Category Archives: Quantum Physics
New Physics Experiment Indicates There’s No Objective Reality – Interesting Engineering
Someone once said: "The world is all that is the case."
But, is it?
Researchers performing a long-awaited experiment created different realities that are irreconcilable, proving that objective facts can be made to exhibit properties that cannot cohere, according to a recent study shared on a preprint server.
Sound confusing? You're not alone in thinking so, as this all involves some pretty complicated physics. But in short, the takeaway is this: Reality is at odds with itself.
Nobel Prize-winner Eugene Wigner described a thought experiment in 1961 that highlighted an uncommon paradox of quantum mechanics. Specifically, it reveals the strangeness of the universe when two observers, like Wigner and his friend, observe two distinct realities. Since the thought experiment, physicists have used it to explore the very nature of measurement, in addition to the bizarre idea of whether objective facts actually exist or not. This is a pretty crucial feature of science, since empirical inquiry works to establish objective facts.
But if there aren't any facts, how can science presume to describe a real world in the first place?
For decades (and philosophically, much longer), this has served as a great bit for entertaining dinner guests, but Wigner's thought experiment wasn't really anything more than that. Until now.
In 2020, physicists realized that recent quantum technology advances had made it possible to create Wigner's Friend test in a real-world experiment. In essence, we can create different realities, and compare them in a lab to see if they can be reconciled, or cohere, in one system. And researcher Massimiliano Proietti of Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh, along with a handful of researchers, said they performed this long-awaited experiment for the first time: Creating distinct realities, compare-and-contrasting them, and discovering that they are, in fact, irreconcilable.
Wigner's initial thought experiment was simplistic in principle, starting with a single polarized photon that can have either vertical or horizontal polarization, upon measuring. The laws of quantum mechanics hold that a photon exists in both states of polarization simultaneously, in what's called superposition. In his thought experiment, Wigner imagined a friend measuring the state of a photon in a different lab and recording the result while Wigner watched from afar. He has no clue what his friend's measurement is, and is thus forced to assume that the photon and its measurement are in a state of superposition of every possible outcome for the experiment.
Wigner can say, however, that the "fact" of the superposition's existence is real. And, strangely, this state of affairs suggests that the measurement can't have taken place. Obviously, this stands in direct contradiction to Wigner's friend's point-of-view, who just measured and recorded the photon's polarization. He can even call Wigner and tell him the measurement was taken, without revealing the results. This means there are two realities at odds with one another, and it "calls into question the objective status of the facts established by the two observers," explained Proietti and colleagues, in an MIT Technology Review report.
And the new research reproduced Wigner's thought experiment by using entanglement techniques for many particles at the same time.
This is a breakthrough experiment from Prioretti and his colleagues. "In a state-of-the-art 6-photon experiment, we realize this extended Wigner's friend scenario," they added in the report. And it raised some baffling questions that have forced physicists to confront the nature of reality. There might be a loophole to some assumptions that made this unknowable reality conclusion necessary, but if everything holds up to future scrutiny, it turns out reality does not exist.
So the next time your friends think something is or isn't the case, consider interjecting with an argument from quantum physics: they're both wrong, and so are you, because even the simple fact of the disagreement itself isjust another illusion.
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New Physics Experiment Indicates There's No Objective Reality - Interesting Engineering
New vortex beams of atoms and molecules are the first of their kind – Science News Magazine
Like soft serve ice cream, beams of atoms and molecules now come with a swirl.
Scientists already knew how to dish up spiraling beams of light or electrons, known as vortex beams (SN: 1/14/11). Now, the first vortex beams of atoms and molecules are on the menu, researchers report in the Sept. 3 Science.
Vortex beams made of light or electrons have shown promise for making special types of microscope images and for transmitting information using quantum physics (SN: 8/5/15). But vortex beams of larger particles such as atoms or molecules are so new that the possible applications arent yet clear, says physicist Sonja Franke-Arnold of the University of Glasgow in Scotland, who was not involved with the research. Its maybe too early to really know what we can do with it.
