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Category: computing – Page 225

A potentially game-changing theoretical approach to quantum computing hardware avoids much of the problematic complexity found in current quantum computers. The strategy implements an algorithm in natural quantum interactions to process a variety of real-world problems faster than classical computers or conventional gate-based quantum computers can.

“Our finding eliminates many challenging requirements for quantum hardware,” said Nikolai Sinitsyn, a at Los Alamos National Laboratory. He is co-author of a paper on the approach in the journal Physical Review A. “Natural systems, such as the electronic spins of defects in diamond, have precisely the type of interactions needed for our process.”

Sinitsyn said the team hopes to collaborate with experimental physicists also at Los Alamos to demonstrate their approach using ultracold atoms. Modern technologies in are sufficiently advanced to demonstrate such computations with about 40 to 60 qubits, he said, which is enough to solve many problems not currently accessible by classical, or binary, computation. A is the basic unit of quantum information, analogous to a bit in familiar classical computing.

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Scientists led by Nanyang Technological University, Singapore (NTU Singapore) investigators have made a significant advance in developing alternative materials for the high-speed memory chips that let computers access information quickly and that bypass the limitations of existing materials.

They have discovered a way that allows them to make sense of previously hard-to-read data stored in these alternative materials, known as antiferromagnets.

Researchers consider antiferromagnets to be attractive materials for making computer memory chips because they are potentially more energy efficient than traditional ones made of silicon. Memory chips made of antiferromagnets are not subject to the size and speed constraints nor corruption issues that are inherent to chips made with certain magnetic materials.

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An international team finds new single-crystalline oxide thin films with fast and dramatic changes in electrical properties via Li-ion intercalation through engineered ionic transport channels.

Researchers have pioneered the creation of T-Nb2O5 thin films that enable faster Li-ion movement. This achievement, promising more efficient batteries and advances in computing and lighting, marks a significant leap forward in iontronics.

An international research team, comprising members from the Max Planck Institute of Microstructure Physics, Halle (Saale), Germany, the University of Cambridge, UK, and the University of Pennsylvania, USA, have reported an important breakthrough in materials science. They achieved the first realization of single-crystalline T-Nb2O5 thin films, exhibiting two-dimensional (2D) vertical ionic transport channels. This results in a swift and significant insulator-metal transition through Li-ion intercalation in the 2D channels.

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Blog post with show notes, audio player, and transcript: https://www.preposterousuniverse.com/podcast/2018/12/03/epis…imulation/

Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/seanmcarroll.

The “Easy Problems” of consciousness have to do with how the brain takes in information, thinks about it, and turns it into action. The “Hard Problem,” on the other hand, is the task of explaining our individual, subjective, first-person experiences of the world. What is it like to be me, rather than someone else? Everyone agrees that the Easy Problems are hard; some people think the Hard Problem is almost impossible, while others think it’s pretty easy. Today’s guest, David Chalmers, is arguably the leading philosopher of consciousness working today, and the one who coined the phrase “the Hard Problem,” as well as proposing the philosophical zombie thought experiment. Recently he has been taking seriously the notion of panpsychism. We talk about these knotty issues (about which we deeply disagree), but also spend some time on the possibility that we live in a computer simulation. Would simulated lives be “real”? (There we agree — yes they would.)

David Chalmers got his Ph.D. from Indiana University working under Douglas Hoftstadter. He is currently University Professor of Philosophy and Neural Science at New York University and co-director of the Center for Mind, Brain, and Consciousness. He is a fellow of the Australian Academy of Humanities, the Academy of Social Sciences in Australia, and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Among his books are The Conscious Mind: In Search of a Fundamental Theory, The Character of Consciousness, and Constructing the World. He and David Bourget founded the PhilPapers project.

Continue reading “Episode 25: David Chalmers on Consciousness, the Hard Problem, and Living in a Simulation” | >

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The Second Law: Resolving the Mystery of the Second Law of Thermodynamics.
Buy Stephen’s book here — https://tinyurl.com/2jj2t9wa.

The Language Game: How Improvisation Created Language and Changed the World by Morten H. Christiansen and Nick Chater.

Continue reading “Mystery of Entropy FINALLY Solved After 50 Years! (STEPHEN WOLFRAM)” | >

Scientists at EPFL have developed a superconducting circuit optomechanical platform that demonstrates ultra-low quantum decoherence and high-fidelity quantum control. Their groundbreaking work with a “vacuum-gap drumhead capacitor” has led to the longest quantum state lifetime in a mechanical oscillator ever achieved, paving the way for new applications in quantum computing.

Performing computation using quantum-mechanical phenomena such as superposition and entanglement.

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Tesla says it will build new “1st of its kind” data centers. The automaker is hiring staff for it and snapping up some existing data centers.

The data center business is now massive with a market size of more than $250 billion.

Most of the biggest companies in the world, which are known to consumers for other products, are in it, like Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud Platform (GCP), and Meta Platforms (Facebook).

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The more we like our ideas, the faster we give them shape. But to be creative, we need to focus on out-of-the-box thinking. This is what Alizée Lopez-Persem and Emmanuelle Volle, Inserm researchers at Paris Brain Institute, showed in a new study published in American Psychologist.

Using a behavioral study and a computational model to replicate the different components of the , the researchers explain how individual preferences influence the speed of the emergence of new ideas and their degree of . These preferences also determine which ideas we choose to exploit and communicate to others.

What drives us to develop new ideas rather than settling for standard methods and processes? What triggers the desire to innovate at the risk of sacrificing time, energy, and reputation for a resounding failure? Creativity is based on complex mechanisms that we are only beginning to understand and in which motivation plays a central role. But pursuing a goal is not enough to explain why we favor some ideas over others and whether that choice benefits the success of our actions.

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Over the past decade, scientists have made tremendous progress in generating quantum phenomena in mechanical systems. What seemed impossible only fifteen years ago has now become a reality, as researchers successfully create quantum states in macroscopic mechanical objects.

By coupling these mechanical oscillators to light photons—known as “optomechanical systems”—scientists have been able to cool them down to their lowest energy level close to the , “squeeze them” to reduce their vibrations even further, and entangle them with each other. These advancements have opened up new opportunities in , compact storage in quantum computing, fundamental tests of quantum gravity, and even in the search for dark matter.

In order to efficiently operate optomechanical systems in the quantum regime, scientists face a dilemma. On one hand, the mechanical oscillators must be properly isolated from their environment to minimize ; on the other hand, they must be well-coupled to other such as electromagnetic resonators to control them.

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