NUSA DUA, Indonesia, Nov 14 (Reuters) – Billionaire Elon Musk said on Monday he was working “at the absolute most amount…from morning til night, seven days a week” when asked about his recent acquisition of Twitter and his leadership of automaker Tesla Inc (TSLA.O).
“I have too much work on my plate that is for sure,” Musk said by videolink to a business conference on the sidelines of the G20 summit in Bali.
Musk is chief executive of both companies and also runs rocket firm SpaceX, brain-chip startup Neuralink and tunneling firm the Boring Company. Wearing a batik shirt sent by the organizers, he appeared on screen lit by candles, explaining that he was speaking from a place that had just lost power.
Tesla investors worry that Musk, a self-confessed “nanomanager” who has been personally involved in working-level decisions from car styling to supply chain issues, is distracted at a critical time for the world’s largest electric vehicle maker.
Tesla’s shares have halved in value since early April, when he disclosed he had taken a stake in Twitter. His Tesla share sales, including another $4 billion last week to bring his Twitter-related sales to $20 billion, have added to the pressure.
When asked about the complexity of industrial supply chains “decoupling” from China and the risks from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Musk returned to how busy he was.
Responding to an observation that many business leaders in Asia wanted to be the “Elon Musk of the East,” Musk said: “I’d be careful what you wish for. I’m not sure how many people would actually like to be me. They would like to be what they imagine being me, which is not the same thing as actually being me. The amount that I torture myself is next level, frankly.”
Musk also said he wanted to see Twitter support more video and longer-form video so that content creators could make a living on the platform, but did not provide details. His remarks were streamed live on Alphabet Inc’s (GOOGL.O) YouTube.
Indonesia has been trying to secure a deal with Tesla on battery investment and potentially one for SpaceX to develop a rocket launch site.
Musk made no commitment to either of those but said Indonesia had a large role to play in the electric vehicle supply chain and that it would make sense “long term” for SpaceX to have multiple launch points around the globe.
It was not clear where Musk was during the Bali event. His personal jet has remained in Austin, Texas, Tesla’s headquarters since the weekend, according to @ElonJet, a Twitter account that tracks Musk’s Gulfstream G650.
“I’m just looking at this video and it’s so bizarre,” Musk said. “I’m sitting here in the dark surrounded by candles.”
Musk added he believed that the economy would make the transition to sustainable energy, adding it was “just a question of how long it takes.” He said space exploration should remain a priority “so we can understand the nature of the universe and our place in it.”
“Maybe we’ll find alien civilization or discover civilizations that existed millions of years ago, but we see the ruins of ancient civilizations. I think that would be incredibly interesting,” he said.
Reporting by Leika Kihara; Writing by Kevin Krolicki; Editing by Edwina Gibbs
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Everything in the Universe has gravity – and feels it too. Yet this most common of all fundamental forces is also the one that presents the biggest challenges to physicists.
Albert Einstein’s theory of general relativity has been remarkably successful in describing the gravity of stars and planets, but it doesn’t seem to apply perfectly on all scales.
General relativity has passed many years of observational tests, from Eddington’s measurement of the deflection of starlight by the Sun in 1919 to the recent detection of gravitational waves.
However, gaps in our understanding start to appear when we try to apply it to extremely small distances, where the laws of quantum mechanics operate, or when we try to describe the entire universe.
Our new study, published in Nature Astronomy, has now tested Einstein’s theory on the largest of scales.
We believe our approach may one day help resolve some of the biggest mysteries in cosmology, and the results hint that the theory of general relativity may need to be tweaked on this scale.
Faulty model?
Quantum theory predicts that empty space, the vacuum, is packed with energy. We do not notice its presence because our devices can only measure changes in energy rather than its total amount.
However, according to Einstein, the vacuum energy has a repulsive gravity – it pushes the empty space apart. Interestingly, in 1998, it was discovered that the expansion of the Universe is in fact accelerating (a finding awarded with the 2011 Nobel Prize in physics).
However, the amount of vacuum energy, or dark energy as it has been called, necessary to explain the acceleration is many orders of magnitude smaller than what quantum theory predicts.
Hence the big question, dubbed “the old cosmological constant problem”, is whether the vacuum energy actually gravitates – exerting a gravitational force and changing the expansion of the universe.
If yes, then why is its gravity so much weaker than predicted? If the vacuum does not gravitate at all, what is causing the cosmic acceleration?
We don’t know what dark energy is, but we need to assume it exists in order to explain the Universe’s expansion.
Similarly, we also need to assume there is a type of invisible matter presence, dubbed dark matter, to explain how galaxies and clusters evolved to be the way we observe them today.
These assumptions are baked into scientists’ standard cosmological theory, called the lambda cold dark matter (LCDM) model – suggesting there is 70 percent dark energy, 25 percent dark matter, and 5 percent ordinary matter in the cosmos. And this model has been remarkably successful in fitting all the data collected by cosmologists over the past 20 years.
But the fact that most of the Universe is made up of dark forces and substances, taking odd values that don’t make sense, has prompted many physicists to wonder if Einstein’s theory of gravity needs modification to describe the entire universe.
A new twist appeared a few years ago when it became apparent that different ways of measuring the rate of cosmic expansion, dubbed the Hubble constant, give different answers – a problem known as the Hubble tension.
The disagreement, or tension, is between two values of the Hubble constant.
One is the number predicted by the LCDM cosmological model, which has been developed to match the light left over from the Big Bang (the cosmic microwave background radiation).
The other is the expansion rate measured by observing exploding stars known as supernovas in distant galaxies.
Many theoretical ideas have been proposed for ways of modifying LCDM to explain the Hubble tension. Among them are alternative gravity theories.
