University of Maryland President Darryll J. Pines today announced the creation of the Discovery Fund, which will support innovative companies and startups based in College Park and throughout Prince Georges County with up to $1 million a year from the university.

The first round of support is earmarked to help build a network of quantum business focused around UMD, Pines said in an address at the universitys inaugural Quantum Investment Summit. The two-day event was designed to connect investors and innovators in the growing quantum business and technology space, and drew more than 300 in-person and virtual participants from U.S. and international companies and organizations.

The university has long been a powerhouse in quantum physics research as well as a leader in designing and engineering technology based on this revolutionary branch of scienceone expected to result in quantum computers with unprecedented capabilities as well as disruptive advances in material science, digital security, health care and other fields.

UMDs growing commitment to strengthening the industrys foundation further solidifies the universitys status as the heart of the Capital of Quantum, Pines said.

This continual building on the infrastructure needed to catalyze startups and create groundbreaking products is absolutely essential if were to support and accelerate the advancement and commercialization of quantum technologies, he said. The Discovery Fund is the perfect addition to keep the momentum going around the quantum ecosystem we have been building for more than three decades.

The announcement of the new funding comes the same month that a leading quantum computing company, IonQ, went public on the New York Stock exchange with a $2 billion market valuation. The company is based in part on technology developed in UMD labs, and illustrates what the university has to gain: As IonQ works to bring quantum computing to scale, its continued close connection with UMD affords the company access to a pipeline of stellar workforce talent, Pines said today.

Another feature in UMDs expanding ecosystem is the Quantum Startup Foundry (QSF), backed by a $10 million capital investment from UMD, which will function as a business incubator to support nascent firms in the quantum technology field. The university today announced that MITRE, a not-for-profit company that works in the public interest and operates six federally funded research and development centers in areas including aviation, defense, health care, homeland security, and cybersecurity had joined as a founding QSF member.

Julie Lenzer, UMDs chief innovation officer, said offerings like the QSF and the Quantum Investment Summit help make the university central to quantum-based industry as it already is in quantum science and engineering research.

Helping to give rise to a company as successful as IonQ would be a once-in-a-lifetime thing for most schools, if that, Lenzer said. But were continuing to build on this so we can breed more success by connecting innovative quantum research and ideas with investors who want to make a difference in an area thats going to define the future.

Attendees at the investment summit included businesses ranging from giants like Lockheed Martin and IBM to new firms vying to become household names, as well as local and state officials, investors and venture capital firms.

With federal and state agencies and nations worldwide pouring many billions of dollars into quantum researchand hoping to reap the rewards of winning the race to deploy the technologyUMD, the region and the nation must strive to turn deep fundamental understanding of the science into innovation, Pines said.

Make no mistake: This is our generations space race, he said. Who will be the first to unleash the power of quantum? Im hoping its going to be us.

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Discovery Fund to Seed Local Innovation Ecosystem - Maryland Today

Her 'quantum immortality' theory is that we never really die and that we just wake up in a parallel universe whenever you pass on in another - her theories left TikTok followers uneasy

It remains the biggest mystery of life - and when people start sharing their theories on what happens after death, things can get creepy.

TikTok user @joli.artist has left her followers spooked after a recent video she uploaded titled apocalypse...again.

Often known to discuss macabre stuff, Jolis content focuses on things like conspiracy theories and quantum physics.

In her video, she talks about the quantum immortality theory which is American physicist Hugh Everetts many-worlds interpretation.

She goes on to explain the theory that states nobody ever actually dies and that consciousness never experiences death.

Instead, whenever you die in one universe your consciousness just gets transferred into another universe where you survive.

So, for those who may be excited or intrigued about the concept of an apocalypse, sadly, if Everett is correct, youre just going to wake up somewhere else.

She continued: "So after the inevitable apocalypse occurs, you're going to wake up the next day in a new reality, and the next thing you know, you're going to find yourself on Reddit talking about 'since when did Pizza Hut have two Ts?!'

Arguing with people who are native of this new reality, talking about 'it's always had two Ts?'"

