Category Archives: Quantum Physics
ORNLs Lupini elected fellow of the Microscop – EurekAlert
image:ORNL scientist Andrew Lupini has been named a Fellow of the Microscopy Society of America. view more
Credit: Genevieve Martin, ORNL/U.S. Dept. of Energy
Andrew Lupini, a scientist and inventor at the Department of Energys Oak Ridge National Laboratory, has been elected Fellow of the Microscopy Society of America.
MSA fellows are senior distinguished members who have made significant contributions to the advancement of microscopy and microanalysis through scientific achievement and service to the scientific community and the society. Lupini was one of only four scientists named an MSA Fellow this year.
Lupini was cited for foundational contribution of theory and practice of aberration correction STEM [scanning transmission electron microscopy], and applications for high-resolution EELS [electron energy loss spectroscopy] and e-beam atomic fabrication.
Karren More, director of ORNLs Center for Nanophase Materials Sciences, also an MSA fellow, said, Andys contributions to the field of microscopy cannot be overstated. He is an exceptional and prolific scientist whose range of research spans microscopy to optics, quantum mechanics and nanotechnology. This is a well-deserved honor.
Lupini is a widely cited physicist and microscopist who earned his doctorate in physics from the Cavendish Laboratory of Cambridge University in the United Kingdom in 2001. Lupini is the leader of the Scanning Transmission Electron Microscopy group at CNMS and is one of the inventors of the first aberration corrector in a scanning transmission electron microscope to demonstrate improved resolution.
ORNLs CNMS, a DOE Office of Science user facility, offers the national and international user community access to staff expertise and state-of-the-art equipment for a broad range of nanoscience research, including nanomaterials synthesis, nanofabrication, imaging, microscopy, characterization and theory-modeling simulation.
Lupinis research interests include all forms of electron microscopy and spectroscopy, especially as applied to new or quantum materials, including high energy-resolution EELS. He was named a Fellow of the American Physical Society in 2021.
UT-Battelle manages ORNL for DOEs Office of Science, the single largest supporter of basic research in the physical sciences in the United States. The Office of Science is working to address some of the most pressing challenges of our time. For more information, please visitenergy.gov/science. Lawrence Bernard
Disclaimer: AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert system.
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A Student Graduates, a Professor Retires, but They Will Stay in Touch – Columbia University
Taylor says that the course and Harnishs senior thesis, a play she wrote about the course material, This is Your Computer on Drugswhich she is also directing on April 29 and 30 at Columbiarepresent the culmination of their three-year collaborative relationship.
Harnish took her first class with Taylor, Philosophy of Religion, during the spring semester of her freshman year, after which she decided to become a religion major instead of the double major she had declared in philosophy and theater. This was also when COVID hit, right when Harnish was writing her midterm paper, so the course was completed over Zoom. She then enrolled in two more courses with Taylor during the fall 2020 semester, Theory and Recovering Place, because he had hinted at retirement. Both classes were conducted virtually.
It was the depths of the pandemic, and Harnish, who had returned to Indiana, where she grew up, was having a hard time. She was living alone in a government-subsidized apartment for artists in Indianapolis, working two jobs, taking 16 course credit hours, and trying to cope with life during COVID.
Come midterms, she emailed Taylor to alert him that she was planning on withdrawing from Columbia for the rest of the semester because of her difficulty managing everything. He offered to Zoom with her later that day.
He talked me into staying in school, said Harnish, and its a good thing he did, because my final project for Recovering Place was my first full-length play, The Foundation of Roses.
The 60-page script is a ghost story about her challenging childhood experiences, said Taylor. It was so remarkable that I nominated it for the Religion Departments Peter Awn Award, which is given annually to the most outstanding undergraduate paper or project in the department. My colleagues agreed with my assessment, and Alethea won the award in 2021.
Harnish has since written four more plays. One of them, Phantasmagoria, a one-person, autobiographical show, made its Off-Broadway debut in June 2022 when she performed it at the Downtown Urban Arts Festival, where it won second place for the Best Play Award. The work was about leaving her rural roots in Indiana to attend college in New York.
According to Harnish, she was the first person from her high school to get into an Ivy League university, and traveling halfway across the country to a big city was a culture shock. Meeting Taylor, who became a mentor, was very beneficial for her.
Over time, the relationship has morphed from a mentor-mentee one into something more reciprocal, said Harnish.
Taylor, who started teaching at Williams College in 1973, and arrived full-time at Columbia in 2007, said that early on he detected something very special about Alethea. It was not just her exceptional intelligence, interest, maturity, and determination, but also a rare imaginative creativity.
Once campus came back to life in fall 2021, at the start of Harnishs junior year, the two continued their conversations in person, and Harnish started sending Taylor examples of her writing. They met regularly during Taylors office hours to discuss her work. One day, she asked him what he was working on for his next book. Hegel and quantum mechanics, he said.
In one of those strange moments the theoretical physicist Wolfgang Pauli and the psychologist Carl Jung labeled synchronicity, said Taylor, Alethea said, Thats weird because I want to write and produce a play for my senior thesis about quantum physics and New Age spirituality.
Out of that convergence came the course theyre now co-teaching. They started by delving deeper into their shared interest in the material through reading and further discussion. Few people realize that personal computers, the Internet, the World Wide Web, and the Metaverse all trace their origins to hippies and the drug culture of the 1960s, said Taylor.
