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Astronaut John Glenn was wary about trusting a computer. It was 1962, early in the computer age, and a room-sized machine had calculated the flight path for his upcoming orbit of Earth — the first for an American. But Glenn wasn’t willing to entrust his life to a newfangled machine that might make a mistake. […] More
On the International Space Station, astronauts are weightless. Atoms are, too. That weightlessness makes it easier to study a weird quantum state of matter known as a Bose-Einstein condensate. Now, the first Bose-Einstein condensates made on the space station are reported in the June 11 Nature. The ability to study the strange state of matter […] More
Physicists have harnessed the aloofness of quantum particles to create a new type of crystal. Some particles shun one another because they are forbidden to take on the same quantum state as their neighbors. Atoms can be so reluctant to overlap that they form a crystal-like arrangement even when they aren’t exerting any forces on […] More
Quantum computing’s deep freeze is beginning to thaw. Computers that harness quantum physics could trump standard computers on certain types of calculations. But the machines typically work only at temperatures tiny fractions of a degree above absolute zero. Now, two teams of physicists report that they’ve created silicon-based quantum computers that work under warmer conditions. […] More
Even if you could measure three black holes’ locations as precisely as physically possible, you still might not know where the black holes would go. Such a trio’s complex dance can be so chaotic that the motions are fundamentally unpredictable, new computer simulations show. The paths of three black holes orbiting each other can be […] More
Physicists’ fantasies of a future quantum internet are a bit closer to reality. Scientists entangled two quantum “hard drives” that were linked by fibers tens of kilometers long. Entanglement, a type of ethereal quantum connection, allows two particles to behave as if intertwined even when distantly separated. The new study entangled two devices called quantum […] More
Like Schrödinger’s cat, a 2019 claim of quantum supremacy seems to be simultaneously alive and dead. Thanks to the rules of quantum mechanics, the fabled feline occupies two contradictory states at once, and the same applies to this year’s most prominent quantum advance. In October, researchers from Google claimed to have achieved a milestone known […] More
For the first time, scientists have measured the heat transferred by the quantum effervescence of empty space. Two tiny, vibrating membranes reached the same temperature despite being separated by a vacuum, physicists report in the Dec. 12 Nature. The result is the first experimental demonstration of a predicted but elusive type of heat transfer. Normally, […] More
