Shoppers like flawless diamonds, but for quantum physicists, the flaws are the best part.
Senior Elisabeth Rülke has spent the past year using lasers and flawed diamonds — tiny wafers of diamond with flaws the size of a single atom — to develop a quantum sensor. (more…)
A UA-led collaboration of physicists and chemists has discovered that temperature behaves in strange and unexpected ways in graphene, a material that has scientists sizzling with excitement about its potential for new technological devices ranging from computing to medicine. (more…)
University of Chicago researchers and their colleagues at University College London have performed a proof-of-concept experiment that will aid the future development of programmable quantum computers.
Many complex problems are difficult and slow to solve using conventional computers, and over the last several years, research has grown steadily toward developing quantum computation. In particular, optimization problems such as the “traveling salesman” problem, which calculates the shortest possible route needed to visit a set of towns, become intractable as the number of towns grows. (more…)
Light-gathering macromolecules in plant cells transfer energy by taking advantage of molecular vibrations whose physical descriptions have no equivalents in classical physics, according to the first unambiguous theoretical evidence of quantum effects in photosynthesis published today in the journal Nature Communications.
The majority of light-gathering macromolecules are composed of chromophores (responsible for the colour of molecules) attached to proteins, which carry out the first step of photosynthesis, capturing sunlight and transferring the associated energy highly efficiently. Previous experiments suggest that energy is transferred in a wave-like manner, exploiting quantum phenomena, but crucially, a non-classical explanation could not be conclusively proved as the phenomena identified could equally be described using classical physics. (more…)
The UA’s Chris Impey has taught cosmology to Tibetan Buddhist monastics in remote parts of India each summer for the past five years. With a grant from the John Templeton Foundation, he detailed his experiences in a book, “Humble Before the Void,” which likely will publish in 2014.
Chris Impey thinks back to the time he spent living on the edge of Tibetan Buddhist monasteries, teaching modern cosmology to Buddhist monastics in India: “On a typical day, they would be up at 5 a.m. and have prayed for a few hours or done meditation before you even see them. And their attention is just as good at the end of a long day as at the beginning.” (more…)
Through the ages man has formulated various ways to provide an insight to his nature that comprises of tarot cards, dream interpretation, astrology, palmistry as well as basic numerology. These methods are used to discover the inner self. All of these practices share a common reputation as “the tools of divination”. Though, it is often said that there is no one to predict your future accurately. Instead basic numerology as well as other tools teaches us about ourselves and it also offers various options available to us in any given circumstances.
There are several methods of divination which are intimately intertwined, each of which are related to the other in some way or the other. In the tarot, basic numerology as well as astrology is both portrayed in the symbols that are used to illustrate the cards. Astrology depends on the mathematical correspondences to help construe what each of the twelve houses symbolizes, just as basic numerology, a numbers vibrations might communicate to a particular planet or sign which rules the sign. A reader will make use of each approach to do a reading or she can also get herself specialize in any one. (more…)
