Lifeboat Foundation

Researchers at the school of physics and astronomy at Tel Aviv University have created a track around which a superconductor (a material that is extremely efficient at transmitting electricity) can float, thanks to the phenomenon of “quantum levitation “.

This levitation effect is explained by the Meissner effect, which describes how, when a material makes the transition from its normal to its superconducting state, it actively excludes magnetic fields from its interior, leaving only a thin layer on its surface.

When a material is in its superconducting state — which involves very low temperatures — it is strongly diamagnetic. This means that when a magnetic field is externally applied, it will create an equally opposing magnetic field, locking it in place.

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Another step forward for Quantum — The Quantum Current. US Dept. of Energy has a new method to generate very low-resistance electric (Quantum) current which will improve our methods for energy, quantum computing, and medical imaging, and possibly even a new mechanism for inducing superconductivity—the ability of some materials (zirconium pentatelluride) to carry current with no energy loss.

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Me and one of my friends on LinkedIn both knew it was only a matter of time that AI & Quantum together would be announced. And, Google with D-Wave indeed would be leading this charge. BTW — once this pairing of technologies is done; get ready for some amazing AI technology including robotics to come out.

But there may not be any competitors for a while if Google’s “Ace of Spades” newbie performs as they predict. According to Hartmut Neven, head of its Quantum Al Lab, this baby can run:

“We found that for problem instances involving nearly 1,000 binary variables, quantum annealing significantly outperforms its classical counterpart, simulated annealing. It is more than 10 to the power of 8 times faster than simulated annealing running on a single core.”

Continue reading “Google’s AI Technology Will Transform Life As We Know It” »

We all have “Quantum Spark”.

For centuries philosophers have grappled with the question of what makes life, and thanks to the science of quantum mechanics we might just have the answer, writes Johnjoe McFadden.

What is life? Why is the stuff of life — flesh — so different from inanimate material? Does life obey the same laws as the inanimate world? And what happens when we die?

Continue reading “It seems life really does have a vital spark: quantum mechanics” »

We develop a quantum information protocol that models the biological behaviours of individuals living in a natural selection scenario. The artificially engineered evolution of the quantum living units shows the fundamental features of life in a common environment, such as self-replication, mutation, interaction of individuals, and death. We propose how to mimic these bio-inspired features in a quantum-mechanical formalism, which allows for an experimental implementation achievable with current quantum platforms. This study paves the way for the realization of artificial life and embodied evolution with quantum technologies.

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A non-destructive Quantum State.

The interaction of thermal energy from the environment with motional degrees of freedom is well known and often referred to as Brownian motion (also thermal motion). But in the case of polar molecules, the internal degrees of freedom — in particular the rotational quantum state — are also influenced by the thermal radiation. So far, the detection of the rotational state was only possible by destroying the molecule. However, a German research group has now demonstrated the first implementation of a non-destructive state detection technique for molecular ions.

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As I said this morning; there is something definitely going with Quantum today. Maybe it’s the planet alignment (I saw there was something going on with the alignment with Aquaris today) — this is awesome news.

Rigetti Computing is working on designs for quantum-powered chips to perform previously impossible feats that advance chemistry and machine learning.

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Wham! Another headline; 2 new companies (Rigetti and Q Branch) trying to capture the Quantum Platform crown from D-Wave. Now, we can say a real industry race is on.

Based on a recent analysis of our most popular articles, investors seem to have a strong interest in quantum computing. The problem for investors is that there aren’t any pure play opportunities to invest in quantum computing at the moment. The main reason for this is that there aren’t many companies working on quantum computing. In fact, there’s just one company right now that’s actually selling a quantum computer; Canadian based startup D-Wave.

D-Wave has actually released a controversial “quantum computer”, and is working with big names like Google, NASA, and Lockheed. D-Wave received some major credibility recently when Google announced that they solved an optimization problem in seconds that would normally take 10,000 years with a conventional computer. There is one way to get exposure to D-Wave, but it’s hardly a pure-play and doesn’t seem overly promising. While there are very few companies other than D-Wave directly involved in quantum computing, we did find two companies that quantum computing investors should keep an eye on.

Continue reading “2 Quantum Computing Companies That Are Not D-Wave” »

Another discussion on Quantum Entanglement. I am seeing a huge gap for scientists and technologists in explaining Quantum to every day folks especially in business. If order for business, etc. to adopt Quantum we will need to start explaining Quantum in examples that the average person can understand.

When physicist Ronald Hanson revealed shocking evidence for quantum entanglement, the world took note — the universe really is stranger than fiction, as he reveals in this hangout with cryptographer Renato Renner.

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