Category Archives: Quantum Physics

Planet Earth Report provides descriptive links to headline news by leading science journalists about the extraordinary discoveries, technology, people, and events changing our knowledge of Planet Earth and the future of the human species.

And So It Begins Quantum Physicists Create a New Universe With Its Own Rules, reports The Daily Galaxy Albert Einstein was fond of saying that Imagination is everything. It is the preview of lifes coming attractions. What if our world, our universe, following Einsteins insight, is the result of a quantum-physics experiment performed by some ancient hyper-advanced alien civilization. A civilization that, as astrophysicist Paul Davies speculates, may exist beyond matter.

The quantum century Manipulating quantum devices has been like getting an intoxicating new superpower for society, reports ArsTechnica.

America has sent five rovers to Marswhen will humans follow?With its impeccable landing on Thursday, NASAs Perseverance became the fifth rover to reach Marsso when can we finally expect the long-held goal of a crewed expedition to materialize? asks Phys.org.

Scientists Really, Really Want a Piece of Mars A new NASA rover has jump-started an intense effort to finally bring home a pristine sample from the red planet, reports Marina Koren for The Atlantic.

The moments that could have accidentally ended humanity In recent history, a few individuals have made decisions that could, in theory, have unleashed killer aliens or set Earths atmosphere on fire. What can they tell us about attitudes to the existential risks we face today? reports BBC Future.

The eccentric scientist behind the gold standard COVID-19 test Bombastic biochemist Kary Mullis invented PCR, a tool that redefined genetic science, while driving in 1983. That was only the beginning, reports National Geographic. Biochemist Kary Mullis says he was driving from the Bay Area to his cabin in Mendocino in 1983 when suddenly, like a bolt of lightning out of the California sky, he came up with a way to pinpoint a particular stretch of DNA and synthesize an enormous amount of copies.

Scientists Achieve Real-Time Communication With Lucid Dreamers in Breakthrough International scientists have unlocked a new and exciting avenue to explore the world of dreams, reports Becky Ferreira for Motherboard/Vice.

Is It Safe to Delay a Second COVID Vaccine Dose? Some evidence indicates that short waits are safe, but there is a chance that partial immunization could help risky new coronavirus variants to develop, reports Marla Broadfoot for Scientific American.

Until Recently, People Accepted the Fact of Aliens in the Solar System For centuries, right up until the 1960s, the notion life on Marsand elsewherewasnt considered especially remarkable, reports astrophysicist Caleb Scharf for Scientific American.

Life from Earth could temporarily survive on Mars, reports Frontiers Study shows sending microbes to Earths stratosphere, to test their endurance to Martian conditions, can reveal their potential use and threats to space travel

Deepest land-dwelling microbes found at bottom of 5km hole in China There are microbes near the bottom of the third deepest hole in the world. The cells, recovered from rocks almost 5 kilometers below the surface in China, are the deepest so far found anywhere on land and they may push beyond the known heat tolerances of life on Earth. It is widely accepted that life exists at depth. Until now, the deepest known microbes on land were tiny nematode worms found 3.6 kilometers below the surface in a South African gold mine.

Million-Year-Old Mammoth Teeth Contain Oldest DNA Ever Found, reports Jeanne Timmons for GizmodoAn international team of scientists has sequenced DNA from mammoth teeth that is at least a million years old, if not older. This research, published today in Nature, not only provides exciting new insight into mammoth evolutionary history, it reveals an entirely unknown lineage of ancient mammoth.

Six Brilliant Tesla Inventions That Never Got BuiltThese futuristic visions have yet to come to fruition, either because of technological limitations or market viabilityor both, reports Christopher Klein for History.

Martin Luther Rewired Your BrainHow mass literacy, spurred by Protestantism, reconfigured our neural pathways, reports Nautilus.

The Galaxy Report newsletter brings you twice-weekly news of space and science that has the capacity to provide clues to the mystery of our existence and add a much needed cosmic perspective in our current Anthropocene Epoch.

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Planet Earth Report The Quantum Century to Events That Could Have Ended Humanity - The Daily Galaxy --Great Discoveries Channel

Over the last couple of years, its become abundantly clear both to artist collectives and artists on an individual level that deft use of technology has become integral to the success of almost every creative endeavor. Innovative technology demands an innovative approach, and on Wednesday, the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation announced the 2021 recipients of the Knight Arts + Tech Fellowship, which comes with unrestricted grants of $50,000. One of the grant recipients is Black Quantum Futurism, an interdisciplinary arts collective based in Philadelphia thats been working for years to disrupt linear notions of time via a number of different mediums.

Led by Camae Ayewa, a musician, and Rasheedah Phillips, a housing attorney, Black Quantum Futurism is a prolific incubator of a multitude of different projects exploring notions of space-time, quantum physics, and Black/African cultural traditions of consciousness. Over the last few years alone, the collective has collaborated with the London Contemporary Orchestra, constructed an Oral Futures Booth in Marseilles and installed an interactive Community Futures Lab at the Chicago Architecture Biennial. This summer, Ayewa and Phillips will delve further into their research on quantum physics via a residency at the European Organization for Nuclear Research.

Speaking about the Knight Arts + Tech Fellowship on Wednesday, Ayewa told Observer that the collective would continue to explore the same themes it always has: Were definitely going to continue being advocates for housing justice, and pushing the boundaries of experimentation and protest. In the near future, the collective will also launch installations at the Village of Arts and Humanities in Philadelphia, another Oral Futures booth and a show at the REDCAT gallery in California, but already, Black Quantum Futurisms work fits very neatly in with pandemic-era conversations people have been having about feeling like time is being warped beyond all recognition.