This is in reference to the many discussions on internet forums surrounding the Mandela Effect.

For those unaware of the phenomenon, it's when an individual (or, in many cases, a group of people) believe a distorted memory. Common examples are that the Monopoly man wore a monocle or that Curious George had a tail.

It is actually called the Mandela Effect because so many people believe Nelson Mandela died in prison in the 80s when he actually died in 2013.

Joli is implying that in our reality, apocalypses happen every day, which left many users feeling uneasy to say the least.

She continued: You dont believe me? Okay, its been about 65 million years since the asteroids allegedly took out the dinosaurs.

So you mean to tell me that in the last 65 million years, no other asteroids have come through the neighbourhood and taken us out?

"What I'm saying is that Earth is probably always being taken out, and our consciousness just keeps transferred to another parallel universe - and then another one, and another one.

"For all you know the apocalypse probably already happened last night..."

The video so far has got 972 thousand likes, with plenty of uncomfortable comments.

One TikTok user said: The thought of never being able to actually die is extremely depressing and giving me a headache.

Another user said: Youre over here talking about extinction level events and Im having to check on the two Ts in Pizza Hut.

Many users were quick to point out a glitch in the video, and when they watched it a second time, the glitch disappeared. Spooky stuff.

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Woman's 'quantum immortality' theory that 'we never really die' freaks out TikTok users - The Mirror

Mysterious forces may be a reliable trope in science fiction, but in reality, physicists have long agreed that all interactions between objects evidently arise from just four fundamental forces. Yet that has not stopped them from ardently searching for an additional, as-yet-unknown fifth fundamental force. The discovery of such a force could potentially resolve some of the biggest open questions in physics today, from the nature of dark energy to the seemingly irreconcilable differences between quantum mechanics and general relativity. Now, a recent experiment carried out at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) is offering fresh hints about a fifth forces possible character. An international collaboration of researchers used neutrons and a silicon crystal to set new limits on the strength of a potential fifth fundamental force at atomic scales. Published in Science in September, the study also includes measurements of the precise structure of both silicon crystals and neutrons themselves.

This work of fifth force searches actually goes on over the entire length scale of human observation, says NIST physicist Benjamin Heacock, the studys lead author. Because different theories predict different fifth force properties, he says, physicists have looked for its subtle effects in everything from surveys of astronomical objects like galaxies to the miniscule motions of custom-built microscopic instruments. So far, however, all searches have come up empty.

Theres a reason to think we're missing something, notes Eric Adelberger, a physicist at the University of Washington who was not involved with the study. His own team has previously looked for some of the proposed new forces and, with great experimental certainty, found nothing at all. In work recognized in 2021 with a Breakthrough Prize, they concluded that the fifth force must be much weaker than some theories predicted, or that it simply does not exist. The NIST experiment follows a similar idea but uses a novel experimental technique. The goal from the experimentalist perspective is to make strides forward in limiting [the strength of] new forces, wherever the experiment can do it, and for us that happens to be on the atomic scale, Heacock says.

Gauging relevant interactions at such scales is uniquely challenging, according to Adelberger, in part because in the atomic realm a typical object is about a million times smaller than the width of an average human hair. You have to ask, how much matter can you get within a little volume associated with that length scale? It's absolutely tiny, he says. And even the barest influence from other, known forces such as electromagnetism can easily scuttle the delicate measurements. To solve that problem, the NIST team relied on neutrons, the neutrally charged subatomic particles usually found in atomic nuclei, as neutrons are barely swayed by electromagnetic effects.

Further, the even smaller particles that make up neutrons, called quarks, are glued together so intensely by the strong interaction (one of the four known fundamental forces) that it is exceedingly difficult to physically disturb them. The strong interaction that holds quarks together in a neutron is insanely strong, so the neutron gets almost no distortion when it gets close to [other] matter, explains W. Michael Snow, a physicist at Indiana University who was also uninvolved with the new experiment. Studying the behavior of neutrons is consequently well-suited for seeking out new forces because there are not many easily measurable effects influencing these subatomic particles to begin with. One of the new studys co-authors, Albert Young, a physicist at North Carolina State University, puts it simply: At present, at our [atomic] length scale, neutrons kind of rule.

