Visualizing atomic entanglement
Efforts to make physics and quantum computing accessible for many are underway, it seems
In the news
Physics Nobel Prize was the story of the week for many following the field. Arthur Ashkin took half of the prize for inventing “optical tweezers,” while Gérard Mourou and Donna Strickland split the other half for their work on high-intensity ultra-short laser pulses. (Curiously, until recently, Wikipedia denied publishing a page about Donna Strickland because of a lack of coverage. Boo!)
BlackBerry announces adding ‘quantum-resistant’ security methods to its cybersecurity toolkit. “By adding the quantum-resistant code signing server to our cybersecurity tools, we will be able to address a major security concern for industries that rely on assets that will be in use for a long time.”
Physics
Visualizing various forms of atomic entanglement, in accessible ways. Lovely proposition.
The physics of “active wetting” may hold a clue to understanding how cancer spreads.
Quantum computing
D-Wave opens access to 2000+ qubit machine. Enter Leap. Over the last decade, the team has been working with early users not only on science, but also on building layers of abstractions that provide wide access to technology, no matter your proficiency. “You don’t need to learn machine instructions for quantum computers; all that access to those instructions, post processing techniques, control over their quantum annealing process, those are all things our users over the years have requested when they’re getting into lower-level work in materials or performance tuning, for example.” It’s about “customer advantage.”
What happens when researchers have access to quantum processors through the cloud? They, for example, simulate major biological processes. That’s, at least, what an international group of scientists did: they created a quantum algorithm that replicates the processes of Darwinian evolution, and simulated all major events over lifespan. One qubit represented the individual’s genotype, the other its phenotype.
One final thought
Marie Curie was the first. Donna Strickland is the third. Do you know who was the second woman to win the Nobel Prize in Physics?