Our second book, Space-Time Collapse: From the Congo to the Carolinas, really speaks about this concept of time feeling like its collapsed on us, and all the oppressive ways that time shows up in our everyday realities, Ayewa said. For example, my partner Rasheedah is a housing attorney, and the court system is so tied to time. How you present your case in court; most peoples lives are not this linear, or in this kind of situation where you have a 15 minute window to get to court. Not too many people live in the downtown area, so you have to catch two buses to get there, and just being late to court can result in your losing your children.

Black Quantum Futurism has had a mutual aid fund in place since 2011, and the collective has always focused on their community in Philadelphia when determining how to use grant money. For those who may be just beginning to wake up to the importance of contributing to ones community, Ayewa suggested moving forward with openness. Always see your community members as people that you can learn from, she said. Weve somehow turned the concept of our neighbors into people that we fear, or we want to become more isolated. Really look through the history of the places that you live in, and dont just think of community as something that begins at the moment you arrive.

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With a $50,000 Grant, Black Quantum Futurism Will Continue to Disrupt Space and Time - GalleristNY

Launch yourself from a great enough height and it won't take long to see which would win in a battle between gravity and the forces that bind solid ground.

Gravity's relative weakness, at least compared to the strength of electromagnetism and the nuclear forces, appears to limits its power to phenomena on the vast scales of planets and galaxies.

For this reason, together with the challenge of marrying general relativity with quantum physics, physicists tend to hand-wave gravity's role in the formation of particles by fudging it with a rather arbitrary correction factor.

Two physicists from the Institute of Gravitation and Cosmology at the Peoples' Friendship University of Russia (RUDN University) are now rethinking gravity's place among the building blocks of nature, searching for solutions to equations that would give this small force a bigger role in explaining how fundamental particles could emerge.

At first glance, it seems like an unnecessary search. For a typical elementary particle, like an electron, its electromagnetic pull is 10^40 times stronger than its gravitational might.

Including gravity's effects when describing an electron's movements around an atom's nucleus would be like taking a mosquito's impact into account when discussing a car crash.

Researchers Ahmed Alharthy and Vladimir V. Kassandrov think the mosquito might be more important than we give it credit for, at least on the mind-blowingly small level of the Planck scale.

"Gravity can potentially play an important role in the microworld, and this assumption is confirmed by certain data," says Kassandrov.

Established solutions to fundamental field theory equations in curving spacetime appear to leave room for a small but non-zero influence of gravity when we zoom in close. As distances shrink, gravity's tug eventually becomes comparable with that of attracted charges.

There are also models describing solitary waves forming in quantum fields in which the tiny effect of gravity could well help reinforce the wave.

The duo went back to semi-classical models of electromagnetic field equations, swapping out the hand-waved correction typically used and applying rules that allow them to tweak some quantities while ensuring others remain fixed.

By slotting in quantities defining the charge and mass of known elementary particles, the team went on the hunt for solutions that added up.

For the most part, there were no clear situations where gravity seemed necessary, at least for known particles.

But there were scenarios as distances shrank to around 10^-33 metres for charged objects with a mass of 10^-5 grams where solutions appeared.

The theorists aren't sure if their answers describe anything we might find in the Universe, though they do set some limits on a spectrum that corresponds with hypothetical semi-quantum particles called maximons.

Pushing the mathematics further, as electric charge vanishes into nothingness on the smallest of scales, and masses grow to a stellar-magnitude, it's clear that gravity becomes a key factor in the emergence of some objects from the quantum landscape.

That might sound like a flight of fancy, but such neutral matter-waves are the very things that make up hypothetical objects known as boson stars.

For now, gravity will continue to be reduced to a begrudging side-note in particle physics, its tiny force a mathematical complexity providing no appreciable benefit in its solving.

One day, we just might need to give the weakest of the four fundamental forces its due on the Universe's smallest scales.

"In the future, we would like to shed light on this problem that is intriguing for physicists but extremely complex from the point of view of mathematics," says Kassandrov.

This research was published in Universe.

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Gravity May Play a Tiny But Important Role in The Microworld of Particle Physics - ScienceAlert

February 17, 2021• Physics 14, 25

A newly proposed superconducting circuit architecture employs a synthetic magnetic field to create a qubit that is intrinsically protected from noise.

Today, noise poses one of the biggest challenges for quantum computation efforts. Be it in the form of dissipated heat, electromagnetic radiation, or something else, noise can disrupt fragile quantum superpositions and lead to errors. The jury is still out on which approach will be most successful in protecting quantum information against noise, but the hope clearly lies in quantum error correction (QEC) protocols. Now, Martin Rymarz of RWTH Aachen University in Germany and colleagues have proposed a novel superconducting circuit implementation that realizes a QEC strategy in which robustness against noise is an intrinsic feature of the hardware [1]. This strategy, known as the Gottesman-Kitaev-Preskill (GKP) code, was proposed in 2001 [2]. However, implementing it with superconducting circuits has so far been impossible because it requires a large magnetic field. The newly proposed architecture circumvents this obstacle by employing a synthetic magnetic field, pushing the GKP protocol closer to a possible realization.

The noise processes that threaten quantum computing are assumed to be local, meaning that they act on specific parts of circuits, such as individual physical qubits. In the scaling-up approach to QEC, quantum information is encoded into multiple physical qubits that form each logical qubit used for the actual computation tasks. So even if one physical qubit is disrupted by noise, the information carried by the logical qubit will not be corrupted. In the exotic-state approach to QEC, each computational unit is a single oscillator, and the logical bits are represented by two special states of the oscillator, called nontrivial states, that are robust against local noise. The exotic-state technique employs continuous-variable systems, such as electromagnetic modes, which are initialized in states that are either robust by themselves (passive QEC) or can be stabilized via operations that do not affect the logical qubit (active QEC).

