Tag Archives: quantum

An illustration of a quantum computer Pete Hansen/Shutterstock Quantum computers could run more quickly if they contained tiny quantum refrigerators. Quantum computers process information using quantum bits, or qubits, which must be reset to a special state between running programs. Teruaki Yoshioka at the Tokyo University of Science says slow …

A quantum engine compresses a gas of bosons and decompresses a gas of fermions Mirijam Neve It’s possible to build a quantum engine that is powered by a constant shifting in the fundamental quantum nature of the particles it contains. Such devices could one day be used to power other …

Quantum memory is a big advance in quantum networks kmls/Shutterstock The most advanced quantum communication network yet sprawls through the Chinese city of Hefei. Comprising three quantum devices and a central server, it is as close to an unhackable quantum internet as we’ve gotten yet. Built by Jian-Long Liu at …

Nature is a quantum engineer Sola Solandra/Shutterstock The following is an extract from our Lost in Space-Time newsletter. Each month, we hand over the keyboard to a physicist or two to tell you about fascinating ideas from their corner of the universe. You can sign up for Lost in Space-Time …

Batteries of the future could be quantum pinkeyes/Shutterstock Quantum batteries could be charged wirelessly and more effectively with the help of a hollow metal tube and an electromagnetic field. Quantum batteries are a new and still largely theoretical form of energy storage device that can charge extraordinarily quickly thanks to …

Quantum computers are here, but aren’t yet particularly useful John D/Getty Images Quantum computers have long promised to solve certain problems faster than any ordinary, or classical, computer can. In fact, Google delivered on this promise in 2019, when it declared that its quantum computer had achieved quantum supremacy, performing a calculation …

Artistic illustration of an Alice ring, which has been observed for the first time Heikka Valja/Aalto University Physicists have peered through the proverbial looking glass, and the atoms on the other side belong to a world of opposites. For the first time, researchers have made an exotic quantum object called …

One problem with quantum computers is that they have a high error rate Connie Zhou/IBM IBM has managed to dramatically reduce the number of quantum bits, or qubits, required to prevent errors in a quantum computer. Its latest approach to quantum error correction should bring down the number of qubits …

WHEN scientists reported they had created a space-time wormhole in November last year, the world’s media were all over the story, even though they struggled to make sense of it. A journalist for the website UNILAD put it neatly when they wrote: “So, you might have to bear with us …

Newton’s first law says that objects move at constant speeds until a force affects them Shutterstock/Peshkova An experiment with light shows that one of the fundamental laws of motion may not always hold in the quantum realm. Much of our understanding of how objects like tennis balls or bicycles move …