The more I thought about it, the clearer it became that this would be the perfect subject for my last course, he continued. My professional career spanned precisely the half-century from the 1960s to the present.
When Taylor asked her to co-teach the course, Harnish was initially terrified. We had spent almost two years in conversation by that point, and I knew that this would be the opportunity of a lifetime, she said. His insisting that he was also learning from me gave me the confidence to take on such a role.
Although Harnish has fully embraced her leadership role with the course this semester, she is not sure if she will pursue a career in higher education. Her immediate plans after graduation are to travel to Greece this summer with a Brooklyn-based theater company, providing administrative support for its apprentice program. She then wants to spend a year in New York, completing the applications for various playwriting fellowships and other writing programs.
Back in the classroom, the next time Hippie Physics meets, Harnish, dressed in a jean shirt, long, pleated skirt, and cowboy boots, leads the discussion on the assigned readings from The Book by Alan Watts and Zen Mind, Beginners Mind by Shunryu Suzuki. One of her touches has been to start every session spending a few moments listening to one of the eras classic rock songs, and then opening the floor to a parsing of the songs meaning. Todays selection is Led Zeppelins Stairway to Heaven.
After she stops the music, she says, What is the implication philosophically of there being a stairway to heaven for us? Were down here, and we have to get up there.
As he watches her effortlessly command the classroom, Taylor says, Strangely, the success of this course makes it both easier and more difficult for me to stop teaching. We hear much, perhaps too much, today about the problems with higher education, and especially with the humanities. But as I watch Alethea teach and her fellow undergraduates respond to her, I have hope for the future.
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A Student Graduates, a Professor Retires, but They Will Stay in Touch - Columbia University
The quantum spin liquid that isn’t one – Phys.org
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For two decades, it was believed that a possible quantum spin liquid was discovered in a synthetically produced material. In this case, it would not follow the laws of classical physics even on a macroscopic level, but rather those of the quantum world. There is great hope in these materials: they would be suitable for applications in quantum entangled information transmission (quantum cryptography) or even quantum computation.
Now, however, researchers from TU Wien and Toho University in Japan have shown that the promising material, -(BEDT-TTF)2Cu2(CN)3, is not the predicted quantum spin liquid, but a material that can be described using known concepts.
In their recent publication in the journal Nature Communications, the researchers report how they investigated the mysterious quantum state by measuring the electrical resistance in -(BEDT-TTF)2Cu2(CN)3 as a function of temperature and pressure. In 2021, Andrej Pustogow from the Institute of Solid State Physics at TU Wien has already investigated the magnetic properties of this material.
"Phase diagrams are the language of physics," says Pustogow, leading author of the current study. If you understand this language, a quick glance at the diagram shows how the properties of a material change depending on temperature and pressure. Water, for example, becomes solid at a temperature of 0C and gaseous at 100C. If you now change the pressure, for example by heating water in a pressure cooker, the boiling point increases to over 100C.
In order to now find out how the supposed quantum spin liquidi.e., a liquid in which the spins of the electrons can rotate freely and are quantum entangledbehaves under pressure, the research team carried out systematic resistance measurements. "The special thing is that the very shape of the phase boundary gives deep insights into the physics of magnetic quantum fluctuations, which actually can't be measured with electrical resistance per se," says Pustogow. This was only made possible by a method that is unique worldwide, which the Japanese partners used to study the material. "So we make the impossible possible and follow the entropy footprints of the magnetic moments and thus gain new insights into a supposed quantum spin fluid," continues Pustogow. Prof. Andrej Pustogow. Credit: Vienna University of Technology
The researchers also found that the phase diagram of -(BEDT-TTF)2Cu2(CN)3 strongly resembles that of helium-3. Already back in the 1950s a Soviet researcher predicted that helium-3 behaves differently from conventional materials, turning from solid to liquid rather than from liquid to solid at low temperatures (of less than 0.3 Kelvin). Exactly the same effect occurs with electrons in solids when they freeze upon increasing temperature from a metallic state (mobile electrons) to a Mott insulator, in which the electrons are firmly bound to the atom and do not move.
This "Pomeranchuk effect," named after the researcher who predicted it, was also observed by the international research team in -(BEDT-TTF)2Cu2(CN)3: At higher temperatures, the material initially shows insulating behavior with rigid electrons that melt into a liquid (metal) when it cools. Below 6 Kelvin, however, the electrons freeze again and lose their magnetic moments as well.
"Although -(BEDT-TTF)2Cu2(CN)3 itself is not a quantum spin liquid, our research provides important clues for further research into these materials. For example, our experiments help to better understand the mechanism of magnetoelastic coupling. If we succeed in controlling this effect, we may also be able to eventually realize a quantum spin liquid," Pustogow says.
More information: A. Pustogow et al, Chasing the spin gap through the phase diagram of a frustrated Mott insulator, Nature Communications (2023). DOI: 10.1038/s41467-023-37491-z
Journal information: Nature Communications
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Mrs. Davis Episode 1: The Crucial Clue To The Stranded Man’s … – Looper
Erwin Schrdinger has been recognized as "the father of quantum mechanics," which deals with subatomic particles. At this level of scale, the normal laws of physics begin to break down, which is why quantum physics is now considered a separate school of thought from classical physics. Famously, Schrdinger once presented a thought experiment to illustrate a paradox inherent in the principle of quantum superposition, which provides that a system can exist in multiple states until its observation leads to the result: There is a cat inside a box, and the cat is both alive and dead until the box is opened, which is an interesting concept to make an allusion to on "Mrs. Davis."