The GKP strategy is one example of the exotic-state approach [2]. In the GKP code, the exotic states are called grid states, which are superpositions of an oscillators position eigenstates [2]. The robustness to noise in an active GKP protocol stems from the fact that small shifts in the momentum and position of the oscillator can be identified and corrected before they can corrupt the logical information. An experimental demonstration of grid states was recently realized in a superconducting circuit architecture with an active QEC protocol [3]. A GKP code with passive QEC, however, has not yet been demonstrated. Compared to active QEC, which requires complicated operations for error recovery, a passive QEC approach promises to be more efficient and could be advantageous for scaling up to larger computing architectures, as it requires fewer physical units.

A prototypical implementation of a passive GKP code involves an electron confined to two dimensions in a large magnetic field. Realizing such a passive GKP-code design with superconducting circuit architectures is not straightforward. The design would require a magnetic field to interact with microwave photons, which are the oscillations of the electromagnetic field in the superconducting circuit. But photons are neutral particles and do not interact with magnetic fields in the same way that charged particles, such as electrons, do. Strategies for creating artificial magnetic fields that can interact with photons have been discussed and demonstrated in some superconducting systems [46]. The role of magnetic fields, whether real or artificial, in these systems is to break time-reversal symmetry, creating nonreciprocal circuits with multiple ports. The nonreciprocity means that the circuits process photons in a different way depending on which port they are injected into. This asymmetry can be exploited to build nonreciprocal devices that transmit microwave signals in one direction while blocking them in the reverse direction [6].

Rymarz and colleagues have proposed a way of utilizing synthetic magnetic fields, allowing for a superconducting qubit realization of the GKP code. They propose a system in which two superconducting anharmonic oscillators, called fluxonium circuits, are coupled via a gyrator, a device that can invert the current-voltage characteristics of a circuit element (Fig. 1). The asymmetric response of the gyrator implies a breaking of time-reversal symmetry like that produced by a magnetic field. The team shows that the ground states of the system correspond to the GKP code wordsthe grid states that are used to encode the logical information. The huge advantage here is that the logical qubit is constructed from the ground states of the systemin which the system will reside if no external energy is supplied. Leaving the ground state would corrupt the logical qubit, but it comes with an energy penalty, so the protection is naturally built in.

The researchers show that the proposed superconducting circuit simulates the model of an electron confined to a two-dimensional plane and subjected to a magnetic field. As such, the circuits energies resemble those of a quantum oscillator with discrete energy levels. For a given magnetic flux, the lowest-energy states can be used to encode the GKP code words.

A qualitative analysis of the circuit predicts a robustness against common noise sources, such as charge and flux noise, making it a promising passive-QEC candidate. Clearly, the characteristics of the circuit needed to implement the new scheme require improvements of existing technology. For example, the fluxonium circuit should have a very large inductance, which isnt currently attainable but will hopefully be possible in next generation designs. The proposed implementation of the hardware-encoded grid states represents a novel utilization of synthetic magnetism and a new application for gyrators based on the anomalous quantum Hall effect [7, 8]. It remains to be seen, however, whether these gyrators can successfully be married with two fluxonium circuits on-chip. Another question is whether an actively driven nonreciprocal on-chip device [5] could be a better alternative than a gyrator based on the anomalous quantum Hall effect.

This hardware-encoded GKP code implementation complements other ongoing efforts in designing intrinsically error-protected, superconducting circuit qubits, such as the realization of the 0 qubit [9] and the proposal of the doubly nonlinear qubit, or dualmon [10]. All designs come with challenging demands on the parameters of the employed materials and of the circuit elements. Encouragingly, the implementation proposed by Rymarz and colleagues comes within feasible reach of near-future technology. Realizing GKP code words using superconducting circuits is especially promising, as it makes it relatively straightforward to implement a subset of logic gates called Clifford gates, which are required for fault-tolerant computation [2, 3]. The realization of an intrinsically robust computation unit is only the first step on the complex path towards fault-tolerant quantum computation. But every new design pushes the field of superconducting circuits towards new horizons.

Anja Metelmann is an Emmy Noether research group leader in the Department of Theoretical Physics at the Free University Berlin in Germany. In 2012, she received her Ph.D. in physics from the Technical University Berlin in Germany. She spent her postdoctoral time in the Physics Department of McGill University in Montreal, and in the Department of Electrical Engineering at Princeton University.Her research interests lie in the fundamental aspects and applications of superconducting circuits and mechanical systems in the quantum regime. Part of her current research focuses on nonreciprocity as a resource for quantum information processing.

Researchers have developed an ion-optics-based quantum microscope that has sufficient resolution to image individual atoms. Read More

Researchers have transported an atom between two locations in the shortest possible time, an achievement that has implications for quantum technologies. Read More

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Physics - A Superconducting Qubit that Protects Itself - Physics

IBM Quantum development roadmap.

In late 2020, IBM released its first long-term quantum roadmap, showing how IBM's quantum architecture, hardware and qubit count would change over the next few years. IBM plans on evolving its present-day small-scale, noisy quantum computers to a near-term intermediate 1121-qubit machine named Condor. Once perfected, Condor will become the future building block of a larger fault-tolerant quantum computer with millions of qubits.

Qubits represent the fundamental unit of information in quantum computers. Unlike classical computing bits, which can only represent either a one or a zero, qubits can also be a one or a zero or a superposition of both values. Superposition is a fundamental feature of quantum mechanics that plays an essential role in quantum computing.

Last week, IBM released a new and more descriptive technology roadmap. It overlays an expanded timeline of future applications, new Qiskit software and developer capabilities on top of the earlier 2020 hardware roadmap.

According to Jay Gambetta, IBM Fellow and Vice President Quantum Computing, IBM recognized more future plans were needed in its roadmap. "Ultimately software is really tied to the hardware. What I wanted to do this year was to put some context around where we see the software going, and then bring it together with more of an application focus for the user." Gambetta went on to say he believes quantum computing will eventually be able to solve "big problems" in the areas of natural sciences, optimization, finance and machine learning.