In quantum physics, particles are described by a wave function, a wavelike pattern that allows scientists to calculate the probability of finding a particle in a particular place (SN: 6/8/11). But vortex beams waves dont slosh up and down like ripples on water. Instead, the beams particles have wave functions that move in a corkscrewing motion as a beam travels through space. That means the beam carries a rotational oomph known as orbital angular momentum. This is something really very strange, very nonintuitive, says physicist Edvardas Narevicius of the Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot, Israel.
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Narevicius and colleagues created the new beams by passing helium atoms through a grid of specially shaped slit patterns, each just 600 nanometers wide. The team detected a hallmark of vortex beams: a row of doughnut-shaped rings imprinted on a detector by the atoms, in which each doughnut corresponds to a beam with a different orbital angular momentum.
Another set of doughnuts revealed the presence of vortex beams of helium excimers, molecules created when a helium atom in an excited, or energized, state pairs up with another helium atom.
Next, scientists might investigate what happens when vortex beams of molecules or atoms collide with light, electrons or other atoms or molecules. Such collisions are well-understood for normal particle beams, but not for those with orbital angular momentum. Similar vortex beams made with protons might also serve as a method for probing the subatomic particles mysterious innards (SN: 4/18/17).
In physics, most important things are achieved when we are revisiting known phenomena with a fresh perspective, says physicist Ivan Madan of EPFL, the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne, who was not involved with the research. And, for sure, this experiment allows us to do that.
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New vortex beams of atoms and molecules are the first of their kind - Science News Magazine
Could There Be More Than One Dimension of Time? – Interesting Engineering
It has long been proposed that when our universe came to fruition, three dimensions of space and one dimension of time sprang forth from the big bang: the event that made everything we see around us - from the hydrogen and helium that fuse to make stars and help planets coalesce, to black holes and galaxies, and even our own existences - possible,
However, there has been some debate over the traditional belief that the universe didn't just manifest three dimensions of space and one of time. In fact, throwing a couple of extra dimensions into the mix actually solves several of the more tricky problems we're still working to make sense of within the framework of the standard model of physics.
So could our universereallyhave more than one dimension of time?
Put away your hat, make sure your restraints are secure, and hold on tight: This is going to be an interesting (and pretty complex) ride through physics.
Einstein is responsible for much of what we know about how the universe works on a macroscale. His theories of general and special relativity play a big role in shaping our understanding of physics as a whole, but string theory and quantum physics, which are very important to the discussion we are about to have, were still in their infancy when Einstein died. Since then, both have become fully fleshed hypotheses, but there are certain aspects of both that cannot be reconciled with Einstein's work. Before we get into all that fun stuff, what is a dimension, and how do we know they exist?
Let's start with the three dimensions we deal with in our everyday lives: they can be summarized as length, width, and height, A straight line would be considered one dimensional. It merely has length, but no thickness, and it can travel forever in both directions. Two-dimensional objects, for example, something flat like a circle, or a square, have width and height, but no depth or "thickness" to them. Anything that has length, width, and height is considered three-dimensional, Time, as we know, is the somewhat more elusive fourth dimension... hence why the fabric of the universe is formally called spacetime instead of just plain 'ole space.
This is where the discussion of string theory comes into play.
Traditional physics asserts that the universe is comprised of 3 spatial dimensions and one temporal dimension. The universe itself is mostly empty by volume, but what we can observe is thought to be only around 5 percent of "normal matter" (think protons, electrons. neutrons, quarks, etc.), roughly 27 percent is made up of something called dark matter, while the remaining 68 percent is attributable to a mysterious unknown force believed to be causing the universe to expand, known as dark energy.
String theory, in the simplest possible terms, tells us to imagine that the very fabric of the universe and everything in it is not composed of point-like particles, but rather, it is comprised of incomprehensibly tiny strings - much smaller than even the smallest atom.
These strings are vibrating at their own special frequencies, making it conceivable that what we perceive to be point-like particles are actually not particles at all, but strings so tiny, they are "just 10^33 centimeters long. Written the long way, that would be a decimal point followed by 32 zeroes and then a 1. Some have theorized that the length of a string would have the same ratio to the diameter of a proton as the proton has to the diameter of the solar system.
There are two different types of these strings: one is open and the other is closed - though both are too small to be observed by current technology. As the name suggests, open strings are like wavy lines that don't touch ends, whereas the opposite is true for closed strings - they form loops and do not have open ends.
