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Archive for the ‘particle physics’ category: Page 507

Feb 1, 2017

Coordinates of more than 23,000 atoms in technologically important material mapped

Posted by in categories: bioengineering, nanotechnology, particle physics, quantum physics

Nice read.


The results demonstrate that the positions of tens of thousands of atoms can be precisely identified and then fed into quantum mechanics calculations to correlate imperfections and defects with material properties at the single-atom level. This research will be published Feb 2. in the journal Nature.

Jianwei (John) Miao, a UCLA professor of physics and astronomy and a member of UCLA’s California NanoSystems Institute, led the international team in mapping the atomic-level details of the bimetallic nanoparticle, more than a trillion of which could fit within a grain of sand.

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Feb 1, 2017

ORNL researchers break data transfer efficiency record

Posted by in categories: particle physics, quantum physics

My friends at ORNL just announced they broke a record in the transmittal of information via Qubits this week. We’re getting closer for our QC networking and storage capabilities.


OAK RIDGE, Tenn., Feb. 1, 2017 — Researchers at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory have set a new record in the transfer of information via superdense coding, a process by which the properties of particles like photons, protons and electrons are used to store as much information as possible.

The ORNL team transferred 1.67 bits per qubit, or quantum bit, over a fiber optic cable, edging out the previous record of 1.63 per qubit.

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Feb 1, 2017

Fear sells in the computer security business, and quantum computers could be very scary

Posted by in categories: cybercrime/malcode, particle physics, quantum physics

Interesting article; however, 2 things missing from it. 1) China has already implemented a QC wireless network and in phase 2 of their work on QC communications which is also involving a QC platform and hacking. 2) Author stated that Mosca believes by 2026 a nation state will have QC. I would suggest Mosca network a little more as China and Sydney are well ahead of schedule plus many of us involved in QC already are testing the scalability of QC on small devices and other platforms v. mammoth servers thanks to much of the new findings last year on proving the reliability and traceability of particles at various complex states of entanglement and information processing as well as the more recent findings of enabling the constant cold temperatures needed to support QC on small servers.

My own estimates is we’re within a 5 year window of being able to see a more pragmatic version of QC as servers and networking for the broader masses. I don’t believe we’re 10 years away or less than 5 years at the moment; however, things could change tomorrow to the point we see the timeline shortened from 5 to 3 years as I do have friends who believe we’re within 3 years.


Even though quantum computers don’t exist yet, security companies are preparing to protect against them.

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Jan 29, 2017

Physicists Simulate Sending Particles of Light Into the Past, Strengthening the Case that Time Travel Is Possible

Posted by in categories: cosmology, particle physics, quantum physics, time travel

Awesome! More news on the time crystals.


The source of time travel speculation lies in the fact that our best physical theories seem to contain no prohibitions on traveling backward through time. The feat should be possible based on Einstein’s theory of general relativity, which describes gravity as the warping of spacetime by energy and matter. An extremely powerful gravitational field, such as that produced by a spinning black hole, could in principle profoundly warp the fabric of existence so that spacetime bends back on itself. This would create a “closed timelike curve,” or CTC, a loop that could be traversed to travel back in time.

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Jan 27, 2017

Simulating particle physics in a quantum computer

Posted by in categories: particle physics, quantum physics, space, supercomputing

Particle physics is an interesting and complicated field of study. Its theoretical framework, the Standard Model, was developed during the second half of the twentieth century and it opened he possibility to explaining the behavior of the basic blocks of the Universe. It also classified all the particles, from the electron (discovered in 1897) to the Higgs Boson (found in 2012). It is not pretentious to claim that it is one of the most successful theories in Science.

Unfortunately, the Standard Model is also a very difficult theory to handle. By using an analytic approach many problems cannot be solved and computational methods require a huge computational power. Most of the simulations about this theory are performed in supercomputers and they have severe limitations. For instance, the mass of the proton can be calculated by the use of a technique called Lattice Quantum Chromodynamics (lattice QCD), but even using a supercomputer of the Blue Gene type the error was around 2% . This is a huge achievement that shows the utility of the theory, but it is also a signal about the necessity of developing new numerical tools to handle this kind of calculations.