Quantum solutions to problems in these four areas will ultimately touch and influence almost every facet of our lives. The first working 2-qubit quantum computer was announced in 1998. Since then, quantum scientists have dreamed of building a universal fault-tolerant quantum computer with millions of qubits. However, for many years, some scientists didn't believe it could be done.

New IBM 2021 development roadmap

IBM's hardware and qubit counts remain unchanged from its first 2020 roadmap. However, for 2021 and beyond, IBM will focus its efforts on developing software that allows circuits to run faster and makes it easier for developers and industry specialists to use quantum. Moreover, these software improvements will happen in a future environment where integrated classical computers and quantum computers will provide a seamless quantum solution. After a careful review, it is clear that IBM is building a complete software ecosystem around users of its quantum cloud. Gambetta believes that for technology to be adopted, IBM needs to make it as frictionless as possible. Moreover, he believes developers shouldn't have to learn new languages. Gambetta says quantum programming must be integrated into developers' existing code and easily called with a cloud quantum API or service for new quantum technology to be successful.

Software tailored to developers

IBM Quantum user stack

In 2016, IBM provided the world's first cloud access to a superconducting quantum processor with five qubits. Almost immediately after launching the system, papers were published based on research performed on the system. Since then, quantum researchers have made significant contributions to the evolution of quantum computing.

Today, IBM has over 20 quantum computers available on the cloud, with over half offering free access. Usage on IBM's quantum cloud is staggering.Over 1.3 billion quantum circuits are run daily, and democratized cloud access for researchers has resulted in over 300 technical papers. From the time IBM's first quantum computer became available on the cloud until now, there have been over 700 billion quantum cloud executions.

According to the roadmap, IBM is creating a user-friendly software approach for developers which will facilitate access to future quantum services. The company will be customizing access to its quantum hardware based on specific interests, needs and existing coding environment of developers. Robert Sutor, Vice President of IBM Quantum Ecosystem Development, said, "We have laid out a software approach heavily oriented towards developers. We feel strongly that a healthy user base will also be a guiding force that will help shape the future technical direction of quantum devices."

Qiskit is IBM's open-source quantum programming framework that allows researchers and developers to program quantum computers and classical simulators. IBM's primary goal is to increase its hardware capacity while making its quantum programs simple to use for the largest number and greatest variety of developers possible. Each type of developer has its own separate and distinct needs.

The following developer descriptions were derived from an earlier IBM paper and edited for clarity. IBM plans on creating a "frictionless" software ecosystem for each type of developer, offering access in a form familiar to them. IBM also intends on providing developers access to data associated with that work level, such as coherence times, qubit frequencies, crosstalk and error rates for calibrated quantum gates and operations.

Future IBM software developments

Qiskit Runtime

Circuits provide instructions for quantum computers. In the early stages of quantum computing, it made sense for IBM to focus optimization efforts on improving circuit capacity and circuit quality. Leveraging these previous circuit improvements, IBM will be releasing a feature called Qiskit Runtime for kernel developers sometime in 2021.Runtime will provide faster circuits and allow programs to be stored and shared with other developers.

For example, running a chemistry algorithm today is a complicated process. Before executing any circuits, you must pick the plot points, choose the error mitigation and classical quantum optimization algorithms, then recast the problem to fit the quantum machine. Lastly, you need to consider how many shots are needed. Continuing this full loop allows the developer to do calculations on their classical computer using data from the quantum computer.

IBM plans to simplify the process by putting these steps together and then executing them close to the quantum processor. Lithium Hydride is a relatively small molecule that IBM uses as an example to illustrate runtime speedup. Current simulation of the molecule can require up to 100 days. Runtime will shorten the simulation to a day or two.

2021 Mid-Circuit Measurement and Reset

Measuring a qubit causes its superposition to collapse, revealing its state to be a one or a zero. That is why current measurements occur at the end of a quantum circuit. However, IBM has already introduced a new feature called mid-circuit measurement and reset (MCMR). MCMR allows measurement of a qubit at any point in the circuit and triggers other actions. Regardless of its measured state, the qubit is reset to 1 so that it becomes a known state, which allows it to be reused, making more efficient use of resources.MCMR can also be performed multiple times in a circuit.

2022 Dynamic Circuits

IBM has prototyped "smart circuits" called Dynamic Circuits that will be available in 2022.Dynamic circuits are circuits in which future states depend on outcomes of measurements that happen during the circuit.Dynamic circuits will allow branching actions such as the use of real-time classical processing to take place based on conditions within an existing circuit. Dynamic circuits can be useful for demonstrations of dynamic error correction, classical logic, developer assertions, and zero state preparations.IBM expects Dynamic circuits to be widely used and contribute to creating a wider pool of circuits available to developers.

Phase estimation of a given unitary

As shown in the above circuit diagrams, dynamic circuits using MCMR can also be used for a fundamental quantum algorithm called quantum phase estimation (QPE). Many algorithms use QPE because it has the potential to provide logarithmic speedup. Phase estimationis also an important part of period finding to factor numbers inShor's Algorithm (one of the most famous algorithms in quantum computing).Unfortunately, running quantum phase estimation requires many resources and many shots to obtain an accurate answer.

The above IBM illustration compares two methods of phase estimation: post-processing vs. real-time using dynamic circuits. The basic question for this scenario is which solution needs the least number of resources to obtain the answer with the specified accuracy? IBM researchers recently ran a version of the quantum phase estimation algorithm (iterative quantum phase estimation) with dynamic circuits. The researchers proved dynamic circuits took fewer resources than other methods. Once this feature becomes available, IBM believes dynamic circuits will become an essential software tool for kernel developers. Moreover, its use should produce many papers that advance its future use.