It is hard to deny the similarities between Arthur Schroedinger on "Mrs. Davis" and the Nobel Prize-winning physicist. Besides the cat, Arthur claims to be a scientist himself, and both of them wear glasses. While Arthur is possibly a descendant of Schrdinger, who died in the 1960s, the zaniness of "Mrs. Davis" allows for the possibility that he may be Schrdinger himself in a different state. Either way, it will be interesting to see where the character fits into the equation and why he was missing for ten years.
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Mrs. Davis Episode 1: The Crucial Clue To The Stranded Man's ... - Looper
Quantum liquid becomes solid when heated – Phys.org
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Solids can be melted by heating, but in the quantum world it can also be the other way around: In a joint effort, an experimental team led by Francesca Ferlaino in Innsbruck, Austria, and a theoretical team led by Thomas Pohl in Aarhus, Denmark, show how a quantum liquid forms supersolid structures through heating. The scientists obtained a first phase diagram for a supersolid at finite temperature.
Supersolids are a relatively new and exciting area of research. They exhibit both solid and superfluid properties simultaneously. In 2019, three research groups were able to demonstrate this state for the first time beyond doubt in ultracold quantum gases, among them the research group led by Francesca Ferlaino from the Department of Experimental Physics at the University of Innsbruck and the AW Institute for Quantum Optics and Quantum Information (IQOQI) in Innsbruck.
In 2021, Francesca Ferlaino's team studied in detail the life cycle of supersolid states in a dipolar gas of dysprosium atoms. They observed something unexpected: "Our data suggested that an increase in temperature promotes the formation of supersolid structures," recounts Claudia Politi of Francesca Ferlaino's team. "This surprising behavior was an important boost to theory, which had previously paid little attention to thermal fluctuations in this context."
The Innsbruck scientists joined forces with the Danish theoretical group led by Thomas Pohl to explore the effect of thermal fluctuation. They developed and published in Nature Communications a theoretical model that can explain the experimental results and underlines the thesis that heating the quantum liquid can lead to the formation of a quantum crystal. The theoretical model shows that as the temperature rises, these structures can form more easily.
"With the new model, we now have a phase diagram for the first time that shows the formation of a supersolid state as a function of temperature," Francesca Ferlaino says. "The surprising behavior, which contradicts our everyday observation, arises from the anisotropic nature of the dipole-dipole interaction of the strongly magnetic atoms of dysprosium."
More information: J. Snchez-Baena et al, Heating a dipolar quantum fluid into a solid, Nature Communications (2023). DOI: 10.1038/s41467-023-37207-3
Journal information: Nature Communications
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Emerging Artist Seffa Kleins Radiant New York Debut Is Inspired by Science, Stargazing, and the Work of Her Grandfather, Yves Klein – artnet News
Seffa Klein. Portrait by Sam Frost
Ever since the discovery of quantum mechanics during the last century, scientists have sought to unify the contradicting laws simultaneously governing the ever-uncertain atomic level and humanitys self-assured inertial frame as maintained by Isaac Newton. The latest series by Phoenix- and L.A.-based Seffa Klein (b. 1996) seeks a similar theory of everything to unite her work, on view in Kleins New York debut Webs: Where Everything Belongs at SFA Advisory through May 31.
Seated amongst the exhibitions eight abstract geometries, made of bismuth, plaster, and acrylic on woven glass in lieu of canvas, Klein said that ever since she started making conceptual art at 17 shes remained reticent about forcing the work to communicate her process. Instead, Klein said, while surrounded by these radiating textures that loom on, somehow, even larger than their actual size, that the process itself exemplifies her works mission: to uncover realitys lowest common denominators.
Installation view of Seffa Kleins WEB(Accelerating Light)(2023) and WEB (Walk Through Zero) (2023). Courtesy of SFA Advisory.
Webs interweaves the many mediums Klein has experimented with this past decade. Its the first time shes harmonized so many metals and materials within a full series, accompanied here by six smaller gouache paintings examining the fractal patterns throughout this show in detail. Webs also marks the first time Klein has woven so many ideas into a single series, pairing her sun gazing practice with the symbolic languages shes devised to centrifuge meaning itself.
Some threads begin before Kleins lifetime. Shes the granddaughter of French artist Yves Klein, a student of the sublime who released thousands of balloons upon Pariss streets to compliment his gallery shows and harnessed women as paintbrushes to sign the sky. Living artistically took its toll Yves Klein died of a heart attack in his 30s, long before meeting his granddaughter.
Two decades after Klein passed, his widow Rotraut Klein and her new husband Daniel Moquay moved from France to Phoenix most likely, Klein told me, because they wanted to live somewhere warm in America without the fear of earthquakes. Rich with otherworldly desert landscapes, wild west lore, and ancient Indigenous wisdom, there was a magical vibe back then and there, too. Moquay went on to manage the Yves Klein Archives and operate a French restaurant in Phoenix where Kleins to-be mother worked on staff and met her father, Yves Kleins biological son. By the time Klein herself was 10 their family had moved to Northern Arizona and started a farm that the fledgling artist helped out on.
Installation view Seffa Klein: Webs at SFA Advisory, 2023. Courtesy of the artist and SFA Advisory.
I grew up a couple different ways, she said. One of them is traveling around the world, going to all sorts of fancy openings. The other is on a farm, digging and pulling weeds, working hard with my hands in the sun. She never fantasized about becoming an artist because she already was one. Instead, Klein planned to be an inventor.
