Lifeboat Foundation

If all goes according to the plan, tech giant Google might be able to present the world with a phenomenally powerful quantum computer by the end of 2017.

Googler John Martinis and his team of researchers have been working on how quantum computers could be worked out for a long duration of 30 years. And now, it seems, they’re finally on the verge of making the wonder computer a reality. Since the computer would harness the unusual properties of quantum physics that take birth in extreme circumstances like those on the ultra-cold chip, the wonder computer would allow a Google coder to run the calculations he/she requires in a short interval of time like in the duration of a tea/coffee break. This would be quite impressive as the supercomputers of today would take millions of years to run the same calculations. This means, the quantum computer would be able to outperform conventional computers—a concept known as quantum supremacy. But, the Google software, which has been developed on ordinary computers to answer questions or drive cars, is still capable of becoming more intelligent.

Read a little further into the paper, and things get really weird. If the equations of quantum mechanics must be altered in accordance with the new research, then it will give rise to a new and very curious definition of time.

Time is, essentially, a “crystal”—a highly organized lattice of discrete “particles,” or regularly repeating segments.

Continue reading “Quantum Mechanics Revisited: Physicists Propose New Structure of Time” »

Nice article; however, disappointed that the author expanded the exploration of programming in Quantum to include Google, MIT, U. Sydney, etc. who all have been exploring the programming on QC. D-Wave indeed is doing a lot in this space and has been even training numerous US Government personnel on QC; just would be interesting to learn more about the advances in this space from other players who have been sharing for several months their breakthroughs in programming QC.

The jury is still out when it comes to how wide-ranging the application set and market potential for quantum computing will be. Optimistic estimates project that in the 2020s it will be a billion-dollar field, while others expect the novelty will wear off and the one company behind the actual production of quantum annealing machines will go bust.

Ultimately, whichever direction the market goes with quantum computing will depend on two things. First, the ability for applications of sufficient value to warrant the cost of quantum systems have to be in place. Second, and connected to that point, is the fact that enough problems can be mapped to these machines—a tricky problem that if not solved, will lead to a limited ecosystem of capabilities and, of course, developers.

Continue reading “One thought on ‘So, You Want to Program Quantum Computers…’” »

Rotating black holes can implement quantum gates and quantum circuits, like Bell states, which are quantum counterparts of the classical computer programing.

The black holes sparked the public imagination for almost 100 years. Their presence in the universe has been debated for long; however, the detection of X-ray radiation coming from the center of the galaxies has put an end to the discussion and undoubtedly proven their existence.

The vast majority, if not all, of the known black holes were unveiled by detecting the X-ray radiation emitted by the stellar material around them. Black holes emit X-ray radiation, light with high energy, due to the extreme gravity in their vicinity. X-ray photons emitted near rotating black holes not only exposed the existence of these phantom-like astrophysical bodies, but also seem to carry hidden quantum messages.

Continue reading “Quantum information encoded in spinning black holes” »

Not a complete list — where are al the various joint ventures & start ups that are also in play; however, what about all those Laboratories (Governmental, Universities, and joint venture related labs) such as Los Alamos or ORNL or MIT or USC, and what about all of the governmental agencies (NASA, DoD, etc.), and how about all of those special programs like DARPA. And, this is only the US not to mention what has been happening in China, Australia, Canada, UK, Spain, Germany, Russia, Singapore, etc.

Nice article to use as a starting list only; itmissed many, many other companies, labs, universities, and governments who are really leading most of the progress forward in QC. Some start up to add — Qubitekk, QC Ware, Rigetti Computing to just name 3 off the top of my head. Article is missing a lot in its list.

Google, Microsoft, and Airbus are investing in quantum computing. In all, we identified 18 corporates developing the tech, or partnering with startups like D-Wave to do so, and what they hope to achieve.

