quantum mechanics

Stars are responsible for forging every heavy element in the universe when they fuse hydrogen and when they explode at the ends of their lives. But they also create a strange third type of chemical bond between atoms, caused by their incredible magnetic fields. This previously unknown type of bond could lead to new research in quantum science, perhaps even quantum computing.

One of the simplest and most common physical objects is your average crystal, a collection of atoms arranged in an orderly, repeating three-dimensional pattern. Salt, snowflakes, and the quartz in your watch are all crystals. Earlier this year, the Nobel laureate and MIT physicist Frank Wilczek proposed that the fourth dimension can be crystallized, too: There can be space-time crystals. And now a team of physicists has proposed a way to build one.

Teleportation, sci-fi-y as it sounds, is actually not fictional or even new; two years ago, Chinese physicists broke the then-current record for quantum teleportation by teleporting photons over 10 miles. But a new effort from that same team demolishes that record, beaming the photons over 97 kilometers.

A real-world demonstration of a thought experiment conducted at the University of Vienna, has produced a result that is somewhat befuddling to people with what the lead researcher calls a "naïve classical world view." Two pairs of particles are either quantum-entangled or not. One person makes the decision as to whether to entangle them or not, and another pair of people measure the particles to see whether they're entangled or not.

The head-scratcher is: the measurement is made before the decision is made, and it is accurate.

Silicon semiconductors have taken us a dazzling distance along the computing road. But even if they continue unabated to get faster and more powerful (and it’s growing more difficult to make that happen) there’s a limit to what classical computing can do.

The next real game-change in computing is quantum--tapping the quantum mechanical properties of materials to process information in ways that will make today’s biggest and baddest super computers look like pocket calculators. And for the first time scientists, at places like IBM, are moving beyond just theorizing about them to actually envisioning how a finished quantum computer would work. In labs across the globe, the first building blocks of the first quantum computers are slowly becoming real.

That's huge considering a working quantum computer would be the kind of thing that truly moves the ground beneath our feet. With a relatively modest quantum computer, scientists could slice through sophisticated encryption schemes, model quantum systems with unprecedented accuracy, and filter through complex, unstructured databases with unparalleled efficiency.

But first they have to build one.

When quantum computers eventually reach larger scales, they’ll probably remain pretty precious resources, locked away in research institutions just like our classical supercomputers. So anyone who wants to perform quantum calculations will likely have to do it in the cloud, remotely accessing a quantum server somewhere else.

Vancouver-based quantum computer maker D-Wave Systems is the kind of company that often gets mixed reviews--either kudos for working on the very edge of a new and potentially groundbreaking technology, or dismissal for not exactly delivering the kind of Earth-shattering technology that people were perhaps expecting. Regardless, today D-Wave is marking one in the win column after announcing that it has achieved the world’s largest quantum computation using 84 qubits.

In a paper far too daunting for a Monday, researchers at the Air Force Research Lab (AFRL) have described a novel way to build a simple quantum computer. The idea: rather than using a bunch of finicky interferometers in series to measure the inputs and outputs of data encoded in photons, they want to freeze their interferometers in glass using holograms, making their properties more stable.

Submarines are excellent at avoiding detection. When submerged they are so far off the grid, in fact, that it’s difficult for them to stay in contact with the naval bases that supply them with orders and information, or for them to beam information back to base. But a new quantum communications solution could change all this, allowing submerged submarines to communicate via laser pulses by exchanging encryption keys and messages over satellites.

You probably saw that super viral quantum locking levitation video that bounced all over the Web last week (though technically it’s been around since summer) in which a team of researchers plays with some liquid nitrogen, a small superconducting disc, and some strange quantum phenomenon that makes the disc hover above a magnet, no strings attached. This week’s levitation vid taps a similar phenomenon known as the Meisnner effect to achieve this kind of levitation at a decidedly cooler scale: that of the hoverboard.

NASA’s Innovative Advanced Concepts (NIAC) program has selected 30 proposals for future space technologies for funding, including schemes for orbital spaceflight refueling stations, electrostatic force fields to shield future astronauts from radiation, and various schemes for propulsion, long-term space habitation, and even 3-D printable spacecraft.

In what may be a landmark experimental proof of quantum mechanics, a group of researchers from Chalmers University of Technology in Sweden is claiming to have created sparks in a vacuum.

It’s common empirical knowledge that computing generates heat--go ahead, touch the bottom of your MacBook--but a new paper in the journal Nature claims that it doesn’t have to. In fact, under the right conditions, theoretical physicists say that deleting data can actually produce negative heat--that is, it can have a cooling effect. That’s right, this is a quantum mechanics post. Exit now if you don’t want a headache to start the weekend.

Like a long-distance romance, quantum entanglement is a fragile interaction; one moment, two particles can be sharing that special bond in which they are essentially one and the same, even when separated by vast distances. Then, just like that, the link can be broken. So the fact that Chinese researchers have set a new record by entangling eight photons at the same time--and then manipulating and observing them--is nothing short of amazing.