2023-2026

Hardware

According to the roadmap, a significant hardware milestone will occur in 2023. That's when IBM plans to introduce its 1121-qubit Condor quantum processor. The Condor will be preceded in 2021 by a 127-qubit Eagle processor and in 2022 by a 433-qubit Osprey processor. Even though 1121 qubits may sound like a monster by today's standards, we will need a machine that is thousands of times larger to fulfill quantum computing's true potential. Even so, the Condor should be able to do some useful work, perhaps even achieve quantum advantage for limited applications. This machine should allow IBM to make significant progress with error correction. The Condor will also help researchers develop and optimize a large qubit architecture to prepare for the million-qubit machine. Beyond 2026, IBM envisions having advanced control electronics and software that seamlessly integrate classical HPC and a fault-tolerant quantum computers with millions of qubits.

Software

IBM will begin releasing circuit libraries to provide kernel developers with tools to investigate algorithms that use large qubit hardware. According to the roadmap, advanced versions of dynamic circuits will be segmented, then reconstructed into larger circuits tailored to specific needs. Later, frequently run circuits can be used to create groups of pre-built quantum runtimes. These runtimes can be customized for specific industries, then called by APIs using common development frameworks. By this time, IBM believes its 2021's "frictionless" strategy will have attracted enough kernel and algorithm developers to produce a large body of usable research and algorithms. Both model developers and enterprise developers will benefit from this research, enabling them to explore quantum computing models without needing academic training in quantum physics.

Analyst notes:

Disclosure:Moor Insights & Strategy, like all research and analyst firms, provides or has provided paid research, analysis, advising, or consulting to many high-tech companies in the industry, includingIBM. The author holds no investment positions with any of the companies mentioned in this column.

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IBM Adds Future Developer And Software Details To Its Quantum Roadmap - Forbes

Another project of BQF is an ongoing community engagement effort called Community Futurisms. It first existed as a storefront in North Philadelphia where neighbors were invited inside to record oral histories, then imagine possible futures, and record those too.

For that project, BQF researched the history of Progress Plaza, which opened in 1968 in North Philadelphia near Temple University. It was the first African American-owned supermarket plaza in the country, owned by the Rev. Leon Sullivan. Sullivan was known internationally for his 1977 Sullivan Principles, which urged businesses with operations in then-apartheid South Africa to treat employees there the same way they treat their American employees, rather than abiding apartheid laws.

Inside Progress Plaza, Sullivans company had a garment factory and ran Progress Aerospace Enterprises, which manufactured parts for the aerospace industry. It was the first Black-owned aerospace business, which dovetails neatly with BQFs interest in space and technology.

Those two spaces employed young, unskilled Black youth in the community, and women. It was an amazing place. We see it as a retro-Afro-futurist project right in the middle of North Philly, said Phillips. We wanted to connect these legacies with the present, that 50-some years later were still struggling with fair housing issues. Were still seeing the same demographics around access to housing that we saw in 1968.

The COVID-19 pandemic has curtailed some of BQF projects over the last year, driving them to lean more heavily on internet technologies. They are planning new projects for later this year at the historic Hatfield House in Fairmount Park and at the Village of Arts and Humanities in North Philadelphia. Their extraordinary opportunity to do research at the Hadron super collider and the influx of cash from the Knight Foundation will allow them in the words of William Shatner to boldly go where no (wo)man has gone before.

Im a public interest attorney, Camae is a musician. Art costs money, you know. Its not a cheap practice, said Phillips. Were two Black women from North Philly who have not had the same ability to focus on our art practice in the same way as if we were classically trained or able to go to school for our art. To be able, in just a few years, to build our practice and get to this level is amazing.

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Black Quantum Futurism receives the Knight Foundations new art and technology fellowship - WHYY

This article has its origin in some way from the German mathematician, philosopher, and logician Gottfried Leibniz. The limited but meritorious degree did not prevent him from developing scientific knowledge in the seventeenth century from questioning originality. The origin of the universe. About the nature of the material. About the cause of existence itself.

These questions may have been asked by other people before him, but Leibniz left us a very valuable set of documents that Collect their reflections, Without which we may not be able to fully explain his fundamental contributions to mathematics, physics, logic, metaphysics, geology or philosophy, among other disciplines.

Observations indicate that the universe arose out of void, but not out of a void like our classic concept of emptiness describes, but from a false void.

Leibniz is, and I am not exaggerating in the least, one of those giants on whose shoulders current scientific knowledge stands. Unfortunately, he passed away without even being able to touch the answer to a question that, according to his writings, bothered him so much. Why is there something rather than nothing. What is the real reason for existence.

Fortunately, his ideas and the knowledge that he imparted to us have inspired many researchers who, using the scientific development we achieved during the twentieth century and the first two decades of the twenty-first century, were able to formulate hypotheses that seek to explain the nature of this issue. How is it possible that the universe that we know Out of the voidThis appears to be reflected in our observations. But not out of thin air. From the real void: quantum space.

One way to define a vacuum that is easy to feel comfortable with is to describe it as a region of space in which there is an absolute absence of matter and energy. This is the classic concept of a vacuum, and it invites us to accept the fact that it exists, Different degrees of emptiness Which can be determined by comparing the pressure in the area of space that we want to measure with atmospheric pressure.

However, modern science has replaced this view. The development of relativistic and quantum mechanics has allowed scientists to develop a description of a vacuum that is more relevant to reality as it is seen as a physical state of a related system. With the least amount of energy That this may be. The implications of this idea, which has been proven experimentally, are very profound. And surprisingly, too.

Our best tool for understanding vacuum fluctuations is the Heisenberg indeterminacy principle.

From a quantum mechanics perspective, space is not empty. Contains randomly generated waves. Also, these waves behave like particles, so one way to define this quantum vacuum is to describe it as a mixture of particles that are created and destroyed very quickly. This is known as vacuum fluctuations, and the best way to understand them is Heisenbergs Indeterminacy Principle.