I was definitely born with this, Klein continued. Or it could be epigenetic. I feel there is spiritual genetics, too, that happens to align with a physical genetics at times. Much like her grandfather invented International Klein Blue, Kleins artwork centers on material too.
At 17, after years of drawing aliens and portraits, Klein turned her eye toward mathematical abstractions. She wrote equations for flowers and translated floral hues through them in binary code, decoupling integers from the values that we unquestioningly assign them. She calls these works Fibonacci abstractions. They feel very 17, Klein said, other than the ternary math.
17 deluxe, I observed. 40 rising, Klein quipped, referencing astrological birth charts.
Installation view Seffa Klein: Webs at SFA Advisory, 2023. Courtesy of the artist and SFA Advisory.
Klein went to UCLA to study astrophysics and art by the ocean. Favoring Will Rogers State Beach between Santa Monica and Malibu, Klein hit a record 180-day beach streak during the pandemic, continuing her 15-year sun gazing practice charging up energetically by staring at the sun during sunrise or sunset when the UV rays are scattered on the horizon, she clarified.
In college, Klein made amorphous forms of plaster layered thickly on a constructed armature that shed then carve into, uncovering the colors beneath. It was about creative destruction, she said, concealing things for myself to discover them. In paradoxes like these, where the mind must split itself to encompass opposing forces, Klein and others see a portal to truth.
Around her graduation in 2017, Klein discovered gallium metal, a nontoxic facsimile of lead that melts at the human body temperature. Its used in some medical scans. Through the molecular process of wetting, the same one once favored to make silver mirrors, she painted intricate metal patterns on glass. The process proved fragile and left Klein longing for color.
Seffa Klein, New Stream (2019). Courtesy of the artist.
Then she found bismuthbrilliant, safe to melt without a foundry, and hailing from collisions between neutron stars. All heavy metals are created in these high energy events, Klein noted. Theyre explosive, intense materials. Rarer than gold, Klein then concentrated bismuths full opalescent color spectrum across a series called Multiple Displacement Theorycompositions where flat shapes act as a language to convey how the earth, heaven, and humans interact.
Shes noticed that similar geometries persist in Webs, sculpted instead with impasto plaster outlines that interlock and weave so none take precedence on the visual hierarchyexcept, maybe, the glimmering solidified bismuth coating the top. Butterfly forms appear elsewhere to honor the Butterfly Effect, the principle of apparent randomness that prohibits humanity from predicting the weather past ten days at present, discovered by MIT physicist Ed Lorenz in 1963.
Installation view of Seffa Kleins WEB (Starchart)(2023). Installation view. Courtesy of SFA Advisory.
Or maybe its all just random to us ants on the rug. The gaze is my metaphor for your ability to structure your own consciousness via your attention, Klein said. These pieces are about the ability to see that all in the universe is ordered, that chaos is an illusion of our scale.
Rather than oxygenating the bismuth to provoke its hues, here Klein allows the material to act like a drawing. Acrylic paint, a new addition, provides color from each works base, inspired by seaside sunsets and pearlescent mollusks. Shifting forms and colors throughout evoke varying shades of the same transcendental state achieved by ordering the mind through the gazelearning to wield both like tools, and to wrap ones brain around concepts like quantum physics, which might not feel familiar but are always relevant, since truly everything is made of electrons.
Detail of Seffa Kleins WEB (Because 4,5,6)(2023). Detailed installation view, courtesy of SFA Advisory.
Some shades are as intense as Kleins own gazetake Web (Accelerating Light), compared with Web (Like a Sunflower). I think when youre accessing something profound, its always a bit scary, Klein said, echoing previous sentiments on the very meaning of awe-inspiring. Later, she added, Every time you go to the next state of consciousness, theres a death of the lower state of consciousness. Some works, maybe all if you need it, are an invitation to that death.
Klein is hardly daunted by her devotion to discovering reality itself. Everything in the universe better be knowable, she joked, otherwise, shes gonna kick the universes ass. Still, the process, the journey, is the point. Meaningfulness exists inherently everywhere, Klein said. Focusing ones attention on finding the nature of life is the meaning. It all starts with the gaze.
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Research Provides New Insight Into the Quantum Nature of How … – AZoQuantum
Lithium-ion batteries power our lives.
Because they are lightweight, have high energy density and are rechargeable, the batteries power many products, from laptops and cell phones to electric cars and toothbrushes.
However, current lithium-ion batteries have reached the limit of how much energy they can store. That has researchers looking for more powerful and cheaper alternatives.
Sulfur is inexpensive, plentiful and, theoretically, has a lot more energy density than conventional lithium ion cell materials, said Clemson University researcher Ramakrishna Podila, an associate professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy.
Today's electric vehicles can drive about 300 miles per charge. Lithium-sulfur batteries have the potential for a driving range of more than 400 miles with practical capacities of up to 500 watt-hours per kilogram at the pack level, twice that of lithium-ion batteries.
That has made it a prime target for researchers.
But there are challenges, the most significant being that elemental sulfur's octagonal form undergoes a series of structural and morphological changes during the battery's charge-discharge cycle, making it unstable and leading to fast cell failure. On the other hand, sulfurized polymer cathodes are stable at low sulfur content because they have shorter sulfur chains.
"The total energy you get depends not just on the total charge but also on the spatial and temporal distribution of the charges. The more localized they are, the less energy you get. We showed that the total energy can be increased when certain quantum restrictions on the shape of charge distribution are lifted," Podila said.