However, in order for string theory to work, mathematics dictates that many additional dimensions of space and time must exist. Should we find proof of these other dimensions, and should the number of extra dimensions range from 10 to 26, it would not only change our very understanding of quantum physics, but we'd be one step closer to creating a cohesive and credible "theory of everything." One that would be in agreement with both quantum physics and macrophysics - like the forces of nature and gravity, which is no easy feat.
As per usual, a lot of these theoretical arguments circle back around to Einstein's work. Ignoring Einstein's belief time mightsimply be a really elaborate illusion, the question as to whether there could be additional dimensions of time is a firm maybe. In fact, through studying how the fundamental forces of nature and the laws of physics are affected by time, some astronomers believe that throwing in at least one extra dimension of time would solve one of the biggest remaining cosmological bugaboos.
You see, we still don't know exactly what gravity is, or how itfully affects matter seen and unseen. Our best guess, once again an Einsteinian theory, says that gravity is theforce created by the warping of spacetime. The larger the object is, the more it warps the spacetime around it, and the stronger its gravitational pull becomes. That would be all well and good if we didn't have to marry our theories of gravity with quantum theory, but we do, and therein lies the problem.
Our current understanding of gravity is simply not consistent with other elements of quantum mechanics. The remaining forces of nature -the electromagnetic force and the strong and weak nuclear forces - all fit into the framework of the micro-universe, but not gravity.It is hoped that maybe string theory can help solve that mystery. At least one physicist argues that time isn't merely one-dimensional.
Itzhak Bars, atheoretical physicist from USC College, told NewScientist,There isnt just one dimension of time, there are two. One whole dimension has until now gone entirely unnoticed by us.
He also described how extra dimensions of space could exist 'in plain sight' saying, "Extra space dimensions aren't easy to imagine in everyday life, nobody ever notices more than three. Any move you make can be described as the sum of movements in three directions up-down, back and forth, or sideways. Similarly, any location can be described by three numbers (on Earth, latitude, longitude, and altitude), corresponding to spaces three dimensions. Other dimensions could exist, however, if they were curled up in little balls, too tiny to notice. If you moved through one of those dimensions, youd get back to where you started so fast youd never realize that you had moved."
An extra dimension of space could really be there, its just so small that we dont see it,
Have you made it thisfar? Congratulations. The conclusion is worth wading through all these complicated ideas.
Physics mostly argues that time must be a dimension, but there are certainly physicists that believe time is just a human construct. Others argue there must be more dimensions of time than previously believed. What would that mean for physics, should this be true?
Well, for Bars, it would mean, "The green light to the idea of time travel. If time is one-dimensional, like a straight line, the route linking the past, present, and future is clearly defined. Adding another dimension transforms time into a two-dimensional plane, like a flat sheet of paper. On such a plane, the path between the past and future would loop back on itself, allowing you to travel back and forwards in time. That would permit all kinds of absurd situations, such as the famous grandfather paradox. In this scenario, you could go back and kill your grandfather before your mother was a twinkle in his eye, thereby preventing your own birth."
Two-dimensional time gives every appearance of being a non-starter. Yet in 1995, when Bars found hints in M-theory (a theory that unifies all consistent versions ofsuperstring theory) that an extra time dimension was possible, he was determined to take a closer look. When he did, Bars found that a key mathematical structure common to all 11 of the posited dimensions in M-theory (10 dimensions of space and 1 of time) remained intact when he added an extra dimension. On one condition, says Bars. The extra dimension had to be time-like.
What do you think about string theory, quantum gravity, and extra dimensions of time?
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Could There Be More Than One Dimension of Time? - Interesting Engineering
Quantum crystal could reveal the identity of dark matter – Livescience.com
Using a quirk of quantum mechanics, researchers have created a beryllium crystal capable of detecting incredibly weak electromagnetic fields. The work could one day be used to detect hypothetical dark matter particles called axions.
The researchers created their quantum crystal by trapping 150 charged beryllium particles or ions using a system of electrodes and magnetic fields that helped overcome their natural repulsion for each other, Ana Maria Rey, an atomic physicist at JILA, a joint institute between the National Institute of Standards and Technology and the University of Colorado Boulder, told Live Science.
