Free Republic

Quantum computers could one day blow boring old classical computers out of the water, but so far their complexity limits their usefulness. Engineers at Stanford have now demonstrated a new relatively simple design for a quantum computer where a single atom is entangled with a series of photons to process and store information.Quantum computers tap into the weird world of quantum physics to perform calculations far faster than traditional computers can handle. Where existing machines store and process information in bits, as either ones and zeroes, quantum computers use qubits, which can exist as one, zero, or a superposition of...

Eureka! A research team featuring dozens of scientists working in partnership with Google‘s quantum computing labs may have created the world’s first time crystal inside a quantum computer. This is the kind of news that makes me want to jump up and do a happy dance. These scientists may have produced an entirely new phase of matter. I’m going to do my best to explain what that means and why I personally believe this is the most important scientific breakthrough in our lifetimes. However, for the sake of clarity, there’s two points I need to make first: 1. Time crystals...

A weird quantum effect that was predicted decades ago has finally been demonstrated – if you make a cloud of gas cold and dense enough, you can make it invisible. Scientists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) used lasers to squeeze and cool lithium gas to densities and temperatures low enough that it scattered less light. If they can cool the cloud even closer to absolute zero (minus 459.67 degrees Fahrenheit, or minus 273.15 degrees Celsius), they say it will become completely invisible. The bizarre effect is the first ever specific example of a quantum mechanical process called Pauli...

A rare manuscript by theoretical physicist Albert Einstein goes under the hammer in Paris on Tuesday, with auctioneers aiming for a stratospheric price tag. The manuscript, containing preparatory work for Einstein's key achievement the theory of relativity, is estimated at between two and three million euros (2.3-3.4 million), according to Christie's which is hosting the sale on behalf of the Aguttes auction house. "This is without a doubt the most valuable Einstein manuscript ever to come to auction," Christie's said in a statement. The 54-page document was handwritten in 1913 and 1914 in Zurich, Switzerland, by Einstein and his colleague...

The simplest way to construct a wormhole is to "extend" the idea of a black hole with its mirror image, the white hole. This idea was first proposed by Albert Einstein and Nathan Rosen, hence the reason wormholes are sometimes called "Einstein-Rosen bridges". This creates a tunnel through space-time. Einstein and Rosen constructed their wormhole with the usual Schwarzschild metric, and most analyses of wormholes use that same metric. So physicist Pascal Koiran at Ecole Normale Supérieure de Lyon in France tried something else: using the Eddington-Finkelstein metric instead. His paper, described in October in the preprint database arXiv, is...

Engineers have successfully transferred digitally encoded information wirelessly using nuclear radiation instead of conventional technology. Radio waves and mobile phone signals rely on electromagnetic radiation for communication but in a new development, engineers from Lancaster University in the UK, working with the Jožef Stefan Institute in Slovenia, transferred digitally encoded information using “fast neutrons” instead. The researchers measured the spontaneous emission of fast neutrons from californium-252, a radioactive isotope produced in nuclear reactors. Modulated emissions were measured using a detector and recorded on a laptop. Several examples of information, i.e., a word, the alphabet, and a random number selected blindly,...

The record for the coldest temperature ever achieved has been broken with the cooling of rubidium gas to 38 picokelvins (3.8 * 10-11 K). The work could lead to new insights into quantum mechanics. Temperature is a measure of the energy in atoms' or molecules' vibrations. The lowest temperature theoretically possible is absolute zero – 0 K or −273.15 ºC (−459.67 ºF) – which would require a complete cessation of movement. That's probably impossible practically, but for decades physicists have shown we can get very, very close by using lasers to damp atomic motion. In Physical Review Letters German scientists...

Researchers Show New Strategy for Detecting Non-Conformist Particles Called Anyons By observing how strange particles called anyons dissipate heat, researchers have shown that they can probe the properties of these particles in systems that could be relevant for topological quantum computing. A team of Brown University researchers has shown a new method of probing the properties of anyons, strange quasiparticles that could be useful in future quantum computers. In research published in the journal Physical Review Letters, the team describes a means of probing anyons by measuring subtle properties of the way in which they conduct heat. Whereas other methods...

California Tries to Close the Gap in Math, but Sets Off a Backlash Proposed guidelines in the state would de-emphasize calculus, reject the idea that some children are naturally gifted and build a connection to social justice. Critics say math shouldn’t be political. But ever since a draft was opened for public comment in February, the recommendations have set off a fierce debate over not only how to teach math, but also how to solve a problem more intractable than Fermat’s last theorem: closing the racial and socioeconomic disparities in achievement that persist at every level of math education. The...

We have designed and tested a compact aneutronic fusion reactor capable of delivering tens of kilowatts of power, yet scalable to megawatts. It can deliver constant, distributed energy, anywhere, anytime, without generating greenhouse gases or other waste products, or requiring expensive capital infrastructure or exotic materials, or even any oxygen or solar energy to operate.

