Latest news with #ErwinSchrödinger
Irish Times
14-05-2025
- Politics
- Irish Times
The Irish Times view on attracting scientists to Ireland: the fight is on for mobile talent
The Cabinet has approved a plan to entice US academics disillusioned with the Trump administration to Ireland. There is nothing particularly novel about the proposal. During the second World War the then taoiseach, Éamon de Valera, established the Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies which succeeded in attracting a number of high-profile academics escaping the Nazi regime, most notably Nobel prize winning theoretical physicist Erwin Schrödinger. In more recent times Science Foundation Ireland , which was folded into Taighde Éireann – Research Ireland – last year, ran programmes aimed at attracting international researchers in strategically important areas and their teams to Ireland. The latest initiative is best seen as a reboot of this ongoing effort in the context of the opportunity afforded by the US president's assault on elite universities, certain academic disciplines and general hostility towards migrants and free expression. Ireland is not the only state to see the opportunity. Other European countries have set out their stalls in recent months. And money will talk in the coming competition for mobile talent. The bill for moving a leading researcher and their team across the Atlantic and setting them up can run to millions of euro. France has already earmarked €13 million for this purpose and the United Kingdom has set aside £50 million. Spain has a €45 million war chest. READ MORE No figure has been put by James Lawless, the Minster for Higher Education, on the budget for the Irish campaign. He presumably has his eye on some of the €500 million that the European Commission has set aside to 'make Europe a magnet for researchers'. Equally there are few details about how it will work, other than that the exchequer will co-fund salaries with the universities. Ireland is a little late to the party and risks being outgunned, but opportunities clearly exist in leveraging existing relationships and targeting promising researchers, including some further down the food chain. Assuming, that is, that President Trump doesn't change direction.
Yahoo
10-04-2025
- Science
- Yahoo
Physicists put Schrödinger's cat in a microwave — and the quantum experiment actually worked
When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. Physicists have created a Schrödinger's cat state at unusually hot temperatures, and it could be a major step toward the development of practical quantum computers. Schrödinger's cat states exist in two distinct quantum states simultaneously and take their name from Erwin Schrödinger's famous thought experiment of a cat that is both simultaneously alive and dead. Yet to achieve these states, quantum objects usually have to be cooled to their ground states, which exist just a few fractions above absolute zero (minus 459.67 degrees Fahrenheit or minus 273.15 degrees Celsius). But now, a team of scientists has shown that a state of quantum superposition can be achieved at significantly warmer temperatures than before. The researchers published their findings April 4 in the journal Science Advances. "Schrödinger also assumed a living — i.e., 'hot' — cat in his thought experiment," study co-author Gerhard Kirchmair, a physicist at the University of Innsbruck in Austria, said in a statement. "We wanted to know whether these quantum effects can also be generated if we don't start from the 'cold' ground state." In Schrödinger's thought experiment, the weird rules of the quantum world are envisioned by imagining a cat placed inside an opaque box with a poison vial whose release mechanism is controlled by radioactive decay — a completely random quantum process. Until the box is opened and the cat is observed, Schrödinger said, the rules of quantum mechanics mean that the unfortunate feline should exist in a superposition of states, simultaneously dead and alive. Related: World's 1st modular quantum computer that can operate at room temperature goes online As most quantum effects typically decohere and disappear at larger scales, Schrödinger's analogy was meant to demonstrate the fundamental differences between our world and the world of the very small. Usually, quantum states of this kind can only be achieved at extremely low temperatures. This means that the qubits (quantum bits) found inside quantum computers have to be maintained inside extremely cold cryostats in order for them to not decohere and lose their information. Yet no hard limit between the quantum realm and ours exists, and physicists have had past success cajoling larger objects into showing weird quantum behavior. RELATED STORIES —Next-gen quantum computers could be powered using chip with high-energy lasers made 10,000 times smaller —New quantum computer smashes 'quantum supremacy' record by a factor of 100 — and it consumes 30,000 times less power —Quantum computing breakthrough could happen with just hundreds, not millions, of qubits using new error-correction system With this in mind, the physicists behind the new research placed a qubit inside a microwave resonator. After some careful tweaking, they nudged the qubit into a state of superposition at a temperature of 1.8 kelvins (minus 456.43 F or minus 271.35 C). This is still a very chilly temperature, but it is 60 times hotter than the ambient temperature in the cavity. "Many of our colleagues were surprised when we first told them about our results, because we usually think of temperature as something that destroys quantum effects," study co-author Thomas Agrenius, a doctoral student at the Institute of Photonic Sciences in Barcelona, said in the statement. "Our measurements confirm that quantum interference can persist even at high temperatures." While likely too incremental to have an immediate practical impact, the scientists' findings could one day liberate quantum computing from the necessity of storing the computers in extremely cold environments — especially if researchers can continue to raise the temperatures at which superposition can be achieved. "Our work reveals that it is possible to observe and use quantum phenomena even in less ideal, warmer environments," Kirchmair said. "If we can create the necessary interactions in a system, the temperature ultimately doesn't matter."
