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The goal of quantum supremacy is to complete the most difficult task faster than the most powerful supercomputer Back in 2019, Google boldly said that they had attained the proof that the esoteric approach could surpass conventional ones—something quantum computing specialists had been looking for for years. However, scientists are disputing this instance of “quantum supremacy,” asserting that they outperformed Google on a pretty ordinary supercomputer. No one is accusing Google of lying or misrepresenting…

After Google said they had achieved what quantum computing researchers had sought for years, a team of Chinese researchers now claim to have replicated the performance of Google's Sycamore quantum computer using traditional hardware.In 2019, Google researchers claimed they had passed a milestone known as quantum supremacy when their quantum computer Sycamore performed in 200 seconds an abstruse calculation they said would tie up a supercomputer for 10,000 years.Now, scientists in China have done the computation in a few…

New experiments hone in on a never-before-measured region of strong force coupling, a quantity that supports theories accounting for 99 percent of the ordinary mass in the universe.Thomas Jefferson National Laboratory experiments hone in on a never-before-measured region of strong force coupling, a quantity that supports theories accounting for 99% of the ordinary mass in the universe.Much fanfare was made about the Higgs boson when this elusive particle was discovered in 2012. Although it was touted as giving ordinary…

Back in 2019, Google proudly announced they had achieved what quantum computing researchers had sought for years: proof that the esoteric technique could outperform traditional ones. But this demonstration of “quantum supremacy” is being challenged by researchers claiming to have pulled ahead of Google on a relatively normal supercomputer. To be clear, no one is saying Google lied or misrepresented its work — the painstaking and groundbreaking research that led to the quantum supremacy announcement in 2019 is still…

If the quantum computing era dawned 3 years ago, its rising sun may have ducked behind a cloud. In 2019, Google researchers claimed they had passed a milestone known as quantum supremacy when their quantum computer Sycamore performed in 200 seconds an abstruse calculation they said would tie up a supercomputer for 10,000 years. Now, scientists in China have done the computation in a few hours with ordinary processors. A supercomputer, they say, could beat Sycamore outright. “I…

Have you ever noticed people out walking with poles even on flat surfaces and wondered why they are doing it? This is known as Nordic walking, which is a little bit like cross-country skiing but without the snow.  Walking with poles was first developed in Scandinavia and came to central Europe about 20 years ago. For some reason, it has not become particularly popular even though it has many health benefits.Here's why – alongside a few good reasons to give Nordic walking a try.1. You burn more caloriesAs far back as…

When I was in my early 20s, I tried to keep a diary of my experiences as a student and teacher in Bologna. There was much to write about: I was teaching in one of the city’s largest secondary schools, attending lectures delivered by professors who seemed as ancient as the faculty’s medieval buildings and I was learning, painfully, that a certain British shabbiness is not considered a mark of sophistication in Italy, but its very opposite. Yet the diary contained none of this. It was, as the Italians say, uno sfogo, a…

Cousins Jesmark and David Scicluna, both fishers by trade, had never acted a day in their lives when Maltese-American film-maker Alex Camilleri spotted them in Għar Lapsi, a small inlet on the southern coast of Malta. Camilleri had flown to the Mediterranean island in search of fishers to star in his Maltese-language film Luzzu, but he was running out of time. The next day, he was due to fly back to New York, where he was working as an associate editor on Ramin Bahrani’s adaptation of Fahrenheit 451. In a final attempt to…