Tag: quantum computing
-
What’s the deal with Google’s quantum computer?
[ This blog is dedicated to tracking my most recent publications. Subscribe to the feed to keep up with all the science stories I write! ] Google and NASA Team Up on Quantum Computer The next generation of computers is a few years off, but it’s pretty damn cool For The Daily Beast: It’s like…
-
Two weeks in review (September 29 – October 12, 2013)
My black holes class and other responsibilities ate my brain the last two weeks, so I forgot to post a “week in review” last week. So, here’s the highlights from the last two weeks. If it’s more heavily weighted toward black holes even than usual, that’s hardly surprising. Of fire and ice and Harlow Shapley…
-
Disentangling environmental influences in photon-atom interactions
Often in physics, we can separate the object from the environment and the experimental apparatus from what’s being measured, but that separation is approximate. In quantum systems, those distinctions break down, to the point where the environment “measures” the system, in ways we don’t fully understand even after nearly a century of study. (A lot…
-
Quantum communication without entanglement
Information in quantum physics is carried in a system’s quantum state, which is basically a list of all the important properties. An atom’s state, for example, contains the relative orientation of the nucleus and electrons, the energy levels the electrons occupy, and the like. Quantum computing manipulates these states in prescribed ways for calculation purposes,…
-
Building quantum computations from a single electron spin
I’m currently in San Francisco for my younger brother’s wedding, but that doesn’t stop me from providing science content to you, dear readers. (Ahem.) Researchers have figured out a way to read and manipulate the quantum spin state of a single electron—a classic example in quantum computing that up until now has existed only in…
Bowler Hat Science 