Related: The 18 biggest unsolved mysteries in physics
When Rey and her colleagues trapped the ions with their system of fields and electrodes, the atoms self-assembled into a flat sheet twice as thick as a human hair. This organized collective resembled a crystal that would vibrate when disturbed by some outside force.
"When you excite the atoms, they don't move individually," Rey said. "They move as a whole."
When that beryllium "crystal" encountered an electromagnetic field, it moved in response, and that movement could be translated into a measurement of the field strength.
But measurements of any quantum mechanical system are subject to limits set by the Heisenberg uncertainty principle, which states that certain properties of a particle, such as its position and momentum, can't simultaneously be known with high precision.
The team figured out a way to get around this limit with entanglement, where quantum particles' attributes are inherently linked together.
"By using entanglement, we can sense things that aren't possible otherwise," Rey said.
In this case, she and her colleagues entangled the motions of the beryllium ions with their spins. Quantum systems resemble tiny tops and spin describes the direction, say up or down, that those tops are pointing.
When the crystal vibrated, it would move a certain amount. But because of the uncertainty principle, any measurement of that displacement, or the amount the ions moved, would be subject to precision limits and contain a lot of what's known as quantum noise, Rey said.
To measure the displacement, "we need a displacement larger than the quantum noise," she said.
Entanglement between the ions' motions and their spins spreads this noise out, reducing it and allowing the researchers to measure ultra-tiny fluctuations in the crystal. They tested the system by sending a weak electromagnetic wave through it and seeing it vibrate. The work is described Aug. 6 in the journal Science.
The crystal is already 10 times more sensitive at detecting teensy electromagnetic signals than previous quantum sensors. But the team thinks that with more beryllium ions, they could create an even more sensitive detector capable of searching for axions.
Axions are a proposed ultralight dark matter particle with a millionth or a billionth the mass of an electron. Some models of the axion suggest that it may be able to sometimes convert into a photon, in which case it would no longer be dark and would produce a weak electromagnetic field. Were any axions to fly through a lab containing this beryllium crystal, the crystal might pick up their presence.
"I think it's a beautiful result and an impressive experiment," Daniel Carney, a theoretical physicist at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in Berkeley, California, who was not involved in the research, told Live Science.
Along with helping in the hunt for dark matter, Carney believes the work could find many applications, such as looking for stray electromagnetic fields from wires in a lab or searching for defects in a material.
Originally published on Live Science.
Originally posted here:
Quantum crystal could reveal the identity of dark matter - Livescience.com
It’s not just Texas. The faux panic and textbook wars fit into a long history – CNN
I inwardly breathe a weary, cyclone-force sigh whenever I hear the words "critical race theory."
"This is very clearly an attack on diversity, equity (and) inclusion. It very much feels like a political overreach based on misinformation," Ana Ramn, deputy director of advocacy at the Intercultural Development Research Association, told CNN's Nicole Chavez. "Teaching critical race theory in K-12 would be like teaching quantum physics in K-12. ... There's no curriculum that has been adopted in Texas classrooms."
Maybe the most disturbing thing about the tub-thumping about CRT (which, it's worth repeating, isn't taught in grade school) is that the core impulse is hardly new -- but instead fits into a long, messy history of fights over classroom instruction. As students return to school, adults could benefit from more context about what's going on.
Here's what these ever-simmering battles reveal about the US's socio-political anxieties over, among other things, race, gender and immigration.
How did the backlash to CRT creep into schools?
Republicans trust that playing up these conflicts will be electorally useful to them, as they train their attention on the 2022 midterms and beyond.
The orchestrated attack on CRT takes a toll on teachers, staff and students.
It isn't a stretch to say that the current struggle over how schools teach not just history but the ways history moves in the present might affect students' understanding of the world around them for years to come.
Is this the first time the political right has freaked out over learning about race and racism?
No. This dispute has existed in a variety of forms since at least the 1800s.
Have there been education disputes over things other than race?
Afraid so.
For instance, World War I set off a burst of xenophobia aimed not only at German immigrants and Americans of German descent but also at the German language. Senator William H. King of Utah introduced a bill to ban teaching German in Washington's public schools.
