Lifeboat Foundation

Researchers have built the most sophisticated quantum computer yet, signaling progress toward a powerful new way of processing information.

By sending quantum information several kilometers, the researchers took a big step toward the future of information security.

A team of Chinese researchers say they have completed the first long-distance quantum secure direct communication, a critical step toward sending messages that are truly safe from eavesdropping.

The information traveled 2.7 kilometers along a quantum channel, the team said in a paper that was peer-reviewed by China’s Science Bulletin journal and placed online Oct. 22.

Continue reading “China Has A Breakthrough in Spy-Proof Quantum Communications” »

Today’s Sputnik moment is China’s rapid growth as an economic and technological superpower. In 2017 alone, China has outpaced the United States in renewable energy efforts and has become the standard-bearer in combating climate change and advocacy for globalization. Similarly, China is rapidly moving towards taking the lead in technology from the United States and is looking at quantum computing and artificial intelligence as areas for growth to do so.

The Verge recently published an article citing Alphabet chief executive officer Eric Schmidt’s perspective that the United States is falling behind when it comes to research and development in artificial intelligence, particularly compared to the rapid pace of innovation that China has set in the field. Schmidt, who is also the chair of the Defense Innovation Advisory Board, gave those remarks as part of a discussion at The Artificial Intelligence and Global Security Summit held by The Center for a New American Security (CNAS), a nonprofit think tank dedicated to research and analysis on how the United States can make informed policy-making decisions on national security and defense.

Shoebox sized satellites could be the key to fast-track development of space quantum communication.

“Room temperature quantum sensors can be mounted directly on the scalp of any subject. This will give us a projected four-fold increase in sensitivity for adults, but the sensitivity could potentially be up to a 15 or 20 fold increase for children or babies.”

A £1.6 million collaborative project between scientists at the University of Nottingham and University College London (UCL) is looking to improve the way we map the human brain. Focusing on the development of magnetoencephalography (MEG), researchers have 3D printed a prototype helmet that may yield quadruple the sensitivity of current MEG devices.

Reading at room temperature

Continue reading “Nottingham’s 3D printed helmet ushers in a new era of natural brain scans” »

The EmDrive propulsion system might be able to take us to the stars, but first it must be reconciled with the laws of physics.

China is leading the world in developing unbreakable encryption using quantum physics.

Physicists have proposed a way to test quantum gravity that, in principle, could be performed by a laser-based, table-top experiment using currently available technology. Although a theory of quantum gravity would overcome one of the biggest challenges in modern physics by unifying general relativity and quantum mechanics, currently physicists have no way of testing any proposed theories of quantum gravity.

Now a team of seven physicists from various countries, S. Dey, A. Bhat, D. Momeni, M. Faizal, A. F. Ali, T. K. Dey, and A. Rehman, have come up with a novel way to experimentally test quantum gravity using a laser-based experiment. They have published a paper on their proposed test in a recent issue of Nuclear Physics B.

One reason why testing quantum gravity is so challenging is that its effects appear only at very high-energy scales and their corresponding tiny length scales. These extreme scales, which are very near the Planck scale, are roughly 15 orders of magnitude beyond those accessible by the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), by far the world’s highest-energy experiment.

Continue reading “Physicists propose test of quantum gravity using current technology” »

Could a quantum computer find the Higgs boson faster than humans?