In their experiment, researchers observed neutrons that had traveled through a specially machined, nearly perfect silicon crystal made by collaborators at the RIKEN Center for Advanced Photonics in Japan. Silicon is a common material, but precision machining of silicon is a super difficult thing, underlines Michael Huber, a NIST physicist and another of the studys co-authors. Inside this perfect crystalshielded from light, heat, vibrations and other sources of external noise thanks to special NIST facilitiessilicon atoms are arranged in predictable grid-like patterns.

Neutrons traveling through that grid collided with some silicon atoms and evaded others. However, as the neutrons journey took place at the atomic scale where laws of quantum mechanics dictate that all particles behave like waves, their collisions with silicon atoms were similar to breakers crashing into a shore dotted with large, evenly spaced rocks. When a neutron bumped into a silicon atom then, this interaction created something like a neutron wave ripple. This ripple overlapped with other neutron wave ripples originating near adjacent silicon atoms, resulting in a wave interference pattern not unlike rough, choppy water along a rocky coast.

Most crucially, through clever experimental design, the researchers ensured that some of the neutron waves lapping on the silicon atom shores overlapped in a very specific way that resulted in so-called Pendellsung oscillations. These oscillations are roughly analogous to beats, and are best thought of as pulsing, alternating low-then-loud auditory effects that happen when two nearly identical sound waves are played simultaneously. In the case of this new experiment, they are akin to a distinctive but difficult to detect ripple pattern within the neutron waves breaking along the silicon seashore. Although Pendellsung interference was discovered and demonstrated a long time ago, in the 1960s at MIT, it's rarely used and most experiments are not sensitive to it, Huber explains.

His team carefully analyzed these special ripples, looking for key details about the silicon rocks and the neutron waves that crashed into them. It was as if they could tell how much water each wave carried, whether any rocks moved in the collision and more. Importantly, had an atomic-scale fifth-force interaction been at play, the details of the neutron wave interference pattern would have revealed its presence, much like how ripples in surf can follow the outline of a submerged sea wall. Although the researchers found no signs of a fifth force, they did determine a new limit, 10 times stricter than before, on how strong such a force could be.

The NIST team believes that their innovative experimental setup will allow them to make even more precise measurements in the future. They already managed, for instance, to infer details of the arrangement of quarks inside a neutron, as well as some precise motions of silicon atoms, which could prove useful for the manufacture of fine-tuned electronics. However, their quest to constrain the strength of the fifth force, a task they accomplish by combining multiple separate neutron-property measurements under certain assumptions, remains the most promising and the most difficult part of their work. We can keep and should keep searching [for the fifth force], says Yoshio Kamiya, a physicist at Tokyo University who was uninvolved with the new study. This is just one step.

Adelberger agrees, and he is eager see new results from the next phase of experimentation. There's a lot of stuff that has to go into getting this kind of a result, he says. Its a tiny effect, and researchers have to keep accounting for all other tiny effects. Both Kamiya and Adelberger think that there is room for debate on how strongly the new work should make physicists reconsider their theories about the strength of a possible fifth force. Based on the current study, Adelberger says, too many potential sources of error remain; even if the NIST team had found positive evidence of a new force, he says, it could not be considered truly definitive.

Heacock notes that his team already has ideas for advancing their work, for instance by using germanium crystals instead of silicon, in which atoms are arranged in different structures that could be even more advantageous for precise observations of neutron interference. Another goal is to seriously expand the available catalog of precise atomic scale measurements for any and all fifth forcehunting physicists to consult in their own independent work. Ideally, Heacock notes, the measurements in the new study are just a first few opening the door for the dozens more to come. I think any experiment will eventually hit a wall, but I also think we're pretty far from it, he says.

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New Universal Force Tested by Blasting Neutrons through Crystal - Scientific American

In the beginning, there was well, maybe there was no beginning. Perhaps our universe has always existed and a new theory of quantum gravity reveals how that could work.