More specifically, the legislature, made up of a near-majority of Ku Klux Klan members, passed a law that banned the use in public schools of any textbook that "speaks slightingly of the founders of the republic, or of the men who preserved the union, or which belittles or undervalues their work."
"Fights in and about the classroom -- classroom wars -- formed a crucial crucible in which the powerful political notion of 'family values' was contested and constructed," she writes.
So while the present-day backlash to CRT might feel unique, really, it's not. It's just the latest iteration of an age-old tendency to turn the classroom into a battlefield.
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It's not just Texas. The faux panic and textbook wars fit into a long history - CNN
The Guardian view on the quantum world: where facts are relative – The Guardian
The American physicist Richard Feynman thought that nobody understands quantum mechanics. That is no longer true. Smartphones, nuclear plants, medical scans and laser-operated doors have been built with insights from the physics that governs the subatomic level. What perplexes many is that the quantum world is governed by rules that run counter to classical notions of physical laws.
In quantum mechanics, nature is not deterministic. Subatomic particles do not travel a path that can be plotted. It is possible only to calculate the probability of finding these specks at a particular point. Where such calculations leave physics, that hardest of the hard sciences, has troubled its greatest minds. Albert Einstein thought the idea that an element of chance lay deep in science was absurd. God does not play dice, he famously declared.
Physics is full of predictions that could be confirmed or denied once the technology to examine them had caught up. Einstein was proved wrong. In his new book, Helgoland, the Italian theoretical physicist Carlo Rovelli narrates how a scientific revolution was started by a young German physicist, Werner Heisenberg. He first devised quantum theory during a summer holiday in 1925 spent on the barren North Sea island of the books name.
The world, thought Heisenberg, could not be stated exactly, merely known through models of uncertainty and probability. He won a Nobel prize in 1932, though his achievements were tarnished by tacit support of Nazi Germany. The theory was that the world people experience is decided upon when many possibilities of the quantum world collapse to become the certainty of the classical one. This led to Erwin Schrdingers cat-in-a-box thought experiment. Quantum theory suggested that only by opening the container could it be determined if the feline was dead or alive. If the box remains closed the unfortunate cat is in limbo in a state between life and death, a superposition of possibilities.
Prof Rovelli dismantles attempts to explain away the indeterminacy of quantum mechanics. First, he takes on the many worlds thesis, which claims that every possible alternative exists and we just see one of them. In short, Schrdingers cat is alive in one universe and dead in another. Some claim that Heisenbergs work would collapse for some as yet undiscovered macroscopic entity. In this explanation, the cat is too big to be subject to quantum physics. More recently, it has been argued that quantum systems do have definite properties; we just do not know enough about those systems to precisely predict their behaviour. But in Helgoland, this is dismissed as an attempt to return to a pre-1920s view.
Quantum theory, Prof Rovelli says, views the physical world as a net of relations. Objects are its nodes. In his relational interpretation, Schrdingers cat has properties only when it interacts with something else. When it is not interacting, it has no properties. Prof Rovelli reaches for Buddhist thought to explain his ideas. He claims that if nothing exists in itself, surely everything exists solely through dependence. Facts are relative, he writes, opening up a debate that is likely to last longer than the century of argument that it seeks to close.
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The Guardian view on the quantum world: where facts are relative - The Guardian
Can quantum effects in the brain explain consciousness? – New Scientist
New research reveals hints of quantum states in tiny proteins called microtubules inside brain cells. If the results stand up, the idea that consciousness is quantum might come in from the cold
By Thomas Lewton
Skizzomat
IF IT is a controversial idea that warm, wet life might exploit quantum magic, thats nothing compared with certain researchers convictions that quantum phenomena might help explain human consciousness.
Orchestrated objective reduction theory (Orch OR), originally proposed by physicist Roger Penrose and anaesthesiologist Stuart Hameroff in the 1990s, seeks to bridge the gulf between physical matter and felt experience. The idea is that consciousness arises when gravitational instabilities in the fundamental structure of space-time collapse quantum wave functions in tiny proteins called microtubules, which are found inside neurons.
