The achievement has been compared to the Wright brothers’ 12-second first flight at Kitty Hawk — an early, aspirational glimpse at a revolution to come. By providing exponentially greater calculation power than the machines we use today, quantum computers could one day transform the way we communicate ideas, conceal data and comprehend the universe.
Paris (AFP) — Scientists claimed Wednesday to have achieved a near-mythical state of computing in which a new generation of machine vastly outperforms the world’s fastest super-computer, known as “quantum supremacy”.
A team of experts working on Google’s Sycamore machine said their quantum system had executed a calculation in 200 seconds that would have taken a classic computer 10,000 years to complete.
A rival team at IBM has already expressed scepticism about their claim.
Is Google moving past the rest of the competition.
Quantum computers’ potential and the advantages they promise over classical computers all remain largely theoretical, and hypothetically speaking, it is predicted that quantum computers will be able to solve problems that are beyond the reach of the classical computers we use today. Passing such a threshold will be considered proof of what we call “quantum supremacy.”
A leaked research paper revealed that Google has reached this level of quantum supremacy but the leak was quickly taken down leaving more questions than answers.
So where do we go from here? What does a world with quantum supremacy look like?
The universe is kind of an impossible object. It has an inside but no outside; it’s a one-sided coin. This Möbius architecture presents a unique challenge for cosmologists, who find themselves in the awkward position of being stuck inside the very system they’re trying to comprehend.
It’s a situation that Lee Smolin has been thinking about for most of his career. A physicist at the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics in Waterloo, Canada, Smolin works at the knotty intersection of quantum mechanics, relativity and cosmology. Don’t let his soft voice and quiet demeanor fool you — he’s known as a rebellious thinker and has always followed his own path. In the 1960s Smolin dropped out of high school, played in a rock band called Ideoplastos, and published an underground newspaper. Wanting to build geodesic domes like R. Buckminster Fuller, Smolin taught himself advanced mathematics — the same kind of math, it turned out, that you need to play with Einstein’s equations of general relativity. The moment he realized this was the moment he became a physicist. He studied at Harvard University and took a position at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey, eventually becoming a founding faculty member at the Perimeter Institute.
“Perimeter,” in fact, is the perfect word to describe Smolin’s place near the boundary of mainstream physics. When most physicists dived headfirst into string theory, Smolin played a key role in working out the competing theory of loop quantum gravity. When most physicists said that the laws of physics are immutable, he said they evolve according to a kind of cosmic Darwinism. When most physicists said that time is an illusion, Smolin insisted that it’s real.
The quantum computer Sycamore reportedly performed a calculation that even the most powerful supercomputers available can’t reproduce.
New book by Caltech astrophysicist Sean Carroll explores the ‘many worlds’ interpretation of quantum mechanics and its bizarre implications.
Quantum computers use the fundamentals of quantum mechanics to potentially speed up the process of solving complex computations. Suppose you need to perform the task of searching for a specific number in a phone book. A classical computer will search each line of the phone book until it finds a match. A quantum computer could search the entire phone book at the same time by assessing each line simultaneously and return a result much faster.
The biggest problem caused by panpsychism is known as the “combination problem”: Precisely how do small particles of consciousness collectively form more complex consciousness? Consciousness may exist in all particles, but that doesn’t answer the question of how these tiny fragments of physical consciousness come together to create the more complex experience of human consciousness.
Any theory that attempts to answer that question, would effectively determine which complex systems—from inanimate objects to plants to ants—count as conscious.
An alternative panpsychist perspective holds that, rather than individual particles holding consciousness and coming together, the universe as a whole is conscious. This, says Goff, isn’t the same as believing the universe is a unified divine being; it’s more like seeing it as a “cosmic mess.” Nevertheless, it does reflect a perspective that the world is a top-down creation, where every individual thing is derived from the universe, rather than a bottom-up version where objects are built from the smallest particles. Goff believes quantum entanglement—the finding that certain particles behave as a single unified system even when they’re separated by such immense distances there can’t be a causal signal between them—suggests the universe functions as a fundamental whole rather than a collection of discrete parts.
This does work it essentially is a very powerful microwave oven but it uses the exotic transfer of energy to propel an object. Plasma-based fusion reactors could power it indefinitely as well essentially it just be able to float out of the atmosphere. When it comes to more euclidean geometry or even like curl-free quantum mechanics for essentially space warping I think you could make warp drive with less energy just essentially slip through the ocean of space that is how black holes do it but they do it with gravity wells. I think if a genetic material could do similar things that are how essentially extraterrestrials do it as well it is more just a simple understanding of physics essentially. If the fabled q continuum exists it be essentially the realm of aliens because essentially it allows for travel through the universe without a ship. In fictional stories nightcrawler, a teleporting being was rumored. I think teleportation does exist as it is a qutrit but it is hard understanding travel instantaneously although I think some agencies rumor about it. If we can essentially teleport a photon we can teleport a human being even without a ship it would just require exotic physics and advanced biology. Essentially a portal gun from the Higgs boson could essentially make a physical transfer from one part to another part but it is hard to keep such things stable also there is a problem possibly of radiation you would probably need a suit to travel through a portal. Essentially it could work it just essentially be a wormhole from one point to another point but making that on the skin is essentially too hard unless you understand the properties of wormhole travel better by spaceship it would be easier. Essentially if you knew the physical space-time point by scanning an area you could essentially make a wormhole to that point and travel there. But doing that with genetics is harder as you need exotic properties or a better understanding of essentially of slipping through one place and coming out another.
Scientists have debated for decades whether the propulsion concept known as EmDrive is real or wishful thinking. A sensitive new tool may at last provide an answer.
More accurate clocks and sensors may result from a recently proposed experiment, linking an Einstein-devised paradox to quantum mechanics. University of Queensland physicist Dr Magdalena Zych said the international collaboration aimed to test Einstein’s twin paradox using quantum particles in a ‘superposition’ state.