Yahoo
06-04-2025
- Science
- Yahoo
Quantum shock: Schrödinger's cat found alive in near-boiling temperatures
Warm and hot conditions are believed to destroy quantum effects. However, for the first time, a team of researchers has shown that quantum states can exist even at high temperatures. They created and measured Hot Schrödinger cat states at temperatures as high as 1.8 Kelvin (-271.3°C). This may seem extremely cold to you, but the researchers say it is way higher than the milli-Kelvin temperatures at which quantum superposition is typically observed. 'Many of our colleagues were surprised when we first told them about our results because we usually think of temperature as something that destroys quantum effects. Our measurements confirm that quantum interference can persist even at high temperature,' Thomas Agrenius, one of the study authors and a PhD student at the University of Innsbruck, said. Schrödinger's cat is a thought experiment in quantum physics that was proposed by Erwin Schrödinger in 1935. It describes a cat placed in a sealed box with a device that can kill the cat. Schrödinger suggested that until the box is opened and observed, the cat is considered both alive and dead at the same time. This experiment illustrates a quantum state in which particles can exist in multiple states simultaneously until measured—also known as quantum superposition. Until now, scientists believed that Schrödinger cats could only be created by first bringing down the energy of an object at its lowest (i.e., the ground state) by cooling it. This required extremely low temperatures (near millikelvin levels) to minimize thermal noise. This limitation restricts many quantum technologies to lab conditions and prevents their use on a large scale. However, the study authors found a way to solve this problem to a great extent. They adopted two special protocols to achieve hot Schrödinger cats. The study authors placed a transmon qubit in a superconducting microwave resonator, a special container or box made of superconducting material designed to trap and store microwave energy with minimal loss. They used modified versions of two protocols: echoed conditional displacement (ECD) and quantum control mapping (qcMAP). The former involves displacing a quantum state in one direction and then applying a quantum echo to refine the displacement, helping create a desired quantum state with reduced errors. The latter involves a continuous interaction that entangles one quantum object with another, enabling controlled manipulation of quantum states. Together, these protocols allowed the study authors to create Schrödinger cats at 1.8 Kelvin while the ambient temperature of the microwave resonator remained at 0.03 Kelvin. 'Our work reveals that it is possible to observe and use quantum phenomena even in less ideal, warmer environments. If we can create the necessary interactions in a system, the temperature ultimately doesn't matter.' Gerhard Kirchmair, one of the study authors and an experimental physicist at the University of Innsbruck, said. The study is published in the journal Science Advances.
Yahoo
03-04-2025
- Science
- Yahoo
Scientists Brought Schrodinger's Cat to Life—and Proved Something Incredible About Quantum Physics
Schrödinger's cat, the infamous thought experiment involving a cat that can be alive and dead at the same time, has been brought to life with qubits. Schrödinger's cat experiments have been done with particles before, but all of them were cooled to near-absolute zero. It was like starting with a dead cat. This is the first time 'hot' particles were used. In the future, the conditions under which this experiment was done could benefit applications in which it is not yet possible to put particles in a deep freeze. Remember those hologram stickers that used to show two things at once, and all you had to do was turn the sticker slightly? There is a similar phenomenon in physics, and it even comes with a mascot. In the famous thought experiment known as Schrödinger's cat—first proposed by physicist Erwin Schrödinger in 1929—a hypothetical cat is locked in a box with poison, or something else that could possibly kill it. Following Schrödinger's line of thinking, as long as the box remained closed, the cat is both dead and alive at the same time. When you open the box and observe the cat, however, it 'chooses' a state and loses that dual nature. This thought experiment was meant to elucidate a part of quantum theory known as superposition. Quantum superposition describes the way that, on the smallest scales, matter that hasn't yet been measured can (like the cat) basically exists in two completely opposite states at the same time. It's why things like photons can be both particles and waves. The truth of a superposition state is much more complicated than the biological state of a cat, but it can most simply be described as a combination of all the states a particle can be in. For instance, a particle may be spinning or traveling in two directions at once. It can be either one, and also both, until we measure it. Previous experiments that brought the concept of Schrödinger's cat to life (pun intended) involved cooling particles to near-absolute zero so they could reach the state with the lowest possible energy, known as the ground state. Those particles could then be manipulated into quantum states more easily. Until now, this type of experiment had never been done with particles not cooled to the ground state, as background noise from heat excitation could get in the way of measurements. Led by physicist Gerhard Kirchmair from the University of Innsbruck in Austria, a team of researchers have now successfully achieved a Schrödinger's cat state with 'hot' particles. 'Schrödinger also assumed a living, i.e. 'hot' cat in his thought experiment,' Kirchmairsaid in a press release. 'We wanted to know whether these quantum effects can also be generated if we don't start from the 'cold' ground state.' Excitingly, for Kirchmair's team, it seems the effects can, in fact, be generated in non-ground states. 'Standard quantum mechanical theory predicts no upper limit on and no loss of contrast [between states] due to the [heat] of a hot cat state,' the team wrote in their study, published today in the journal Science Advances. To create a cat, particles known as a transmon qubits were exposed to microwaves in a microwave resonator. Think of a transmon qubit as merging a qubit (a quantum bit) and a superconductor—a basic unit of information able to conduct electricity without resistance because it is less sensitive to noise. Then, the team used two 'cat state protocols' that had previously been used at lower temperatures to generate quantum cats in order to try and create a superposition at 1.8 Kelvin (which is not very hot in the grand scheme of things, but is well above ground-state temperatures). The effort was a success, and Kirchmair saw that the same protocols which succeed at cold temperatures also work with warmer temperatures. While the states of the particles were less clear due to noise—which was filtered and controlled as much as possible—they were still clear enough to identify. This proved that, so long as the conditions of cat protocols can be created, temperature should not interfere much. 'Hot Schrödinger cat states are in principle realizable,' the team said in the study. 'This is particularly relevant for systems where long [predictability] times have been achieved but ground-state cooling is not yet available.' Long live physics cats. You Might Also Like The Do's and Don'ts of Using Painter's Tape The Best Portable BBQ Grills for Cooking Anywhere Can a Smart Watch Prolong Your Life?