It is heady stuff, but if pulling together quantum mechanics, gravity and consciousness in one fell swoop sounds too good to be true, it might be. Orch ORs critics argue that any quantum coherence inside microtubules would fall apart in the warm and noisy environs of grey matter long before it could have any effect on the workings of neurons.
Yet in one tantalising experiment last year, as-yet unpublished, Jack Tuszynski at the University of Alberta in Canada and Aristide Dogariu at the University of Central Florida found that light shone on microtubules was very slowly re-emitted over several minutes a hallmark of quantum goings-on. This is crazy, says Tuszynski, who set about building a theoretical microtubule model to describe what he was seeing.
Gregory Scholes, a biochemist at Princeton University, is studying microtubules for signs of similar quantum effects. Initial experiments point to long-lived, long-range collective behaviour among molecules in the structures. Both groups plan to test whether anaesthetics, which switch consciousness on and off, have any impact on microtubules. There is amazing structure and synchrony in biological systems, says
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Can quantum effects in the brain explain consciousness? - New Scientist
Quantum crystal could reveal the identity of dark matter – Space.com
Using a quirk of quantum mechanics, researchers have created a beryllium crystal capable of detecting incredibly weak electromagnetic fields. The work could one day be used to detect hypothetical dark matter particles called axions.
The researchers created their quantum crystal by trapping 150 charged beryllium particles or ions using a system of electrodes and magnetic fields that helped overcome their natural repulsion for each other, Ana Maria Rey, an atomic physicist at JILA, a joint institute between the National Institute of Standards and Technology and the University of Colorado Boulder, told Live Science.
Related: The 18 biggest unsolved mysteries in physics
When Rey and her colleagues trapped the ions with their system of fields and electrodes, the atoms self-assembled into a flat sheet twice as thick as a human hair. This organized collective resembled a crystal that would vibrate when disturbed by some outside force.
"When you excite the atoms, they don't move individually," Rey said. "They move as a whole."
When that beryllium "crystal" encountered an electromagnetic field, it moved in response, and that movement could be translated into a measurement of the field strength.
But measurements of any quantum mechanical system are subject to limits set by the Heisenberg uncertainty principle, which states that certain properties of a particle, such as its position and momentum, can't simultaneously be known with high precision.
The team figured out a way to get around this limit with entanglement, where quantum particles' attributes are inherently linked together.
"By using entanglement, we can sense things that aren't possible otherwise," Rey said.
In this case, she and her colleagues entangled the motions of the beryllium ions with their spins. Quantum systems resemble tiny tops and spin describes the direction, say up or down, that those tops are pointing.
When the crystal vibrated, it would move a certain amount. But because of the uncertainty principle, any measurement of that displacement, or the amount the ions moved, would be subject to precision limits and contain a lot of what's known as quantum noise, Rey said.
To measure the displacement, "we need a displacement larger than the quantum noise," she said.
Entanglement between the ions' motions and their spins spreads this noise out, reducing it and allowing the researchers to measure ultra-tiny fluctuations in the crystal. They tested the system by sending a weak electromagnetic wave through it and seeing it vibrate. The work is described Aug. 6 in the journal Science.
The crystal is already 10 times more sensitive at detecting teensy electromagnetic signals than previous quantum sensors. But the team thinks that with more beryllium ions, they could create an even more sensitive detector capable of searching for axions.
Axions are a proposed ultralight dark matter particle with a millionth or a billionth the mass of an electron. Some models of the axion suggest that it may be able to sometimes convert into a photon, in which case it would no longer be dark and would produce a weak electromagnetic field. Were any axions to fly through a lab containing this beryllium crystal, the crystal might pick up their presence.
"I think it's a beautiful result and an impressive experiment," Daniel Carney, a theoretical physicist at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in Berkeley, California, who was not involved in the research, told Live Science.
Along with helping in the hunt for dark matter, Carney believes the work could find many applications, such as looking for stray electromagnetic fields from wires in a lab or searching for defects in a material.
Originally published on Live Science.