We illustrate how it is possible to calculate the quantum gravitational effects on the spectra of primordial scalar/tensor perturbations starting from the canonical, Wheeler-De Witt, approach to quantum cosmology. The composite matter-gravity system is analysed through a Born-Oppenheimer approach in which gravitation is associated with the heavy degrees of freedom and matter (here represented by a scalar field) with the light ones. Once the independent degrees of freedom are identified the system is canonically quantised. The differential equation governing the dynamics of the primordial spectra with its quantum-gravitational corrections is then obtained and is applied to diverse inflationary evolutions. Finally, the analytical results are compared to observations through a Monte Carlo Markov Chain technique and an estimate of the free parameters of our approach is finally presented and the results obtained are compared with previous ones.

Read this paper on arXiv…

A. Kamenshchik, A. Tronconi and G. Venturi Tue, 13 Sep 16 11/91.

Continue reading “Quantum Cosmology and the Evolution of Inflationary Spectra [CL]” »

WASHINGTON — Researchers have developed a new laser that makes it possible to measure electron transition energies in small atoms and molecules with unprecedented precision. The instrument will help scientists test one of the bedrock theories of modern physics to new limits, and may help resolve an unexplained discrepancy in measurements of the size of the proton.

The team will present their work during the Frontiers in Optics (FiO) / Laser Science (LS) conference in Rochester, New York, USA on 17 −21 October 2016.

“Our target is the best tested theory there is: quantum electrodynamics,” said Kjeld Eikema, a physicist at Vrije University, The Netherlands, who led the team that built the laser. Quantum electrodynamics, or QED, was developed in the 1940s to make sense of small unexplained deviations in the measured structure of atomic hydrogen. The theory describes how light and matter interact, including the effect of ghostly ‘virtual particles.’ Its predictions have been rigorously tested and are remarkably accurate, but like extremely dedicated quality control officers, physicists keep ordering new tests, hoping to find new insights lurking in the experimentally hard-to-reach regions where the theory may yet break down.

Continue reading “New Laser Provides Ultra-Precise Tool for Scientists Probing the Secrets of the Universe” »

Electromagnetic waves created on a layer of organic molecules could provide the perfect on-chip light source for future quantum communication systems.

A team of scientists including researchers at Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR), Singapore, has captured tiny flashes of light from an ultrathin layer of organic molecules sandwiched between two electrodes that could replace lasers and LEDs as signal sources for future miniature, ultrafast quantum computing and light-based communication systems.

To investigate electromagnetic waves called plasmons, which skim along the interface between two materials, Nikodem Tomczak from the A*STAR Institute of Materials Research and Engineering and colleagues collaborated with Christian A. Nijhuis from the National University of Singapore to construct a junction consisting of a layer of thiol molecules on a metal electrode and liquid gallium-indium alloy as a top electrode.

A black hole is a physicist’s playground: A place where some of the most bizarre and fundamental concepts in physics can be observed and tested. However, there is currently no way to directly observe black holes in action; these bodies of matter don’t emit the sort of radiation, like light or X-rays, that telescopes are equipped to detect. Fortunately, physicists have figured out ways to imitate the conditions of a black hole in the lab—and in creating analogues of black holes, they are beginning to unravel some the most fascinating puzzles in physics.

Jeff Steinhauer, a researcher in the Physics Department of Technion-Israel Institute of Technology, recently caught the attention of the physics community when he announced that he had used an analogue black hole to confirm Stephen Hawking’s 1974 theory that black holes emit electromagnetic radiation, known as Hawking radiation. Hawking predicted that this radiation would be caused by the spontaneous creation of a particle-antiparticle pair at the event horizon, the point at the edge of a black hole beyond which nothing—not even light—can escape. Under the terms of Hawking’s theory, as one of the particles crosses the event horizon and is captured by the black hole, the other would be ejected into space. Steinhauer’s experiment was the first to exhibit the sort of spontaneous fluctuations that support Hawking’s calculations.

Physicists have cautioned that this experiment still doesn’t confirm the existence of Hawking radiation in astronomical black holes, as Steinhauer’s black hole isn’t exactly the same as one we might observe in space. It’s not yet physically possible to create the intense gravitational fields that form black holes. Instead, the analogue imitates a black hole’s ability to absorb light waves by using sound.

Continue reading “Benchtop Black Holes Help Physicists Glimpse the Quantum Universe” »