"Reality has so many things that most people would associate with sci-fi or even fantasy," said Bruno Bento, a physicist who studies the nature of time at the University of Liverpool in the U.K.

In his work, he employed a new theory of quantum gravity, called causal set theory, in which space and time are broken down into discrete chunks of space-time. At some level, there's a fundamental unit of space-time, according to this theory.

Bento and his collaborators used this causal-set approach to explore the beginning of the universe. They found that it's possible that the universe had no beginning that it has always existed into the infinite past and only recently evolved into what we call the Big Bang.

Related: Big Bang to civilization: 10 amazing origin events

Quantum gravity is perhaps the most frustrating problem facing modern physics. We have two extraordinarily effective theories of the universe: quantum physics and general relativity. Quantum physics has produced a successful description of three of the four fundamental forces of nature (electromagnetism, the weak force and the strong force) down to microscopic scales. General relativity, on the other hand, is the most powerful and complete description of gravity ever devised.

But for all its strengths, general relativity is incomplete. In at least two specific places in the universe, the math of general relativity simply breaks down, failing to produce reliable results: in the centers of black holes and at the beginning of the universe. These regions are called "singularities," which are spots in space-time where our current laws of physics crumble, and they are mathematical warning signs that the theory of general relativity is tripping over itself. Within both of these singularities, gravity becomes incredibly strong at very tiny length scales.

Related: 8 ways you can see Einstein's theory of relativity in real life

As such, to solve the mysteries of the singularities, physicists need a microscopic description of strong gravity, also called a quantum theory of gravity. There are lots of contenders out there, including string theory and loop quantum gravity.

And there's another approach that completely rewrites our understanding of space and time.

In all current theories of physics, space and time are continuous. They form a smooth fabric that underlies all of reality. In such a continuous space-time, two points can be as close to each other in space as possible, and two events can occur as close in time to each other as possible.

"Reality has so many things that most people would associate with sci-fi or even fantasy."

But another approach, called causal set theory, reimagines space-time as a series of discrete chunks, or space-time "atoms." This theory would place strict limits on how close events can be in space and time, since they can't be any closer than the size of the "atom."

Related: Can we stop time?

For instance, if you're looking at your screen reading this, everything seems smooth and continuous. But if you were to look at the same screen through a magnifying glass, you might see the pixels that divide up the space, and you'd find that it's impossible to bring two images on your screen closer than a single pixel.

This theory of physics excited Bento. "I was thrilled to find this theory, which not only tries to go as fundamental as possible being an approach to quantum gravity and actually rethinking the notion of space-time itself but which also gives a central role to time and what it physically means for time to pass, how physical your past really is and whether the future exists already or not," Bento told Live Science.

Causal set theory has important implications for the nature of time.

"A huge part of the causal set philosophy is that the passage of time is something physical, that it should not be attributed to some emergent sort of illusion or to something that happens inside our brains that makes us think time passes; this passing is, in itself, a manifestation of the physical theory," Bento said. "So, in causal set theory, a causal set will grow one 'atom' at a time and get bigger and bigger."

The causal set approach neatly removes the problem of the Big Bang singularity because, in the theory, singularities can't exist. It's impossible for matter to compress down to infinitely tiny points they can get no smaller than the size of a space-time atom.

So without a Big Bang singularity, what does the beginning of our universe look like? That's where Bento and his collaborator, Stav Zalel, a graduate student at Imperial College London, picked up the thread, exploring what causal set theory has to say about the initial moments of the universe. Their work appears in a paper published Sept. 24 to the preprint database arXiv. (The paper has yet to be published in a peer-reviewed scientific journal.)

The paper examined "whether a beginning must exist in the causal set approach," Bento said. "In the original causal set formulation and dynamics, classically speaking, a causal set grows from nothing into the universe we see today. In our work instead, there would be no Big Bang as a beginning, as the causal set would be infinite to the past, and so there's always something before."

