Tag Archives: quantum computing
What does a quantum Bayes’s rule look like?
Bayes’s rule is one of the most fundamental principles in probability and statistics. It allows us to update our beliefs in the face of new evidence. In its simplest form, the rule tells us how to revise the probability of … Continue reading
Posted in Analysis, Scicomm, Science
Tagged Bayes's rule, Bayesian network, Bayesianism, Choi operators, commutativity, completely positive trace-preserving map, noise correction, Physical Review Letters, principle of minimum change, probability, quantum computing, quantum information theory, stochastic processes, unitarity, variational Bayesian inference
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What does it mean to interpret quantum physics?
The United Nations has designated 2025 the International Year of Quantum Science and Technology. Many physics magazines and journals have taken the opportunity to publish more articles on quantum physics than they usually do, and that has meant quantum physics … Continue reading
Posted in Scicomm, Science
Tagged Bohmian mechanics, classical physics, Copenhagen interpretation, hidden variables, many-worlds interpretation, Nirmalya Kajuri, nonlocality, QBism, quantum computing, quantum cosmology, quantum entanglement, quantum physics, quantum superposition, wavefunction
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Who funds quantum research?
An odd little detail in a Physics World piece on Microsoft’s claim to have made a working topological qubit: Regardless of the debate about the results and how they have been announced, researchers are supportive of the efforts at Microsoft to produce a … Continue reading
Posted in Analysis, Science
Tagged artificial intelligence, Bruce Schneier, Drew Weissman, drug development, Katalin Karikó, Majorana 1, Microsoft Research, mRNA vaccines, Nathan Sanders, Normal Eisen, Physical Review B, Physics World, public AI, public quantum, quantum computing, quantum technologies, topological qubit, Winfried Hensinger
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Majorana 1, science journalism, and other things
While I have many issues with how the Nobel Prizes are put together as an institution, the scientific achievements they have revealed have been some of the funnest concepts I’ve discovered in science, including the clever ways in which scientists … Continue reading
Posted in Scicomm
Tagged Alexei Kitaev, Ben Feringa, Cassandra Willyard, curiosity, curiosity-driven research, David Thouless, Duncan Haldane, Fraser Stoddart, Jean-Pierre Sauvage, John Kosterlitz, Majorana 1, Majorana fermions, Microsoft, National Science Day, Nobel Prizes, quantum computing, science journalism, The Hindu, topological order
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Finding, and losing, Majorana
I’m looking forward to breaking down and understanding a new paper in Physical Review B soon – the sort of work of condensed-matter physics that’s complex enough to warrant a week-long dive into the subject but not so complex as … Continue reading
Posted in Science
Tagged Majorana fermions, Majorana zero modes, Microsoft, Physical Review B, Popular Science, quantum computer, quantum computing, topology
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The gap between language and quantum mechanics
Physics World has a fantastic article about the problem with using a language invented, in Terry Pratchett’s words, “to tell other monkeys where the ripe fruit is”, to describe the peculiar but very much real possibilities created by the rules … Continue reading
Posted in Analysis, Culture, Scicomm
Tagged Embassytown, faith, Higgs boson, language, quantum computing, quantum entanglement, Quantum mechanics, quantum superposition, Werner Heisenberg
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When cooling down really means slowing down
Consider this post the latest in a loosely defined series about atomic cooling techniques that I’ve been writing since June 2018. Atoms can’t run a temperature, but things made up of atoms, like a chair or table, can become hotter … Continue reading
Posted in Scicomm
Tagged Albert Einstein, atomic cooling, atomic trap, Bose-Einstein condensate, Bose-Einstein statistics, Carl Wieman, Claude Cohen-Tannoudji, collisional cooling, diatomic molecules, Eric Cornell, Harvard University, laser cooling, Massachusetts Institute of Technoogy, NaLi, niobium nitride, quantum chemistry, quantum computing, S Pancharatnam, Satyendra Nath Bose, Shivaramakrishnan Pancharatnam, Sisyphus cooling, spin polarization, superconductors, superfluids, University of Waterloo, Wolfgang Ketterle
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