The researchers found that adding nitrogen to the sulfurous polymer spreads the charges out and increases the quantum capacitance.
"We've shown that you have a high capacity with elemental sulfur, but you cannot make a good, practical battery. You don't have as much sulfur in a sulfurized polymer, but it works so well by distributing charge better in the presence of nitrogen," Podila said. "So, practically speaking, we can make cells using sulfurized polymer with high quantum capacitance that match practical performance metrics of elemental sulfur battery that are limited by polysulfides."
Podila continued, "This research provides new insight into the actual quantum nature of how batteries or capacitors work. We often describe current flow in batteries and capacitors by treating electrons as rigid balls. In reality, electrons behave very differently at a microscopic level requiring special statistical treatment to describe their distribution in a crystal. Our experiments revealed some interesting quantum effects that manifest in the presence of nitrogen atoms. Beyond applications in li-ion batteries, our work on quantum capacitance is going to hopefully help people develop better batteries in the future by putting first things first rather than following an Edisonian approach."
The findings were published in the journal Advanced Science. The article is titled "Insights into the Pseudocapacitive Behavior of Sulfurized Polymer Electrodes for Li-S Batteries." In addition to Podila, the authors are current or former Clemson graduate students Nawraj Sapkota, Shailendra Chiluwal, Prakash Parajuli and Alan Rowland.
This work was financially supported by the NASA Established Program to Stimulate Competitive Research (EPSCoR) Award No. NNH17ZHA002C, South Carolina Stimulus Research Program (SRP) Award No. 18-SR03, South Carolina (SC) EPSCoR Made in SC Gear program (19-GE-01) and funding through the Clemson Department of Physics and Astronomy.
Source:http://www.clemson.edu/
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Research Provides New Insight Into the Quantum Nature of How ... - AZoQuantum
Top 9 Business Technology Trends to Watch Out for 2023 – Legal Reader
Each of these technological trends has its own set of applications and benefits, their combined use, if relevant to your specific context, is unquestionably the best approach to deployment.
Your company needs to cut expenses, increase margins, or reinvest. Or perhaps your company is still attempting to expand. Maybe its time for a pivot to reinvent the business strategy. Some of you may even need to do all of these things at the same time.
This list can be used by business leaders and engineers to evaluate the potential effect of these technology trends on specific strategies such as increasing revenue, accelerating digital, maximizing value from data, protecting & building your brand, and developing robust web applications.
These trends may represent a risk or an opportunity for your organization, and this list will assist you in developing a technology roadmap to drive effect on a variety of strategic goals.
You can predict when these trends will be most pertinent by looking at when they will be most relevant.
Top 9 Business Technology Trends to Watch Out for 2023
1. Hyper Automation
2. Cloud Computing and Data Science
3. Digital Immune System (DIS)
4. Quantum Computing
5. Edge Computing
6. Cyber Security
7. Datafication
8. Blockchain
9. AI and ML
10. IoT
1. Hyper Automation
The most basic RPA bots can be made by recording a users clicks and keystrokes while interacting with an app. When issues arise, a user can simply observe how the bot connects with the app and identify the steps that need to be tweaked.
In reality, these rudimentary recordings are frequently used as a starting point for developing more robust bots that can adapt to changes in screen size, layout, or workflow.
RPA is creating new jobs while changing current ones but according to Forrester Research RPA automation will threaten the lives of 230 million or about 9% of the global workforce. According to McKinsey, only about 5% of jobs can be completely automated, but about 60% can be partially automated.
RPA tools can also be linked to AI modules with features such as OCR, machine vision, natural language understanding, and decision engines, resulting in intelligent process automation. These features are sometimes bundled into cognitive automation modules designed to support best practices for a particular industry or business method.
2. Digital Immune System
Peoples faith and trust in digital technologies have grown as they have been accommodated and entangled with devices and technologies. This familiar digital trust is another important development that will lead to more innovations. People who have digital conviction believe that technology can establish a secure, safe, and reliable digital world and assist businesses in inventing and innovating without fear of losing the publics trust.
Cybersecurity and ethical hacking are two main specializations you can pursue to make the digital world a safer place. There are a variety of positions available in these two industries, ranging from junior to senior levels. Professional certifications may be required for ethical hacking, whereas a diploma or even a masters degree is adequate for a high-paying job in cybersecurity.
3. Quantum Computing
Quantum computing is a branch of computer science that focuses on the creation of technologies based on quantum theory principles. Quantum computing solves issues that are too complex for classical computing by utilizing the unique properties of quantum physics.
The advancement of quantum computers represents a significant advancement in computing capability, with the possibility for massive performance gains in particular use cases. Quantum computing, for example, is expected to excel at tasks like integer factorization and simulations, and it has the potential to be used in sectors like pharmaceuticals, healthcare, manufacturing, cybersecurity, and finance.
Quantum computers have become hundreds of times quicker than conventional computers, and big companies like Splunk, Honeywell, Microsoft, AWS, Google, and others are investing in Quantum Computing innovation. The global quantum computing industry is expected to surpass $2.5 billion by 2029.
4. Edge Computing
The generation, collection, and analysis of data at the place of generation, instead of in a centralized processing system such as a data center, is referred to as edge computing. It employs digital IoT (Internet of Things) devices, which are frequently put in disparate locations, to transmit data in real time or later to a central data repository.
