Quantum Entangled Diamonds

Quantum entanglment was described by Einstien as “spooky action at a distance.” This means that when two particles are entangled, what ever happens to one particle, happens to the other instantaneously. Scientists have only been able to entangle small particles because it gets more difficult as you try to entangle larger objects. Recently, physicists at Oxford University entangled two macro-scale objects: two diamonds. They were able to accomplish this by exposing them super short, super fast pulses of light.  This synchronized the vibration of the atoms in both diamonds. The process gets very complicated from here. You can check out a more detailed description at popsci.

This development can help with quantum computers and many other quantum processes. I’m thinking using this as a communication means across vast regions of space. You can alter the states of the atoms in a diamond that will be detected by a computer and translated to code. Since this happens instantly, this would be a better option of communicating with future ships than light.

Neutrinos Break Laws of Physics

 

As you may have heard, some researchers CERN have observed something quite strange: Neutrinos going faster than the speed of light. That’s right, FASTER. Its a well known law of physics that when an object is approaching the speed of light, its mass is approaching infinity (yay for limits!). That is why nothing moves faster than 299,792,458 meters per second. Well, the researchers were doing some routine experiments with neutrinos. They knew that neutrinos were going to travel at the speed of light. They calculated exactly when the neutrinos would get to the detector all the way in Italy. However, the lab where the detector is located reported that the neutrinos arrived a few billionths of a second earlier than expected. Though this was a small fraction of a second, its still faster than light. The researchers are now sending the experiment out to the physicists of the world to be retested and repeated. They are not quite sure whether this discovery is legitimate or not. It could be a flaw in the machinery. I actually hope that the neutrinos are going faster than the speed of light. That may mean that a new branch of physics may open up!

Quantum CPU Created

A quantum version of a CPU has been successfully created

Scientists in California claim to have successfully created a quantum version of the traditional Von Neumann technology. That means they have created a quantum CPU with quantum RAM. Quantum CPU’s compute using quibits, which can be in three positions: 1, 0, and 1 and 0. That way quantum computers can process information much faster than conventional computers. However, it is difficult to accomplish this. They had to chill the quCPU to near absolute zero to perform several calculations. So we can’t expect these computers in your room any time soon. However, like the computers of old that filled an entire room, quantum computers will hopefully become readily accessible in the next century.