We dont need to know what this principle tells us in its entirety, but to move forward, it is good for us to know that it is a theory that defends this in the physical systems described by quantum mechanics, which studies the properties of nature on an atomic scale. We cannot select at one time The value of all physical parameters that we can observe. In classical mechanics we can describe any physical system by listing the value of the parameters that we can measure, but in quantum mechanics we cannot.

In fact, the principle of indeterminism states that There are some pairs of ingredients, Such as a particles position and momentum, which are not simultaneously determined. This means that the more we try to measure its position, the less information we get about its momentum, which is determined by its mass and velocity at a given moment.

The same thing happens in the opposite direction: the more precisely we measure the momentum of a particle, the greater the uncertainty when determining its position at a given moment. Heisenbergs Indeterminacy Principle is a very valuable tool for our understanding Void fluctuations Because it creates an indefinite relationship between the value of the systems energy and the time we invest in measuring it.

A direct consequence of this relationship is that if a vacuum, as we have seen, is not empty, but contains waves that behave like particles, then it also contains energy, and manifests itself as a field. Moreover, the field cannot have constant energy at any point, which means that in a vacuum the energy of the fields cannot be constant. It fluctuates constantly. This is the starting point for the next section of the article.

The experimentally obtained measurements indicate that the universe arose out of a vacuum. From the volatile quantum void that we just described. We still do not have a theory that conclusively explains the origin of the universe, but the most acceptable because it has observational support, which has not prevented it from having critics, is Cosmic inflation.

There is still a lot to do, and there are still many phenomena that we cannot explain, but scientists are confident that technological development will allow us to Get more accurate measurements That can be used in the future to correct and develop existing theories, or to develop new theories.

The germ of the inflation theory is the idea that the universe began from the void state of a field known as an inflaton.

The germ of the cosmic inflation theory is the idea that the universe began from a void state of a field that scientists call Plato. At that primordial moment this was the only sphere in existence, presumably spread throughout space, and presumably unlimited in range. One of the characteristics of blowing is that it can persist in a pseudo-vacuum where the particles associated with the field are lacking, but without remaining in a state of minimum energy.

The curious thing is that when gravity is theoretically introduced into this scenario, the inflaton acquires a massive gravitational repulsion responsible for the expansion of space itself. This is known as inflation. The theoretical physicists who defend this theory believe that inflone has an energy profile similar to that of the Higgs field, but differs from this in that it could adopt it. A state of false emptiness Its energy was not the lowest possible.

Indeed, inflation must initially be in a state of pseudo-void, but with a marked tendency to reach a state of true void. During its fall to this latter state, it must have been subjected to a repellant gravitational pull, which, as we have seen, would cause the space in which this field is located to expand. When the minimum energy value is reached, inflation can be subjected to fluctuations that will induce it Increase your energy level Dissipate your initial energy.

If the sphere, as we just saw, tends to reach a true vacuum from a false vacuum state in which its energy is higher, the only possible strategy is to release its initial energy. And that brings us to the idea that culminates in this theory: Quantum mechanics argues that the release of energy does happen Generating fields and their particles This is related, so that physicists defending the theory of cosmic inflation believe that this was the mechanism that led to the creation of the fields and particles that make up the universe in which we live.

In this article, weve only scratched the surface because our goal is to get it as close at hand as possible, but if you like it and want us to continue investigating the origin of the universe in other reports, let us know in the comments. Its definitely a complicated topic, however Its also exciting We would like to delve into it with you.

Cover photo | Alex Andrews

Pictures | Alex Andrews | Mohan Reddy Atalu

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What science tells us about the quantum origin of the universe - Sunday Vision

Before I get to the serious stuff, a quick story about John Conway, a.k.a. the mathematical magician. I met him in 1993 in Princeton while working on The Death of Proof. When I poked my head into his office, Conway was sitting with his back to me staring at a computer. Hair tumbled down his back, his sagging pants exposed his ass-cleft. His office overflowed with books, journals, food wrappers and paper polyhedrons, many dangling from the ceiling. When I tentatively announced myself, he yelled without turning, Whats your birthday! Uh, June 23, I said. Year! Conway shouted. Year! 1953, I replied. After a split second he blurted out, Tuesday! He tapped his keyboard, stared at the screen and exulted, Yes! Finally facing me, Conway explained that he belongs to a group of people who calculate the day of the week of any date, past or present, as quickly as possible. He, Conway informed me with a manic grin, is one of the worlds fastest day-of-the-week calculators.

This encounter came back to me recently as I read a wonderful New York Times tribute to Conway, felled by COVID-19 last year at the age of 82. The Times focuses on the enduring influence of the Game of Life, a cellular automaton invented by Conway more than a half century ago. Scientific Americans legendary math columnist Martin Gardner introduced the Game of Life, sometimes just called Life, to the world in 1970 after receiving a letter about it from Conway. The Times riff on Life got me thinking anew about old riddles. Like, Does free will exist?

Some background. A cellular automaton is a grid of cells whose states depend on the states of neighboring cells, as determined by preset rules. The Game of Life is a two-dimensional cellular automaton with square cells that can be in one of two states, alive or dead (often represented by black or white). A given cells state depends on the state of its four immediate neighbors. If two or three of the neighbors are alive, the cell comes to life or stays alive. If zero, one or all four of the neighbors are alive, the cell dies or remains dead, presumably from loneliness or overcrowding. So simple! And yet Life, when the rules are applied over and over, ideally by a computer, yields endlessly varied patterns, including quasianimated clusters of cells known as longboats, gliders, spaceships and my favorite, Speed Demonoids.

