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Category: quantum physics – Page 275

New window film drops temperature, slashes energy consumption

Assisted by quantum physics and machine learning, researchers have developed a transparent window coating that lets in visible light but blocks heat-producing UV and infrared. The coating not only reduces room temperature but also the energy consumption related to cooling, regardless of where the sun is in the sky.

Windows are great. They provide views of the park you live across from or the bird-filled tree outside your office. But, windows can also be not-so-great. Letting in light (and the view) is one thing, but with light comes heat, especially in the hotter months.

On hot days, up to 87% of heat gain in our homes is through windows. UV radiation from sunlight passes easily through glass, heating up the room and increasing the likelihood that you need to turn on the air-con or else forgo any light (and, again, that view) by closing the curtains or lowering the blinds. However, researchers at the University of Notre Dame have developed a window coating that blocks heat-producing UV and infrared light while allowing visible light in, reducing both room temperature and cooling energy consumption.

“What we did here gives me goosebumps. We have shown that error correction is repeatable, it is working, and it is reliable”: Microsoft and Quantinuum scale new heights in quantum computing and error correction

Microsoft is on the verge of a major quantum computing breakthrough in collaboration with Quantinuum. In a recent announcement, the tech giant indicated that it ran more than 14,000 experiments without encountering a single error.

The company attributes this to Quantinuum’s ion-trap hardware alongside its new qubit-virtualization system. It unlocked this impressive feat because the system allows the team to check logical qubits, thus presenting an opportunity to correct any errors without affecting the progress.

The researchers behind the breakthrough spread the quantum information across groups of connected quantum bits to form logic qubits. Per the report, the team used 30 qubits to make four logical qubits. It was through this process that the team was able to run countless experiments without encountering any errors.

Scientist Say They Have First Experimental Evidence of Gravitons That Could Connect Quantum Mechanics and Relativity

This experiment, which was published in the journal Nature, opens new avenues for the search for gravitons in laboratory settings.

The graviton, if it exists, is theorized to be massless and capable of traveling at the speed of light, embodying the force of gravity. Yet, its direct observation has eluded scientists until now, if the team’s research holds up. The recent findings stem from an excitation phenomenon discovered in 2019 when Du was a postdoctoral researcher at Columbia University. This phenomenon led theoretical physicists to speculate about the potential detection of gravitons.

The experiment’s success was the result of an international effort. High-quality semiconductor samples were prepared by researchers at Princeton University, while the experiment itself was conducted in a unique facility built over three years by Du and his team. This facility enabled the team to work at temperatures of minus 273.1 degrees Celsius and capture particle excitations as weak as 10 gigahertz, determining their spin.

The convergence

When looking into the future, there are a number of interesting trends, such as quantum computing, which may save lots of energy, or space travel, which is here to stay and will become more affordable. But what I find interesting is the development of computation with biological cells, and the ability to build computing systems, and robots, not from hard metals but from soft biological matter — mostly cells.

Look around you in “nature”- almost everything you see, all plants and animals are built from a single type of structure, a biological cell. They are all alike. Sure, cells vary as they adapt to their environments, but a cellular organism has the same building plan as any other cell. There’s the cell membrane, there is a nucleus, there are organelles and cytoplasm. There is DNA, RNA, amino acids to build proteins and peptides, lipids and sugars. Put together in predictable ways.

We are learning to use these systems to build anything we want from them. We focus on this because our bodies are made from cells, and we want to remain healthy. That is a strong incentive to study these systems. The convergence will happen when we relegate metal-based computing to the sidelines and focus on biological computing as our main systems. These biological cell systems are, incidentally, quantum computing systems. So the trends I mention — here on earth will converge, and only space travel will require the opposite — the need to shield biological computing from conditions in space.

What is Consciousness Hodgkin and Huxley Neuron model as a universal process of energy exchange

Diagram of Neuron and Microtubules Reference video:

I would like to dedicate this video on Hodgkin and Huxley model of Neurons. That basically explains Neurons as electric circuits with the organization and movement of positive and negative charge. The positive and negative is in the form of ion atoms. The neuron membrane acts as a boundary separating charge with ionic gates embedded in the cell membrane forming the potential for the build-up and movement of ion charge. This process can form signals along the neurons with the potential difference across the cell membrane forming what is called an action potential.
The big question is how can this process of electrical activity form consciousness?
To answer this question we have to look deeper into the process.
When we do this, we find that the movement or action of charged particles like ions emit photon ∆E=hf energy.

Therefore, this whole process can be based on an interpretation of Quantum Mechanics.

In the theory explained in these videos, Quantum Mechanics represents the physics of time ∆E ∆t ≥ h/2π as a physical process.

The uncertainty ∆×∆pᵪ≥h/4π of Quantum Mechanics is the same uncertainty we have with any future event.

Continue reading “What is Consciousness Hodgkin and Huxley Neuron model as a universal process of energy exchange” | >

Quantum mechanics: How the future might influence the past

In 2022, the Physics Nobel prize was awarded for experimental work showing that the quantum world must break some of our fundamental intuitions about how the universe works.

Many look at those experiments and conclude that they challenge “locality”—the intuition that distant objects need a physical mediator to interact. And indeed, a mysterious connection between distant particles would be one way to explain these experimental results.

Others instead think the experiments challenge “realism”—the intuition that there’s an objective state of affairs underlying our experience. After all, the experiments are only difficult to explain if our measurements are thought to correspond to something real. Either way, many physicists agree about what’s been called “the death by experiment” of local realism.