Their work implies that the universe may have had no beginning that it has simply always existed. What we perceive as the Big Bang may have been just a particular moment in the evolution of this always-existing causal set, not a true beginning.

There's still a lot of work to be done, however. It's not clear yet if this no-beginning causal approach can allow for physical theories that we can work with to describe the complex evolution of the universe during the Big Bang.

"One can still ask whetherthis [causal set approach] can be interpreted in a 'reasonable' way, or what such dynamics physically means in a broader sense, but we showed that a framework is indeed possible," Bento said. "So at least mathematically, this can be done."

In other words, it's a beginning.

Originally published on Live Science.

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What if the universe had no beginning? - Livescience.com

Scientists in TU Wien in Vienna used a special manufacturing process to bond pure germanium with aluminum that created atomically sharp interfaces, making it suitable for complex applications in quantum technology.

Phys.orgreported that it resulted in a novel nanostructure called monolithic metal-semiconductor-metal heterostructure. It demonstrates that aluminum becomes superconducting and transfers that property to the adjacent semiconductor to control electric fields, processing quantum bits. Researchers noted that one of the advantages of using this approach is enabling germanium-based quantum electronics.

(Photo: Wikimedia Commons)The large series array of Josephson junctions is arranged in a meander. Generation of ultrapure arbitrary waveforms with quantum precision.

Quantum technology is an emerging field of physics and engineering. Quantum technology expert Paul Martin definesquantum technology as a class of technology that uses the principles of quantum mechanics or the physics of sub-atomic particles, such as quantum entanglement and quantum superposition.

Humans use quantum technology in nuclear power and smartphones, using semiconductors that employ quantum physics to function. It also promises more reliable navigation and timing systems, secure communications, more accurate healthcare imaging, and more powerful computing.

In a paperpublished in 2020 in the journal Nature Reviews Materials, researchers said that geranium is an emerging versatile material to develop quantum technologies capable of encoding, processing, and transmitting quantum information. They argue that germanium-based systems could be the key building blocks for quantum technology because of their strong spin-orbit coupling and ability to host superconducting correlations.

But Dr. Masiar Sistani from the Institute for Solid State Electronics at TU Wien said it is extremely difficult to produce high-quality electrical contacts when germanium is turned into a nanoscale. So, they looked for a way to manufacture them that would result in a faster and more energy-efficient nanostructure.

ALSO READ: First Simulation of Quantum Devices in Classical Computer Hardware a Success; New Algorithm Could Setup Defining Benchmarks

In the study, titled "Al-Ge-Al Nanowire Heterostructure: From Single-Hole Quantum Dot to Josephson Effect," published in Advanced Materials, researchers found that temperature plays a key role in achieving their goal.

When the nanometer-size germanium and aluminum are brought into contact and heated, their atoms begin to diffuse into neighboring materials in which atoms of germanium move to aluminum and vice versa, Phys.org reported. When they raised the temperature to 350 degrees Celsius, germanium atoms diffused off the edge of the nanowire, creating empty spaces where aluminum could penetrate.

This special manufacturing process forms a perfect single crystal wherein aluminum atoms are arranged in a uniform pattern, as seen under the transmission electron microscope. Not a single atom is disordered in contrast to conventional methods where electrical contacts are applied to a semiconductor.

Researchers were able to show that this monolithic metal-semiconductor heterostructure of germanium and aluminum demonstrates superconductivity in pure germanium for the first time.

More so, Dr. Masiar Sistani said that it shows that this nanostructure can be switched into different operating states using electrical fields, which means the germanium quantum dot can be superconducting and insulating such as the Josephson transistor.

This novel nanostructure combines various advantages for quantum technology, such as high carrier mobility, excellent manipulability, and it fits well with established microelectronics technologies.

RELATED ARTICLE: Direct Communication Network Developed, Secure and Fast Data Transmission in 15 Users Possible with Quantum Technology

Check out more news and information on Quantum Physics in Science Times.

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Novel Electronic Component Made of Germanium Bonded With Aluminum Could Be the Key to Quantum Technology - Science Times