Like the Mandelbrot set, the famous fractal icon, the Game of Life inspired the fields of chaos and complexity, which are so similar that I lump them together under a single term: chaoplexity. Chaoplexologists assume that just as Lifes odd digital fauna and flora stem from straightforward rules, so do many real-world things. With the help of computer simulations, chaoplexologists hoped to discover the rules, or algorithms, underpinning stuff that has long resisted conventional scientific analysis, from immune systems and brains to stock markets and whole civilizations. (The big data movement has recycled the hope, and hype, of chaoplexology.)

Of course, the Game of Life can be interpreted in different ways. It resembles a digital, animated Rorschach test upon which scholars project their biases. For example, philosopher Daniel Dennett, commenting on Conways invention in the Times, points out that Lifes higher-order patterns emerge from processes that are completely unmysterious and explicable.... No psionic fields, no morphic resonances, no lan vital, no dualism.

Dennetts comment annoyed me at first; Life just gives him an excuse to reiterate his defense of hard-core materialism. But Life, Dennett goes on to say, shows that deterministic rules can generate complex adaptively appropriate structures capable of action and control. Yes! I thought, my own bias coming into play. Dennett clearly means that deterministic processes can spawn phenomena that transcend determinism, like minds with free will.

Then another thought occurred to me, inspired by my ongoing effort to understand quantum mechanics. Conventional cellular automata, including Life, are strictly local, in the sense that what happens in one cell depends on what happens in its neighboring cells. But quantum mechanics suggests that nature seethes with nonlocal spooky actions. Remote, apparently disconnected things can be entangled, influencing each other in mysterious ways, as if via the filaments of ghostly, hyperdimensional cobwebs.

I wondered: Can cellular automata incorporate nonlocal entanglements? And if so, might these cellular automata provide even more support for free will than the Game of Life? Google gave me tentative answers. Yes, researchers have created many cellular automata that incorporate quantum effects, including nonlocality. There are even quantum versions of the Game of Life. But, predictably, experts disagree on whether nonlocal cellular automata bolster the case for free will.

One prominent explorer of quantum cellular automata, Nobel laureate Gerard t Hooft, flatly rules out the possibility of free will. In his 2015 monograph The Cellular Automaton Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics, t Hooft argues that some annoying features of quantum mechanicsnotably its inability to specify precisely where an electron will be when we observe itcan be eliminated by reconfiguring the theory as a cellular automaton. t Hoofts model assumes the existence of hidden variables underlying apparently random quantum behavior. His model leads him to a position called superdeterminism, which eliminates (as far as I can tell; t Hoofts arguments arent easy for me to follow) any hope for free will. Our fates are fixed from the big bang on.

Another authority on cellular automata, Stephen Wolfram, creator of Mathematica and other popular mathematical programs, proposes that free will is possible. In his 2002 opus A New Kind of Science, Wolfram argues that cellular automata can solve many scientific and philosophical puzzles, including free will. He notes that many cellular automata, including the Game of Life, display the property of computational irreducibility. That is, you cannot predict in advance what the cellular automata are going to do, you can only watch and see what happens. This unpredictability is compatible with free will, or so Wolfram suggests.

John Conway, Lifes creator, also defended free will. In a 2009 paper, The Strong Free Will Theorem, Conway and Simon Kochen argue that quantum mechanics, plus relativity, provide grounds for belief in free will. At the heart of their argument is a thought experiment in which physicists measure the spin of particles. According to Conway and Kochen, the physicists are free to measure the particles in dozens of ways, which are not dictated by the preceding state of the universe. Similarly, the particles spin, as measured by the physicists, is not predetermined.

Their analysis leads Conway and Kochen to conclude that the physicists possess free willand so do the particles they are measuring. Our provocative ascription of free will to elementary particles is deliberate, Conway and Kochen write, since our theorem asserts that if experimenters have a certain freedom, then particles have exactly the same kind of freedom. That last part, which ascribes free will to particles, threw me at first; it sounded too woo. Then I recalled that prominent scientists are advocating panpsychism, the idea that consciousness pervades all matter, not just brains. If we grant electrons consciousness, why not give them free will, too?

To be honest, I have a problem with all these treatments of free will, pro and con. They examine free will within the narrow, reductionistic framework of physics and mathematics, and they equate free will with randomness and unpredictability. My choices, at least important ones, are not random, and they are all too predictable, at least for those who know me.

For example, here I am arguing for free will once again. I do so not because physical processes in my brain compel me to do so. I defend free will because the idea of free will matters to me, and I want it to matter to others. I am committed to free will for philosophical, ethical and even political reasons. I believe, for example, that deterministic views of human nature make us more likely to accept sexism, racism and militarism. No physics modelnot even the most complex, nonlocal cellular automaton--can capture my rational and, yes, emotional motives for believing in free will, but that doesnt mean these motives lack causal power.

Just as it cannot prove or disprove Gods existence, science will never decisively confirm or deny free will. In fact, t Hooft might be right. I might be just a mortal, 3-D, analog version of the Speed Demonoid, plodding from square to square, my thoughts and actions dictated by hidden, superdeterministic rules far beyond my ken. But I cant accept that grim worldview. Without free will, life lacks meaning, and hope. Especially in dark times, my faith in free will consoles me, and makes me feel less bullied by the deadly Game of Life.

Further Reading:

I obsess over free will and related riddles in my two most recent books: Pay Attention: Sex, Death, and Science, and Mind-Body Problems: Science, Subjectivity & Who We Really Are.

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Quantum Mechanics, Free Will and the Game of Life - Scientific American

Causality is one of those difficult scientific topics that can easily stray into the realm of philosophy. Sciences relationship with the concept started out simply enough: an event causes another event later in time. That had been the standard understanding of the scientific community up until quantum mechanics was introduced. Then, with the introduction of the famous spooky action at a distance that is a side effect of the concept of quantum entanglement, scientists began to question that simple interpretation of causality.