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Quantum crystal could reveal the identity of dark matter - Space.com
4 Stocks to Benefit From the Potential of Quantum Computing – Yahoo Finance
Quantum computing is emerging as the next big thing in the world of technology owing to the advantages it offers over traditional computers, especially when it comes to rapid processing of complex calculations. Quantum computers are opening up new areas of research and are predicting outcomes at a faster pace than traditional computers. This is because unlike traditional computing, where basic information is stored in binaries, that is, in ones or zeros, quantum computing holds data in the form of quantum bits or qubits, that is, in combinations of all possible states, which are also referred to as superposition.
Quantum computing can be leveraged in areas such as artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning, allowing for increased efficiency and better outcomes. Owing to the ability to generate optimized results, quantum computing is being used across various sectors. NASA is utilizing quantum computing to find safer ways of space travel, controlling air traffic, and so on, as mentioned in a GigaOm article. In 2019, automotive manufacturer Volkswagen used quantum computers to optimize traffic flow in Lisbon, as mentioned in a press release by the company.
Since quantum computing utilizes quantum physics, that is, studying particles at the subatomic level, drug research and discovery can take a leap forward as researchers can study the properties of molecules in detail. Apart from that, the financial sector stands to benefit from quantum computing. Per a report by the IBM Institute for Business Value, quantum computing can be utilized in areas such as risk profiling, predicting and targeting as well as optimization of trading.
Reflective of the positives that quantum computing stands to offer to myriad industries, the quantum computing market is expected to continue to grow. Gartner stated that by 2025, about 40% of large companies are set to undertake initiatives related to quantum computing, as mentioned in a Wall Street Journal article. In fact, per a report by Markets and Markets, the quantum computing market is estimated to witness a CAGR of 30.2% from 2021 to 2026.
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Since quantum computing hardware is expensive and hard to maintain, firms are expected to use the technology via cloud platforms. In 2019, a report by Gartner had stated that by 2023, 95% of organizations will use Quantum Computing as a Service for conducting research on quantum computing strategies.
Quantum computing is emerging as the next step of technological advancement and is set to witness growth going forward. This seems like a prudent time to keep a close watch on companies that can utilize the potential of quantum computing in the coming days. We have selected four such stocks that carry a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy) or 3 (Hold). You can see the complete list of todays Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.
Microsoft Corporation MSFT takes a comprehensive approach to delivering quantum and the approach innovates in parallel at all layers of the computing stack, including controls, software and development tools and services. The company also offers Azure Quantum, which assembles and curates several quantum resources for developers and customers across all industries.
Shares of Microsoft have risen 34.8% year to date and it currently has a Zacks Rank #2. The Zacks Consensus Estimate for its current-year earnings has moved up 3.6% over the past 60 days. The companys expected earnings growth rate for the current year is 8%.
NVIDIA Corporation NVDA offers cuQuantum, which is a software development kit of optimized libraries and tools for accelerating quantum computing workflows.
Shares of this Zacks Rank #2 company have gained 73.4% year to date. The Zacks Consensus Estimate for its current-year earnings has risen 6.1% over the past 60 days. The companys expected earnings growth rate for the current year is 68%.
Alphabet Inc.s GOOGL Google offers Quantum AI, which is advancing the state-of-the-art quantum computing and developing tools for researchers for operating beyond classical capabilities. On May 18, Google unveiled its new Quantum AI campus in Santa Barbara, CA, and the campus includes Googles first quantum data center, quantum hardware research laboratories, and quantum processor chip fabrication facilities.
Shares of Alphabet have risen 64.3% year to date and the stock currently carries a Zacks Rank #3. The Zacks Consensus Estimate for its current-year earnings has moved 14.3% north over the past 60 days. The companys expected earnings growth rate for the current year is 73.8%.
Intel Corporation INTC designs, manufactures, and sells essential technologies for the cloud, smart, and connected devices. Intel has been collaborating with QuTech and providing engineering resources for accelerating developments. On May 12, Intel, in collaboration with QuTech, reported that using its cryogenic controller Horse Ridge, it was able to control qubits even in low, cryogenic temperatures, which can lead to solving the problem of quantum scaling or wiring bottleneck.
Shares of Intel have risen 8.2% year to date. The Zacks Consensus Estimate for its current-year earnings has risen 3.7% over the past 60 days. This Zacks Rank #3 companys expected earnings growth rate for the next five years is 7.5%.
