{"id":247393,"date":"2026-11-15T03:10:21","date_gmt":"2026-11-15T09:10:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2026\/11\/motion-theory-the-motion-of-a-qubit"},"modified":"2026-11-15T03:10:21","modified_gmt":"2026-11-15T09:10:21","slug":"motion-theory-the-motion-of-a-qubit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2026\/11\/motion-theory-the-motion-of-a-qubit","title":{"rendered":"MOTION THEORY: The Motion of a Qubit"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><iframe title=\"MOTION THEORY: The Motion of a Qubit\" style=\"display: block; margin: 0 auto; width: 100%; aspect-ratio: 4\/3; object-fit: contain;\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/vi80m2OpJMs?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope;\n   picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>\/ <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/motiontheory\">@motiontheory<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>The Motion of a Qubit.<\/p>\n<p>Prepare a qubit in either of two states. Measure each directly a thousand times, and both can produce roughly half zeros and half ones. Now apply a microwave pulse before measurement: one state can become zero every time, the other one. The pulse reveals a difference that the first measurement could not see\u2014their relative phase.<\/p>\n<p>A qubit stores information in the amplitudes of two basis states, zero and one. Their sizes determine the probabilities in a direct measurement; their relative angle affects how they combine when the qubit is rotated. On a superconducting chip, a Josephson junction makes the circuit\u2019s energy levels unevenly spaced, helping a microwave pulse address the qubit without exciting higher levels.<\/p>\n<p>We follow the state on a Bloch sphere, where microwave pulses rotate its representation. During a wait, the relative phase between the zero and one components changes. A second pulse turns that phase difference into a measurable change in the fraction of ones. This is a Ramsey experiment.<\/p>\n<p>The pattern of Ramsey fringes reveals how quickly the qubit\u2019s phase slips relative to the microwave reference. Frequency fluctuations blur the pattern across repeated runs. Energy relaxation reduces the excited-state population. Measuring both effects helps researchers understand how a real device differs from an ideal qubit.<\/p>\n<div class=\"more-link-wrapper\"> <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2026\/11\/motion-theory-the-motion-of-a-qubit\">Continue reading \u201cMOTION THEORY: The Motion of a Qubit\u201d | &gt;<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\/ @motiontheory. The Motion of a Qubit. Prepare a qubit in either of two states. Measure each directly a thousand times, and both can produce roughly half zeros and half ones. Now apply a microwave pulse before measurement: one state can become zero every time, the other one. The pulse reveals a difference that the [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":661,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1523,1617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-247393","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-computing","category-quantum-physics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/247393","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\/661"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=247393"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/247393\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=247393"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=247393"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=247393"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}