Lifeboat Foundation

CHICAGO — Four stories underground — encased in several feet of concrete — is the University of Chicago’s new nanofabrication facility, where researchers apply the principles of quantum physics to real-world problems and technologies.

A small cadre of faculty and graduate students in a clean room bathed in yellow light wear protective clothing to ensure the integrity of the experiments they are conducting, which involves the very matter that comprise the universe: electrons, photons, neutrons and protons.

The William Eckhardt Research Center where they are working is located across the street from where a team led by Enrico Fermi, the architect of the nuclear age, carried out the first self-sustaining nuclear reaction.

Continue reading “SPECIAL REPORT: Defense Community Slow to Grasp Potential of Quantum-Based Devices” »

Physicists at EPFL propose a new “quantum simulator”: a laser-based device that can be used to study a wide range of quantum systems. Studying it, the researchers have found that photons can behave like magnetic dipoles at temperatures close to absolute zero, following the laws of quantum mechanics. The simple simulator can be used to better understand the properties of complex materials under such extreme conditions.

When subject to the laws of quantum mechanics, systems made of many interacting particles can display behaviour so complex that its quantitative description defies the capabilities of the most powerful computers in the world. In 1981, the visionary physicist Richard Feynman argued we can simulate such complex behavior using an artificial apparatus governed by the very same quantum laws – what has come to be known as a “quantum simulator.”

One example of a complex quantum system is that of magnets placed at really low temperatures. Close to absolute zero (−273.15 degrees Celsius), magnetic materials may undergo what is known as a “quantum phase transition.” Like a conventional phase transition (e.g. ice melting into water, or water evaporating into steam), the system still switches between two states, except that close to the transition point the system manifests quantum entanglement – the most profound feature predicted by quantum mechanics. Studying this phenomenon in real materials is an astoundingly challenging task for experimental physicists.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=tVxmk-lcJVc

A good intro to QUANTUM COMPUTERS, at 5 levels of explanations — from kid-level to expert.

WIRED has challenged IBM’s Dr. Talia Gershon (Senior Manager, Quantum Research) to explain quantum computing to 5 different people; a child, teen, a college student, a grad student and a professional.

Continue reading “Profundizar y conocer todo lo que acontece en torno al ámbito genético y sus avances” »

My latest blog entry: What is INTERACTOMICS, and how it could shape the future of Medicine in the 21st century?

Science / Math blog.

One of the first quantum simulators has produced a puzzling phenomenon: a row of atoms that repeatedly pops back into place. Physicists have been racing to explain what might be going on.

The realization of so-called topological materials—which exhibit exotic, defect-resistant properties and are expected to have applications in electronics, optics, quantum computing, and other fields—has opened up a new realm in materials discovery.

Several of the hotly studied topological materials to date are known as topological insulators. Their surfaces are expected to conduct electricity with very little resistance, somewhat akin to superconductors but without the need for incredibly chilly temperatures, while their interiors—the so-called “bulk” of the material—do not conduct current.

Now, a team of researchers working at the Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) has discovered the strongest topological conductor yet, in the form of thin crystal samples that have a spiral-staircase structure. The team’s study of crystals, dubbed topological chiral crystals, is reported in the March 20 edition of the journal Nature.

Continue reading “The best topological conductor yet: Spiraling crystal is the key to exotic discovery” »

Things get weird at the quantum level and now we know they can happen really fast when a particle pushes through an almost insurmountable barrier.

In quantum physics, particles can ’tunnel’ through seemingly impenetrable barriers, even when they apparently don’t have the energy to do so. Now, researchers have gleaned behind the curtain to better understand how this trick is done.

This problem has puzzled scientists for decades – in particular, the time it takes for particles to do their quantum tunnelling, and get from one side of a barrier to another.

In the case of the atomic hydrogen particles used in these experiments, the researchers found that it happens instantaneously.

Continue reading “For The First Time, Physicists Have Clocked The Ghostly Speed of Quantum Tunnelling” »

For the first time, one of the top prizes in mathematics has been given to a woman.

On Tuesday, the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters announced it has awarded this year’s Abel Prize — an award modeled on the Nobel Prizes — to Karen Uhlenbeck, an emeritus professor at the University of Texas at Austin. The award cites “the fundamental impact of her work on analysis, geometry and mathematical physics.”

One of Dr. Uhlenbeck’s advances in essence described the complex shapes of soap films not in a bubble bath but in abstract, high-dimensional curved spaces. In later work, she helped put a rigorous mathematical underpinning to techniques widely used by physicists in quantum field theory to describe fundamental interactions between particles and forces.

Continue reading “Karen Uhlenbeck Is First Woman to Win Abel Prize for Mathematics” »