Want the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days. Click to get this free reportIntel Corporation (INTC) : Free Stock Analysis ReportMicrosoft Corporation (MSFT) : Free Stock Analysis ReportNVIDIA Corporation (NVDA) : Free Stock Analysis ReportAlphabet Inc. (GOOGL) : Free Stock Analysis ReportTo read this article on Zacks.com click here.Zacks Investment Research
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4 Stocks to Benefit From the Potential of Quantum Computing - Yahoo Finance
For The First Time, Physicists Observed a Quantum Property That Makes Water Weird – ScienceAlert
There's a storm in your teacup of the likes we barely understand. Water molecules flipping about madly, reaching out to one another, grabbing hold and letting go in unique ways that defy easy study.
While physicists know the phenomenon of hydrogen bonding plays a key role in water's many weird and wonderful configurations, certain details of exactly how this works have remained rather vague.
An international team of researchers took a new approach to imaging the positions of particles making up liquid water, capturing their blur with femtosecondprecision to reveal how hydrogen and oxygen jostle within water molecules.
Their results might not help us make a better cup of tea, but they go a long way in fleshing out the quantum modelling of hydrogen bonds, potentially improving theories explaining why water so vital for life as we know it has such intriguing properties.
"This has really opened a new window to study water," says Xijie Wang, a physicist with the US Department of Energy's SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory.
"Now that we can finally see the hydrogen bonds moving, we'd like to connect those movements with the broader picture, which could shed light on how water led to the origin and survival of life on Earth and inform the development of renewable energy methods."
In isolation, a single molecule of water is a three-way custody battle over electrons between two hydrogen atoms and a single oxygen.
With far more protons than its pair of weenie sidekicks, oxygen gets slightly more of the molecule's electron love. This leaves each hydrogen with a little more electron-free time than usual. The tiny atoms aren't exactly left positively charged, but it does make for a V-shaped molecule with a gentle slope of subtly positive tips and a slightly negative core.
Throw a number of these molecules together with enough energy, and the small variations in charge will arrange themselves accordingly, with same charges pushing apart and unlike charges coming together.
While that might all sound simple enough, the engine behind this process is anything but straight-forward. Electrons zoom about under the influence of various quantum laws, meaning the closer we look, the less certain we can be about certain properties.
Previously, physicists had relied on ultrafast spectroscopy to gain an understanding of the way electrons move in water's chaotic tug-of-war, catching photons of light and analyzing their signature to map the electron positions.
Unfortunately, this leaves out a crucial part of the scenery the atoms themselves. Far from passive bystanders, they also flex and wobble with respect to the quantum forces shifting around them.
"The low mass of the hydrogen atoms accentuates their quantum wave-like behavior," says SLAC physicist Kelly Gaffney.
To gain insights into the atoms' arrangements, the team used something called a Megaelectronvolt Ultrafast Electron Diffraction Instrument, or MeV-UED.This device at the SLAC's National Accelerator Laboratory showers the water with electrons, which carry crucial information on the atoms' arrangements as they ricochet from the molecules.
(Greg Stewart/SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory)
Above: Animation shows how a water molecule responds after being hit with laser light. As the excited water molecule starts to vibrate, its hydrogen atoms (white) tug oxygen atoms (red) from neighboring water molecules closer, before pushing them away, expanding the space between the molecules.
With enough snapshots, it was possible to build a high-resolution picture of the jiggle of hydrogen as the molecules bend and flex around them, revealing how they drag oxygen from neighboring molecules towards them before violently shoving them back again.
"This study is the first to directly demonstrate that the response of the hydrogen bond network to an impulse of energy depends critically on the quantum mechanical nature of how the hydrogen atoms are spaced out, which has long been suggested to be responsible for the unique attributes of water and its hydrogen bond network," says Gaffney.
Now that the tool has been shown to work in principle, researchers can use it to study the turbulent waltz of water molecules as pressures rise and temperatures fall, watching how it responds to life-building organic solutes or forms amazing new phases under exotic conditions.
Never did a storm look quite so graceful.
This research was published in Nature.
Link:
For The First Time, Physicists Observed a Quantum Property That Makes Water Weird - ScienceAlert