| Fast and accurate sorting capability is a must, and not just for Internet browsers. Think about the jobs of radiologists, for example, looking for a diseased cell or two in a mass of tissue. Or a baggage screener looking for a gun, a knife, or a bomb in someone’s carry-on bag |
| Harvard professor Jeremy Wolfe, demonstrates that the more we [humans!] look for that “needle in a haystack,” the less likely it is that we will find it. Now, how does that make you feel when you take a mammogram or get on an airplane? |
But what if a quantum computer could detect the diseased cell? And not only that. What if that super computer could determine which antibody might kill that cell without harming the surrounding cells? Think about how much time that would save researchers in testing various drugs, and how much time it would save in getting approval for potential life-saving drugs. Read more at www.physorg.com |
Again we have a great breakthrough that may lead technology to a new era.
It’s nice to wonder how it’s going to be 7, 9 yeras from now by taking in consideration scientific developments like this. | A team at the University of Calgary has accomplished exactly that: by manipulating a mysterious quantum property of light known as entanglement, they are able to mount up to two photons on top of one another to construct a variety of quantum states of light – that is, build two-story quantum toy houses of any style and architecture |
| “This ability to prepare or control complex quantum objects is considered the holy grail of quantum science” |
| “It brings us closer to the onset of the new era of quantum information technology.”
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| This new generation of technology is expected to endow us with qualitatively new capabilities. This includes measurement instruments of extraordinary sensitivity, dramatically faster computers, secure communication systems and enhanced control over chemical reactions.
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| Light is a particularly interesting quantum object |
| because it’s an excellent communication tool. No matter what future quantum computers will be made of, they’ll talk to each other using photonsRead more at www.labspaces.net |
Without string theory, physicists need two theories to explain how the universe works. General relativity explains gravity, while the other three basic forces are explained by the “standard model.” Moreover, gravity has been very difficult to reconcile with quantum theory, a problem for which string theory offers a solution. | A major problem with string theory is that it has never been confirmed experimentally, which is where Donner Professor of Science Cumrun Vafa and the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) come in. |
| A Harvard theoretical physicist has discussed with scientists at the Large Hadron Collider in Switzerland the possibility that they may discover a theorized “stau” particle, with a lifetime of a minute or so, that could provide the first experimental confirmation of string theory. |
String theory, developed in the late 1960s and early ’70s, is a theoretical physicists’ multitool, explaining in one model all four of the universe’s main forces: gravity, electromagnetism, and the two that operate inside atomic nuclei, the strong force and the weak force. Read more at www.physorg.com |
One of the most basic problems in maths is solving very large linear equations. There’s nothing mysterious about them, they simply take time and the more variables there are, the longer it takes. Even a supercomputer would struggle to solve a system of equations that has a trillion variables. |
| Aram Harrow at the University of Bristol and colleagues from MIT in the United States have discovered a quantum algorithm that solves large problems much faster than conventional computers can. |
To understand how the quantum algorithm works, think of a digital equaliser in a stereo CD player. The equaliser needs to amplify some components of the signal and attenuate others. Ordinary equalisers employ classical computer algorithms that treat each component of the sound one at a time. |
By contrast, a quantum equaliser could employ a quantum algorithm that treats all components together at once (a trick called ‘quantum parallelism’). The result is a huge reduction in the difficulty of signal processing. Read more at www.physorg.com |
| The strongest limit on the number of possible universes is the human ability to distinguish between different universes. |
| Over the past few decades, the idea that our universe could be one of many alternate universes within a giant multiverse has grown from a sci-fi fantasy into a legitimate theoretical possibility. Several theories of physics and astronomy have hypothesized the existence of a multiverse made of many parallel universes. One obvious question that arises, then, is exactly how many of these parallel universes might there be. |
In a new study, Stanford physicists Andrei Linde and Vitaly Vanchurin have calculated the number of all possible universes, coming up with an answer of 10^10^16. If that number sounds large, the scientists explain that it would have been even more humongous, except that we observers are limited in our ability to distinguish more universes; otherwise, there could be as many as 10^10^10^7 universes. Read more at www.physorg.com |
By impinging on the virus, it forces it into a superposition of both its ground state and next vibrational energy state. Now the virus should be doing two different things at once – the equivalent of you simultaneously mowing the lawn and doing the shopping. “They have come up with a really neat experiment – inventive and I think feasible,” says Peter Knight of Imperial College London.
You can read the full article for more details on the process. It’s worth reading if you care enough or are just curious.  Quantum weirdness could soon invade the living world, if a scheme to give a flu virus a strange double life comes off. |
In quantum theory, a single object can be doing two different things at once. This so-called “superposition” is a delicate state, destroyed by any contact with the outside world. The largest objects that have been superposed so far are molecules. It is hard to put a much larger object such as a cat or human into a superposition because air molecules and photons are always bouncing off it. |
But it might be possible with a small life form, according to Oriol Romero-Isart of the Max Planck Institute for Quantum Optics in Garching, Germany, and his colleagues. They hope to prove the concept with the flu virus, which exhibits some properties of life, because it can survive in a vacuum – solving the problem of pesky air molecules. |
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