Now, researchers at the Universit Libre de Bruxelles (ULB) and the University of Oxford have come up with a theory that further challenges that standard view of causality as a linear progress from cause to effect. In their new theoretical structure, cause and effect can sometimes take place in cycles, with the effect actually causing the cause.

The quantum realm itself as it is currently understood is inherently messy. There is no true understanding of things at that scale, which can be thought of better as a set of mathematical probabilities rather than actualities. These probabilities do not exactly lend themselves well to the idea of a definite cause and effect interaction between events either.

The researchers further muddied the waters using a tool known as a unitary transformation. Simply put, a unitary transformation is a fudge used to solve some of the math that is necessary to understand complex quantum systems. Using it makes solving the famous Schrodinger equation achievable using real computers.

To give a more complete explanation requires delving a bit into the space that quantum mechanics operates in. In quantum mechanics, time is simply another dimension that must be accounted for similarly to how the usual three dimensions of what we think of as linear space are accounted for. Physicists usually use another mathematical tool called a Hamiltonian to solve Schrodingers equation.

A Hamiltonian, though a mathematical concept, is often time dependent. However, it is also the part of the equation that is changed when a unitary transformation is introduced. As part of that action, it is possible to eliminate the time dependency of the Hamiltonian, to make it such that, instead of requiring time to go a certain direction (i.e. for action and reaction to take place linearly), the model turns more into a circle than a straight line, with action causing reaction and reaction causing action.

If this isnt all confusing enough, there are some extremely difficult to conceive of implications of this model (and to be clear, from a macro level, it is just a model). One important facet is that this finding has little to no relevance to every day cause and effect. The causes and effects that would be cyclical in this framework are not local in spacetime, according to the press release from ULB, so they are unlikely to have any impact on day to day life.

Even if it doesnt have any everyday impact now, this framework could hint at a combined theory of quantum mechanics and general relativity that has been the most sought after prize in physics for decades. If that synthesis is ever fully realized, there will be more implications for everyday life than just the existential questions of whether we are actually in control of our own actions or not.

Learn More:Eureka Alert: Quantum Causal LoopsNature Communications: Cyclic Quantum Causal ModelsFlorida News Times: Quantum Causal LoopUT: The three-body problem shows us why we cant accurately calculate the past

Lead Image:Artist depiction of quantum causal loopsCredit: ULB

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Quantum Theory Proposes That Cause and Effect Can Go In Loops - Universe Today

Whatever happened, the Majorana drama is a setback for Microsofts ambitions to compete in quantum computing. Leading computing companies say the technology will define the future by enabling new breakthroughs in science and engineering.

Quantum computers are built from devices called qubits that encode 1s and 0s of data but can also use a quantum state called a superposition to perform math tricks not possible for the bits in a conventional computer. The main challenge to commercializing that idea is that quantum states are delicate and easily quashed by thermal or electromagnetic noise, making qubits error-prone.

Google, IBM, and Intel have all shown off prototype quantum processors with around 50 qubits, and companies including Goldman Sachs and Merck are testing the technology. But thousands or millions of qubits are likely required for useful work. Much of a quantum computers power would probably have to be dedicated to correcting its own glitches.

Microsoft has taken a different approach, claiming qubits based on Majorana particles will be more scalable, allowing it to leap ahead. But after more than a decade of work, it does not have a single qubit.

From the fuller data, theres no doubt that theres no Majorana.

Sergey Frolov, University of Pittsburgh

Majorana fermions are named after Italian physicist Ettore Majorana, who hypothesized in 1937 that particles should exist with the odd property of being their own antiparticles. Not long after, he boarded a ship and was never seen again. Physicists wouldnt report a good glimpse of one of his eponymous particles until the next millennium, in Kouwenhovens lab.

Microsoft got interested in Majoranas after company researchers in 2004 approached tech strategy chief Craig Mundie and said they had a way to solve one problem holding back quantum computersqubits flakiness.

The researchers seized on theoretical physics papers suggesting a way to build qubits that would make them more dependable. These so-called topological qubits would be built around unusual particles, of which Majorana particles are one example, that can pop into existence in clumps of electrons inside certain materials at very low temperatures.

Microsoft created a new team of physicists and mathematicians to flesh out the theory and practice of topological quantum computing, centered on an outpost in Santa Barbara, California, christened Station Q. They collaborated with and funded leading experimental physicists hunting for the particles needed to build this new form of qubit.

Kouwenhoven, in Delft, was one of the physicists who got Microsofts backing. His 2012 paper reporting signatures of Majorana particles inside nanowires started chatter about a future Nobel prize for proving the elusive particles existence. In 2016, Microsoft stepped up its investmentand the hype.

Everything you ever wanted to know about qubits, superpositioning, and spooky action at a distance.

Kouwenhoven and another leading physicist, Charles Marcus, at the University of Copenhagen were hired as corporate Majorana hunters. The plan was to first detect the particles and then invent more complex devices that could control them and function as qubits. Todd Holmdahl, who previously led hardware for Microsofts lucrative Xbox games console, took over as leader of the topological quantum computing project. Early in 2018, he told Barrons he would have a topological qubit by the end of the year. The now-disputed paper appeared a month later.

While Microsoft sought Majoranas, competitors working on established qubit technologies reported steady progress. In 2019, Google announced it had reached a milestone called quantum supremacy, showing that a chip with 53 qubits could perform a statistical calculation in minutes that would take a supercomputer millennia. Soon after, Microsoft appeared to hedge its quantum bet, announcing it would offer access to quantum hardware from other companies via its cloud service Azure. The Wall Street Journal reported that Holmdahl left the project that year after missing an internal deadline.

Microsoft has been quieter about its expected pace of progress on quantum hardware since Holmdahl's departure. Competitors in quantum computing continue to tout hardware advances and urge software developers to access prototypes over the internet, but none appear close to creating a quantum computer ready for prime time.

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Microsofts Big Win in Quantum Computing Was an Error After All - WIRED