Thanks to a reader for letting me know about the claims of a new company named Electric Fusion Systems who have announced success in creating a compact fusion reactor which they state “heralds a monstrous leap in clean energy technology, not an incremental improvement to existing technology.” (https://electricfusionsystems.com/#tech). Here is how they describe their reactor: “We have designed and tested a compact aneutronic fusion reactor capable of delivering tens of kilowatts of power, yet scalable to megawatts. It can deliver constant, distributed energy, anywhere, anytime, without generating greenhouse gases or other waste products, or requiring expensive capital infrastructure or exotic...

The future of clean energy appears to be on the horizon. After three years of intensive research, a team led by scientists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) ramped up a large high-temperature superconducting electromagnet to generate a record-breaking magnetic field with a strength of 20 teslas, the most powerful magnetic field of its kind ever created on Earth.The MIT scientists collaborated with Cambridge and the Bill Gates-backed Commonwealth Fusion Systems (CFS) to create the world’s strongest fusion magnet, tested at the MIT Plasma Science and Fusion Center in Cambridge, Massachusetts. During the test, it generated a strong magnetic...

What began as internet rumblings over the gross distortions of science to support the ‘Big Bang Hypothesis’ is now producing tangible rifts in the planet’s tectonic thought plates. We are on the threshold of a startling new reality. Wise men once said the world was flat. Wise never meant never wrong. Wiser men now say the universe is not expanding, but rotating. Understanding this rotation is all that prevents limited time travel. We will begin with the startling equations of Einstein and Godel in 1949. To those students intent on additional mathematics support of this theory, please refer to stress-energy...

We now know, to within a tenth of a percent, how long a neutron can survive outside the atomic nucleus before decaying into a proton. This is the most precise measurement yet of the lifespan of these fundamental particles, representing a more than two-fold improvement over previous measurements. This has implications for our understanding of how the first matter in the Universe was created from a soup of protons and neutrons in the minutes after the Big Bang. "The process by which a neutron 'decays' into a proton – with an emission of a light electron and an almost massless...

Rebecca West writes, in The New Meaning of Treason, that a lot of our scientists during World War 2 were communists. There are several reasons this is important, but the first is that they immediately leaked our research on atomic bombs to Stalin. They honestly believed in a "global scientific community" — that science knows no political boundaries, and that the world would be better if scientists shared all their information with each other. Somehow this would usher in an age of peace and plenty, and scientific know-how would mean food for the poor and an end to oppression. So...

New Force of Nature? Tantalizing Evidence for New Physics From CERN’s Large Hadron Collider University Of Cambridge By HARRY CLIFF, UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE OCTOBER 26, 2021 Particle Accelerator Physics Concept The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) sparked worldwide excitement in March as particle physicists reported tantalizing evidence for new physics — potentially a new force of nature. Now, our new result, yet to be peer reviewed, from CERN’s gargantuan particle collider seems to be adding further support to the idea. Our current best theory of particles and forces is known as the standard model, which describes everything we know about the...

Grinning away: The quantum Cheshire cat effect takes its name from a character in Lewis Carroll's novel Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. (Courtesy: Larissa Kulik/Shutterstock) Since its inception, quantum theory has presented us with many strange and seemingly paradoxical phenomena. One of the oddest examples is the quantum Cheshire cat effect, in which properties of quantum objects become disembodied from the objects themselves. Now, two of the researchers who predicted the effect have shown that it is even weirder than they first thought: not only can quantum properties become detached from their parent objects, these properties can also move of...

For the first time, physicists have been able to directly measure one of the ways exploding stars forge the heaviest elements in the Universe. By probing an accelerated beam of radioactive ions, a team led by physicist Gavin Lotay of the University of Surrey in the UK observed the proton-capture process thought to occur in core-collapse supernovae. Not only have scientists now seen how this happens in detail, the measurements are allowing us to better understand the production and abundances of mysterious isotopes called p-nuclei. On the most basic level, stars can be thought of as the element factories of...

After a search of neutron stars finds preliminary evidence for hypothetical dark matter particles called axions, astrophysicists are devising new ways to spot them. Approximately 85% of the mass in the universe is missing — we can infer its existence, we just can’t see it. Over the years, a number of different explanations for this “dark matter” have been proposed, from undiscovered particles to black holes. One idea in particular, however, is drawing renewed attention: the axion. And researchers are turning to the skies to track it down. Axions are hypothetical lightweight particles whose existence would resolve two major problems....

Cross-section of the Earth’s interior: crust, upper- and lower-mantle, and outer- and inner-cores. Credit: Mikio Fukuhara, Alexander Yoshino, and Nobuhisa Fujima ========================================================================= Rather than being created solely during supernova explosions, chemical elements could also be produced deep within the Earth’s lower mantle. It has long been theorized that hydrogen, helium, and lithium were the only chemical elements in existence during the Big Bang when the universe formed, and that supernova explosions, stars exploding at the end of their lifetime, are responsible for transmuting these elements into heavier ones and distributing them throughout our universe. Researchers in Japan and Canada are...