Users benefit from faster, more reliable services when computing services are placed closer to edge sites or devices, while businesses benefit from being able to process data more rapidly and support applications without worrying about latency.
Edge computing can supplement a hybrid computing paradigm and is particularly useful for:
1. Several stages of the artificial intelligence/machine learning lifecycle, such as data collection, app deployment, inference, and monitoring the operation as new data is gathered.
2. Coordinating activities across geographical boundaries
3. Autonomous vehicles
4. Virtual reality/augmented reality
5. Cyber Security
Cyber security is defined as the collection of methods, technologies, and processes used to safeguard the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of computer systems, networks, and data from cyber-attacks or unauthorized access. The primary goal of cyber security is to safeguard all organizational assets from both external and internal threats, as well as natural disaster disruptions.
Because organizational assets consist of numerous disparate systems, an effective and efficient cyber security stance necessitates coordinated efforts across all of its information systems.
As a result, cyber security is divided into subdomains such as Database and Infrastructure Security, Application Security, Identity Management and Data Security, Network Security, Mobile Security, Cloud Security, Disaster recovery and business continuity planning (DR&BC), Identity Management and Access Control are some of them.
6. Datafication
Datafication is essentially the transformation of everything in our lives into data-powered devices or software. In a nutshell, Datafication is the transformation of human tasks into technology powered by data. Data is here to stay for longer than we can recall, from our mobile devices, industrial equipment, and office applications to AI-powered appliances and everything else! As a result, keeping our data kept correctly, securely, and safely has become a high-demand specialization in our economy.
Datafication increases the demand for IT experts, data scientists, engineers, technicians, managers, and many other positions. Even better, anyone with a solid understanding of technology can pursue accreditation in data-related specializations to find work in this field.
As a result, businesses must depend on data-driven initiatives to create a qualified workforce and a strong corporate culture now more than ever. The best option is to delegate this strategy to a partner who is an expert in the field.
7. Blockchain
People associate blockchain technology with cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin, blockchain technology provides security that is helpful in a variety of other ways. To put it simply, blockchain is data that you can only add to, not subtract from or alter. Because youre creating a data chain, the word chain was coined. The inability to change prior blocks is what makes it so secure. Furthermore, because blockchains are consensus-driven, no single entity can gain possession of the data. Blockchain eliminates the need for a trusted third party to oversee or verify transactions.
A blockchain organizes its data into linked segments (blocks), whereas a database usually organizes its data into tables. When applied decentralized, this data structure creates an irreversible data timeline. When a block is completed, it becomes permanent and becomes a component of this timeline. When a block is added to the chain, it is assigned an exact timestamp.
At its core, blockchain technology is straightforward to grasp. Essentially, the technology exists as a shared database with entries that must be verified and encrypted by peer-to-peer networks.
8. AI and ML
Artificial intelligence, or AI, has gotten a lot of attention over the last decade, but it remains among the new technology trends. AI is already well-known for its superiority in image and voice recognition, navigation apps, smartphone personal assistants and a variety of other customized software development and products.
Machine Learning, a subset of AI, is also being used in a wide range of sectors, resulting in a high demand for skilled professionals. According to Forrester, AI, machine learning, and automation will generate 9% of new jobs in the United States by 2025, making it yet another new technology trend to keep an eye on.
By 2025, the AI market will be worth $190 billion, with worldwide spending on cognitive and AI systems exceeding $57 billion in 2023. As AI spreads across industries, new jobs will be developed in areas such as development, programming, testing, support, and maintenance, to mention a few. AI, on the other hand, provides some of the highest salaries today.
9. IoT (Internet of Things)
The Internet of Things (IoT) is a network of physical objects or things embedded with sensors, software, and connectivity that allow them to gather and exchange data with other devices and systems via the internet. Simple household appliances, such as thermostats and smart lights, to more complicated devices, such as industrial machinery and vehicles, are examples of these things. These objects data can be used to improve efficiency, automate processes, and provide valuable insights to people and organizations.
According to projections, around 50 billion of these IoT devices will be in use worldwide by 2030, resulting in a massive network of interconnected devices ranging from smartphones to household appliances. Global Internet of Things (IoT) expenditure is expected to hit a staggering 1.1 trillion dollars in 2023.
Some prominent uses of IoT:
1. Smart home thermostats and security devices
2. Health and fitness monitoring wearables
3. Diagnostics for self-driving cars
4. Intelligent factory automation
5. Smart city lighting and traffic networks
6. Crop surveillance
7. Retail supply chain monitoring
8. Disease surveillance and diagnosis
To Sum Up
Each of these technological trends has its own set of applications and benefits, their combined use, if relevant to your specific context, is unquestionably the best approach to deployment. IoT, AI, and the other technological trends are already transforming todays companies.
While large companies can easily incorporate new technologies into their operations, the situation for small businesses is different and more difficult, given the realities of limited resources, including time constraints. Similarly, there is the challenge of determining which of these new technological trends are required for your operations. This is why it is recommended that SMBs first determine the need for a specific technology and then test it before making a decision.
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Top 9 Business Technology Trends to Watch Out for 2023 - Legal Reader
Extremely Surprising Nuclear Physicists Have a Groundbreaking … – SciTechDaily
Jefferson Labs CEBAF Large Acceptance Spectrometer in Experimental Hall B. Credit: DOEs Jefferson Lab
Nuclear physicists have made a groundbreaking discovery through their unique analysis of experimental data. For the first time ever, they have observed the production of lambda particles, also known as strange matter, through a process called semi-inclusive deep inelastic scattering (SIDIS). The data obtained also suggests that the building blocks of protons, quarks, and gluons can sometimes march through the nucleus of an atom in pairs referred to as diquarks. The experiment was carried out at the Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility, which is run by the U.S. Department of Energy.