BBC News
27-02-2025
- Business
- BBC News
Amazon joins quantum race with 'cat-qubit' powered chip
Amazon has become the third tech giant in as many months to announce a breakthrough in quantum computing - a technology that promises vast processing power but is beset by technical firm has unveiled Ocelot a prototype chip built on "cat qubit" technology - an approach that derives its name from the famous "Schrödinger's cat" thought chip seeks to address one of the biggest stumbling blocks to the development of quantum computers - making them error says, taken alongside other recent breakthroughs in the industry, its work means useful quantum computers are likely to be with us sooner than previously how quickly these machines will be powerful enough to be practically useful for a range of commercial applications is a matter of debate among Painter of Amazon Web Services (AWS) Center for Quantum Computing at the California Institute of Technology, where the work was carried out, told the BBC that recent progress meant an "aggressive date" was now "looking more and more realistic". "Five years ago I would have said maybe 20 or 30 years", he said but added "this timeline's come in quite a bit."Ultimately AWS, which provides cloud computing services, would like to offer quantum computing services to its customers, but Mr Painter also said he believed the advanced machines could eventually help optimise the vast global logistics of Amazon's retail business."You know, a company like Amazon, you make a one percent improvement in that and you're talking large dollars right? Quantum computers could enable you to do that more effectively, more real time - and that's the real value there," he explained. What is a cat qubit? Quantum computers solve problems by exploiting the strange properties of matter and energy at very small scales, as described by the science of quantum computers won't replace so-called "classical" computers, but promise to be able to solve problems even the most powerful modern computers cannot - yielding new discoveries such as better batteries and new that potential is being held up by the problem of computers are extremely sensitive to noise in their environment - vibrations, heat, electromagnetic interference from mobile phones and WIFI networks, or even cosmic rays and radiation from outer space can all cause them to make errors, which then need to be corrected. Cat qubits are one attempt at solving this problem by engineering error resistance into the design of the qubits it are the fundamental elements of quantum computers, the equivalent of bits in the computers most of us use qubits are named in honour of Erwin Schrödinger, whose cat-in-a-box question in 1935 helped illuminate some of the thinking behind quantum theory. Amazon believes the new chip, which has just five cat qubits out of a total of 14 key components, could reduce the costs of correcting quantum errors by up to 90%, compared to current technology of cat qubits isn't exclusive to Amazon, a French company named Alice & Bob carried out pioneering work on the tech and continues to evolve the believes the new chip offers a path to scaling up to more powerful machines with this type of error proofing built in, but researchers admit there are many challenges Cuthbert director of the UK's National Quantum Computing Centre welcomed the progress Amazon had made but told the BBC it remained to be seen the effect it would have on the speed with which the industry is able to develop really useful quantum computers:"Error correction is a vital step necessary in the long-term development of quantum computing. It is the crucial step that turns quantum computing into a practical and commercial tool we can use to solve complex problems in chemistry, materials science, medicine, logistics and energy." "Part of the challenge is how to scale the revolutionary technology efficiently – mechanisms that enable error correction without huge overheads in chip size, energy consumption and systems complexity are really welcome."Amazon researchers have published their findings in a research paper in the scientific journal Nature Pivot point Amazon joins Microsoft and Google in announcing a new experimental chip. But is this flurry of announcements the result of clever research or clever PR? Or is it coincidence, the tech equivalent of the saying buses always come in threes? Heather West follows the quantum computing industry for the International Data Corporation and was briefed on the new chip by Amazon in advance of describes Amazon's results as an "advancement" rather than a breakthrough. All three recent announcements have focused on reducing errors, and she tells me the industry is "pivoting" from a focus on the number of qubits to a focus the "ability to use these these systems at scale to solve real world life problems. And by doing so we need to be able to solve the error correction within the quantum systems".However Mr Painter agreed "100%" that it wouldn't be easy to scale up today's experimental systems.