One potential solution to this problem is to use quantum systems in order to perform the simulations. This idea is at the core of the field of quantum computing and it was first proposed by one of the pioneers in the study of particle physics, Richard Feynman . Feynman’s idea is easy to explain. Quantum systems are very difficult to simulate by the use of ordinary classical computers but by using quantum systems we can simulate different quantum systems. If we have a quantum system that we cannot control but we can mimic its dynamics to a friendly quantum system we have solved the problem. We can just manipulate the second system and infer the results to the first one.

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Jan 25, 2017

First step towards photonic quantum network

Posted by in categories: nanotechnology, particle physics, quantum physics

Advanced photonic nanostructures are well on their way to revolutionising quantum technology for quantum networks based on light. Researchers from the Niels Bohr Institute have now developed the first building blocks needed to construct complex quantum photonic circuits for quantum networks. This rapid development in quantum networks is highlighted in an article in the journal Nature.

Quantum technology based on light (photons) is called , while electronics is based on electrons. Photons (light particles) and electrons behave differently at the quantum level. A quantum entity is the smallest unit in the microscopic world. For example, photons are the fundamental constituent of light and electrons of electric current. Electrons are so-called fermions and can easily be isolated to conduct current one electron at a time. In contrast photons are bosons, which prefer to bunch together. But since information for quantum communication based on photonics is encoded in a single photon, it is necessary to emit and send them one at a time.

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Jan 22, 2017

Scientists unleash graphene’s innate superconductivity

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, particle physics

Already renowned for its potential to revolutionize everything from light bulbs and dental fillings through to semiconductors and motorcycle helmets, graphene can now add innate superconductivity to its repertoire. Scientists at the University of Cambridge claim to have discovered a method to trigger the superconducting properties of graphene without actually altering its chemical structure.

Light, flexible, and super-strong, the single layer of carbon atoms that makes up graphene has only been rendered superconductive previously by doping it with impurities, or by affixing it to other superconducting materials, both of which may undermine some of its other unique properties.

However, in the latest research conducted at the University of Cambridge, scientists claim to have found a way to activate superconduction in graphene by coupling it with a material known as praseodymium cerium copper oxide (Pr2− xCe xCuO4) or PCCO. PCCO is from a wider class of superconducting materials known as cuprates (derived from the Latin word for copper), known for their use in high-temperature superconductivity.

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Jan 21, 2017

Physicists may have just manipulated ‘pure nothingness’

Posted by in categories: particle physics, quantum physics

It’s one of those philosophical questions we occasionally ponder: What is nothing? Can nothing be something? If not, then how can something come from nothing?

If there’s one scientific field on the forefront of such conceptual paradoxes, it’s quantum theory. And in quantum theory, nothing actually is something … sort of.

See, according to quantum mechanics, even an empty vacuum is not really empty. It’s filled with strange virtual particles that blink in and out of existence in timespans too short to observe. Nothingness, on the quantum level, exists on a level of intuitive absurdity; a kind of existence that is paradoxical but, in some conceptual sense, necessary.

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Jan 19, 2017

Smart Dust – The Future of Involuntary Treatment of the Public

Posted by in categories: computing, military, particle physics

Smart dust; himm I see many uses for this some good and some truly bad when in the wrong hands.


Pedro Aquila, Staff Writer Waking Times

Smart dust is a name given to extremely small computing particles, RFID chips, or other very small technologies.

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Jan 19, 2017

The PBR Theorem explained

Posted by in categories: particle physics, quantum physics

The PBR theorem is another theorem of quantum mechanics, which could go alongside Bell’s Theorem and the Kochen-Specker Theorem. I wrote this explanation in 2011, before the paper was officially published in Nature. Since then, it’s been recognized as a moderately important theorem, and it has been named after its three authors (Pusey, Barrett, and Rudolph). But at the time I didn’t really know whether it would become important.

There’s a new paper on arxiv called “The quantum state cannot be interpreted statistically “. It has a theorem which proves that, given a few basic assumptions, the quantum state (ie the wavefunction) must be real, rather than a merely statistical object. Nature has an article which mostly just harps on how “seismic” the paper is.

Nature (correction: the article’s author, not Nature itself) compares its importance to Bell’s Theorem, which is a very important result indeed from 1964. Bell’s theorem proved that if there were “hidden variables” underneath the quantum state, then entangled particles must be communicating with each other faster than light. I’ve explained Bell’s theorem in the past.

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