers a sneak peek at the quantum internet"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/schrodingers-web-offers-a-sneak-peek-at-the-quantum-internet2.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Quantum computers, which harness the strange probabilities of quantum mechanics, may prove revolutionary. They have the potential to achieve an exponential speedup over their classical counterparts, at least when it comes to solving some problems. But for now, these computers are still in their infancy, useful for only a few applications, just as the first digital computers were in the 1940s. So isn\u2019t a book about the communications network that will link quantum computers \u2014 the quantum internet \u2014 more than a little ahead of itself?<\/p>\n<p>Surprisingly, no. As theoretical physicist Jonathan Dowling makes clear in Schr\u00f6dinger\u2019s Web, early versions of the quantum internet are here already \u2014 for example, quantum communication has been taking place between Beijing and Shanghai via fiber-optic cables since 2016 \u2014 and more are coming fast. So now is the perfect time to read up.<\/p>\n<p>Dowling, who helped found the U.S. government\u2019s quantum computing program in the 1990s, is the perfect guide. Armed with a seemingly endless supply of outrageous anecdotes, memorable analogies, puns and quips, he makes the thorny theoretical details of the quantum internet both entertaining and accessible.<\/p>\n<p>Readers wanting to dive right in to details of the quantum internet will have to be patient. \u201cPhotons are the particles that will power the quantum internet, so we had better be sure we know what the heck they are,\u201d Dowling writes. Accordingly, the first third of the book is a historical overview of light, from Newton\u2019s 17th century idea of light as \u201ccorpuscles\u201d to experiments probing the quantum reality of photons, or particles of light, in the late 20th century. There are some small historical inaccuracies \u2014 the section on the Danish physicist Hans Christian \u00d8rsted repeats an apocryphal tale about his \u201cserendipitous\u201d discovery of the link between electricity and magnetism \u2014 and the footnotes rely too much on Wikipedia. But Dowling accomplishes what he sets out to do: Help readers develop an understanding of the quantum nature of light.<\/p>\n<hr>\n<p>For an entertaining overview of the physics and technological advances paving the way for the quantum internet, read \u2018Schr\u00f6dinger\u2019s Web.\u2019<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Quantum computers, which harness the strange probabilities of quantum mechanics, may prove revolutionary. They have the potential to achieve an exponential speedup over their classical counterparts, at least when it comes to solving some problems. But for now, these computers are still in their infancy, useful for only a few applications, just as the first [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":580,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,1523,1490,418,1617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-113571","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-biotech-medical","category-computing","category-government","category-internet","category-quantum-physics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/113571","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/580"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=113571"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/113571\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=113571"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=113571"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=113571"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}