This achievement has been the culmination of many years of hard work. The data that was used in this study was originally gathered in 2004. Lamiaa El Fassi, who is currently serving as an associate professor of physics at Mississippi State University and is the lead researcher of this project, initially analyzed these data while she was working on her thesis project to obtain her graduate degree on a different topic.
Nearly a decade after completing her initial research with these data, El Fassi revisited the dataset and led her group through a careful analysis to yield these unprecedented measurements. The dataset comes from experiments in Jefferson Labs Continuous Electron Beam Accelerator Facility (CEBAF), a DOE user facility. In the experiment, nuclear physicists tracked what happened when electrons from CEBAF scatter off the target nucleus and probe the confined quarks inside protons and neutrons. The results were recently published in Physical Review Letters.
These studies help build a story, analogous to a motion picture, of how the struck quark turns into hadrons. In a new paper, we report first-ever observations of such a study for the lambda baryon in the forward and backward fragmentation regions, El Fassi said.
Like the more familiar protons and neutrons, each lambda is made up of three quarks.
Unlike protons and neutrons, which only contain a mixture of up and down quarks, lambdas contain one up quark, one down quark, and one strange quark. Physicists have dubbed matter that contains strange quarks strange matter.
In this work, El Fassi and her colleagues studied how these particles of strange matter form from collisions of ordinary matter. To do so, they shot CEBAFs electron beam at different targets, including carbon, iron, and lead. When a high-energy electron from CEBAF reaches one of these targets, it breaks apart a proton or neutron inside one of the targets nuclei.
Because the proton or neutron is totally broken apart, there is little doubt that the electron interacts with the quark inside, El Fassi said.
After the electron interacts with a quark or quarks via an exchanged virtual photon, the struck quark(s) begins moving as a free particle in the medium, typically joining up with other quark(s) it encounters to form a new composite particle as they propagate through the nucleus. And some of the time, this composite particle will be a lambda.
But the lambda is short-lived after formation, it will swiftly decay into two other particles: a pion and either a proton or neutron. To measure the different properties of these briefly created lambda particles, physicists must detect its two daughter particles, as well as the beam electron that scattered off the target nucleus.
The experiment that collected this data, EG2, used the CEBAF Large Acceptance Spectrometer (CLAS) detector in Jefferson Labs Experimental Hall B. These recently published results, First Measurement of Electroproduction off Nuclei in the Current and Target Fragmentation Regions, are part of the CLAS collaboration, which involves almost 200 physicists worldwide.
This work is the first to measure the lambda using this process, which is known as semi-inclusive deep inelastic scattering, in the forward and backward fragmentation regions. Its more difficult to use this method to study lambda particles, because the particle decays so quickly, it cant be measured directly.
This class of measurement has only been performed on protons before, and on lighter, more stable particles, said coauthor William Brooks, professor of physics at Federico Santa Mara Technical University and co-spokesperson of the EG2 experiment.
The analysis was so challenging, it took several years for El Fassi and her group to re-analyze the data and extract these results. It was her thesis advisor, Kawtar Hafidi, who encouraged her to pursue the investigation of the lambda from these datasets.
I would like to commend Lamiaas hard work and perseverance in dedicating years of her career working on this, said Hafidi, associate laboratory director for physical sciences and engineering at Argonne National Lab and co-spokesperson of the EG2 experiment. Without her, this work would not have seen fruition.
It hasnt been easy, El Fassi said. Its a long and time-consuming process, but it was worth the effort. When you spend so many years working on something, it feels good to see it published.
El Fassi began this lambda analysis when she herself was a postdoc, a couple of years prior to becoming an assistant professor at Mississippi State University. Along the way, several of her own postdocs at Mississippi State have helped extract these results, including coauthor Taya Chetry.
Im very happy and motivated to see this work being published, said Chetry, who is now a postdoctoral researcher at Florida International University.
A notable finding from this intensive analysis changes the way physicists understand how lambdas form in the wake of particle collisions.
In similar studies that have used semi-inclusive deep inelastic scattering to study other particles, the particles of interest usually form after a single quark was struck by the virtual photon exchanged between the electron beam and the target nucleus. But the signal left by lambda in the CLAS detector suggests a more packaged deal.
The authors analysis showed that when forming a lambda, the virtual photon has been absorbed part of the time by a pair of quarks, known as a diquark, instead of just one. After being struck, this diquark went on to find a strange quark and forms a lambda.
This quark pairing suggests a different mechanism of production and interaction than the case of the single quark interaction, Hafidi said.
A better understanding of how different particles form helps physicists in their effort to decipher the strong interaction, the fundamental force that holds these quark-containing particles together. The dynamics of this interaction are very complicated, and so is the theory used to describe it: quantum chromodynamics (QCD).
Comparing measurements to models of QCDs predictions allows physicists to test this theory. Because the diquark finding differs from the models current predictions, it suggests something about the model is off.
There is an unknown ingredient that we dont understand. This is extremely surprising since the existing theory can describe essentially all other observations, but not this one, Brooks said. That means there is something new to learn, and at the moment, we have no clue what it could be.
