One often-repeated example illustrates the mind-boggling potential of quantum computing: A machine with 300 quantum bits could simultaneously store more information than the number of particles in the known universe.
Now process this: Harvard scientists just unveiled a system that was 10 times bigger and the first quantum machine able to operate continuously without restarting.
In a paper published in the journal Nature, the team demonstrated a system of more than 3,000 quantum bits (or qubits) that could run for more than two hours, surmounting a series of technical challenges and representing a significant step toward building the super computers, which could revolutionize science, medicine, finance, and other fields.
Integrated circuits form the basis of modern ‘classical’ computing. There can be hundreds of these microchips in a laptop or personal computer. Their size has meant that now mobile phones have computing power thousands of times faster than the most powerful supercomputers built in the 1980s.
Since the 1990s, supercomputers have come into their own. The most powerful supercomputer in the world, Frontier based in the US, has a million times more computing power than top-tier gaming PCs. But these devices are still based on the classical technology of integrated circuits and are therefore limited in their capabilities.
Quantum computers promise to be able to process calculations thousands, even millions of times faster than modern computers.
Inside the microchips powering your devices, atoms aren’t just randomly scattered. They follow a hidden order that can change how semiconductors behave.
A team of researchers from the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) and George Washington University has, for the first time, observed these tiny patterns, called short-range order (SRO), directly in semiconductors.
This discovery is a game-changer, as understanding how atoms naturally arrange themselves could let researchers design materials with desirable electronic properties. Such control could revolutionize quantum computing, neuromorphic devices that mimic the brain, and advanced optical detectors.
An extended exploration of what science tells us about free will and consciousness in a quantum universe, including Sir Roger Penrose’s theory of Orchestrated Objective Reduction.
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Episode 353a, June 30, 2024 Written, Produced & Narrated by Isaac Arthur.
Music Courtesy of Epidemic Sound http://epidemicsound.com/creator.
Select imagery/video supplied by Getty Images.
Using the effect it could even be possible to generate photons from the quantum vacuum.
Researchers at UBC have found a way to mimic the elusive Schwinger effect using superfluid helium, where vortex pairs appear out of thin films instead of electron-positron pairs in a vacuum. Their work not only offers a cosmic laboratory for otherwise unreachable phenomena, but also changes the way scientists understand vortices, superfluids, and even quantum tunneling.
In 1951, physicist Julian Schwinger theorized that by applying a uniform electrical field to a vacuum, electron-positron pairs would be spontaneously created out of nothing, through a phenomenon called quantum tunneling.
The problem with turning the matter-out-of-nowhere theory into Star Trek replicators or transporters? Enormously high electric fields would be required — far beyond the limits of any direct physical experiments.