To find out, theyll need even more measurements.
Data for EG2 were collected with 5.014 GeV (billion electron-volt) electron beams in the CEBAFs 6 GeV era. Future experiments will use electron beams from the updated CEBAF, which now extend up to 11 GeV for Experimental Hall B, as well as an updated CLAS detector known as CLAS12, to continue studying the formation of a variety of particles, including lambdas, with higher-energy electrons.
The upcoming Electron-Ion Collider (EIC) at DOEs Brookhaven National Laboratory will also provide a new opportunity to continue studying this strange matter and quark pairing structure of the nucleon with greater precision.
These results lay the groundwork for upcoming studies at the upcoming CLAS12 and the planned EIC experiments, where one can investigate the diquark scattering in greater detail, Chetry said.
El Fassi is also a co-spokesperson for CLAS12 measurements of quark propagation and hadron formation. When data from the new experiments is finally ready, physicists will compare it to QCD predictions to further refine this theory.
Any new measurement that will give novel information toward understanding the dynamics of strong interactions is very important, she said.
Reference: First Measurement of Electroproduction off Nuclei in the Current and Target Fragmentation Regions by T. Chetry et al. (CLAS Collaboration), 4 April 2023, Physical Review Letters.DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.130.142301
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Extremely Surprising Nuclear Physicists Have a Groundbreaking ... - SciTechDaily
CERN marks the second World Quantum Day – CERN
CERN joins in the celebrations on 14 April involving scientists from more than 65 countries
Today, on 14 April, we celebrate World Quantum Day an international initiative launched by scientists from more than 65 countries to promote public understanding of quantum science and technology worldwide. The date 4.14 -- marks the rounded first 3 digits of Plancks constant, a crucial value in quantum mechanics that is used to describe the behaviour of particles at the subatomic level.
Officially launched in 2022, World Quantum Day already comprises more than 300 events held in 193 cities in 44 countries on 5 continents in 17 different languages. Scientists, engineers, educators, communicators, entrepreneurs, technologists, historians and artists all over the globe organise their own activities, such as outreach talks, exhibitions, workshops and panel discussions, to engage the general public with quantum science and explain how quantum technologies work and how they can impact our everyday life.
From quantum mechanics, quantum gravity, optics and information science to quantum computing, metrology and engineering, all domains of quantum science are celebrated, alongside their history, mathematical foundations and practical applications.
But what is quantum and why do we mark the date?
Quantum comes from the Latin word quantus, meaning how much/of what size. It is the smallest amount or unit of electromagnetic energy that can be measured. In short, quantum physics is the study of the smallest building blocks that make up our Universe. It seeks to describe the properties and behaviour of matter and energy at the most fundamental level. If you want to understand how atoms hold together, how electrons move through a computer chip or how magnets work, you will need to use quantum physics. A quantum-based theory can also help explore the origin of the matter-antimatter asymmetry or the nature of dark matter and dark energy phenomena that cannot be explained within the Standard Model.
Despite being recognised as the theoretical basis of modern physics, quantum science traces its origins back to the early 20th century when the German physicist Max Planck made a seemingly contradictory assumption that energy exists in individual units, which led to the first notion of quantum theory. Further investigations by Niels Bohr, Albert Einstein, Erwin Schrdinger and Richard Feynman made major contributions to the development of quantum mechanics, bringing a new dimension to the world of science.
As well as expanding our knowledge beyond the classical concepts, quantum physics lies at the core of some of the most profound technological advances. To give just a few examples, transistors, LEDs, lasers, GPS and medical imaging all rely on concepts of quantum physics. Quantum technologies also offer the potential to impact many other areas in the future: they hold great promise for improving how we secure communication and process information, for advancing the sensitivity of detectors and sensors and for changing the way we approach computing.
For the high-energy physics community, applications of quantum technologies could mean new advantages and possibilities for track reconstruction, simulation and event classification and the computing needs of CERNs world-leading research infrastructure the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) and its successors, the HL-LHC (High Luminosity Large Hadron Collider) and possibly the FCC (Future Circular Collider).
Quantum science evolved from a hypothesis, a revolutionary idea, to become one of the foundations of modern physics that has changed the way we think about the world forever, -- says Alberto Di Meglio, coordinator of the CERN Quantum Technology Initiative (QTI). Looking into the future, we can most certainly say that quantum science and technology will be a central cross-disciplinary field with a major impact on key societal and technological challenges. It is therefore important that we explore the potential of this breakthrough field and raise awareness about it today, pushing the boundaries of knowledge and technology. World Quantum Day is a great occasion to do this.
In 2022, CERN QTI already took part in the World Quantum Day celebrations by developing and hosting the event management website and organising a special scientific symposium at CERN. During the event, talks outlined the early days of quantum science at CERN and what those pioneering efforts mean for modern research.
To mark this years celebrations, the first-of-a-kind quantum workshop for high-school students will be held at CERN to introduce the young generation to the fascinating field of quantum science and promote early quantum physics education. Split into two parts, an introductory lecture and a hands-on session, the workshop will give a first insight into the concepts of quantum mechanics and explain how quantum science underpins the physical world around us and facilitates technological innovation. The event will be organised in close collaboration with Finlands QPlayLearn initiative, which uses innovative interactive tools to communicate the main aspects of quantum physics in a clear and accessible way to people of various ages and backgrounds.
To discover more about World Quantum Day, learn how to engage and find events taking place near you, visit: https://worldquantumday.org
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