Digging for answers
We can design tests to check if the universe obeys the rules of Einstein’s theory.
General relativity describes gravity as the curving or warping of space and time, bending the pathways along which light and matter travel. Importantly, it predicts that the trajectories of light rays and matter should be bent by gravity in the same way.
Together with a team of cosmologists, we put the basic laws of general relativity to test. We also explored whether modifying Einstein’s theory could help resolve some of the open problems of cosmology, such as the Hubble tension.
To find out whether general relativity is correct on large scales, we set out, for the first time, to simultaneously investigate three aspects of it. These were the expansion of the Universe, the effects of gravity on light, and the effects of gravity on matter.
Using a statistical method known as the Bayesian inference, we reconstructed the gravity of the Universe through cosmic history in a computer model based on these three parameters.
We could estimate the parameters using the cosmic microwave background data from the Planck satellite, supernova catalogs as well as observations of the shapes and distribution of distant galaxies by the SDSS and DES telescopes.
We then compared our reconstruction to the prediction of the LCDM model (essentially Einstein’s model).
We found interesting hints of a possible mismatch with Einstein’s prediction, albeit with rather low statistical significance.
This means that there is nevertheless a possibility that gravity works differently on large scales, and that the theory of general relativity may need to be tweaked.
Our study also found that it is very difficult to solve the Hubble tension problem by only changing the theory of gravity.
The full solution would probably require a new ingredient in the cosmological model, present before the time when protons and electrons first combined to form hydrogen just after the Big Bang, such as a special form of dark matter, an early type of dark energy, or primordial magnetic fields.
Or, perhaps, there’s a yet unknown systematic error in the data.
That said, our study has demonstrated that it is possible to test the validity of general relativity over cosmological distances using observational data. While we haven’t yet solved the Hubble problem, we will have a lot more data from new probes in a few years.
This means that we will be able to use these statistical methods to continue tweaking general relativity, exploring the limits of modifications, to pave the way to resolving some of the open challenges in cosmology.
Kazuya Koyama, Professor of Cosmology, University of Portsmouth and Levon Pogosian, Professor of Physics, Simon Fraser University
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
IAC founder Barry Diller said “something is quite odd” in Mark Zuckerberg’s metaverse pivot.
The billionaire questioned Zuckerberg’s decision to focus on tech that “doesn’t yet exist.”
Meta has shed over 70% of its value since the Facebook founder changed its name.
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Media mogul Barry Diller had some harsh words for Mark Zuckerberg on Monday.
The founder of IAC, an internet and media conglomerate, said he has “great respect” for Zuckerberg, but questioned the Facebook founder’s decision to pivot toward the metaverse, a digital universe where users interact via avatars.
Diller has made billions in founding and investing in top media companies like Expedia Group, Fox Broadcasting Company and USA Broadcasting. The 80-year-old is currently worth about $3.8 billion, per Forbes’ World’s Billionaires List.
“If you change the name of your company to something that doesn’t yet exist to bury what does wildly exist successfully, something is quite odd in that,” Diller said in an interview with CNBC’s Squawk Box.
A spokesperson for Meta did not respond to a request for comment ahead of publication.
After changing the name of Facebook’s parent company to Meta last year, Zuckerberg has overhauled Facebook with a vision of creating a world where people connect in a digital universe using virtual and augmented reality devices. The Facebook founder has spent $15 billion so far on the project and has said that one day the metaverse will be the way that people “interact with the world.”
But, critics have said the technology is just not there yet. Competitors like Snap and Apple have shied away from the term. Avatars in Meta’s Horizon World’s don’t even have legs yet and many users have taken to social media to mock Meta’s poor graphics.
At the same time, Meta’s value has plummeted amid Zuckerberg’s metaverse push as the company has shed over 70% of its value since the Facebook cofounder first announced the name change. Last month, Meta shares plummeted 24% after the company missed earnings targets and Zuckerberg said he intents to spend billions more on the metaverse project in the coming year — a decision that has left some investors reeling.
Ultimately, Diller said Zuckerberg would find more success if he stuck to Facebook’s original vision.
“If he just paid attention to his basic businesses, I think all is well,” Diller told CNBC. “Those businesses are great. They’re great. I mean, built from nothing they’re just fantastic businesses,” he added, noting Facebook stands to face tremendous gains if TikTok is banned in the US — a move he thinks is highly probable.
Republican lawmakers have been working in recent months to revive former President Donald Trump’s bid to ban TikTok over fears that US data is ending up in the hands of the Chinese government. Last week, Federal Communications Commissioner Brendan Carr told Axios regulatory agencies like the Council on Foreign Investment in the US should take action to ban the app which is owned by Chinese media company ByteDance.
At Meta, Zuckerberg has continually copied the popular video-app, rolling out features like Instragram Reels. In October, Zuckerberg referred to TikTok as a “very effective competitor.”
Do you work at Meta or have a tip to share? Reach out to the reporter from a non-work email at gkay@insider.com
Oct 12 (Reuters) – The world’s richest man, Elon Musk, has scented a new opportunity to capitalise on quirky products, launching a perfume called “Burnt Hair” that he said sold 10,000 bottles to earn a million dollars in just a few hours.
“With a name like mine, getting into the fragrance business was inevitable – why did I even fight it for so long!?” Musk asked on Twitter, where he now describes himself as a perfume salesman.
“The essence of repugnant desire” is the website description of his latest offering, which costs $100 a bottle and is set to start shipping in the first quarter of 2023, making good on a product Musk first touted in September.
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Previous brainwaves have included Tesla’s (TSLA.O) own-brand tequila, launched in 2020, and a pair of “short shorts” to signify Musk’s victory over investors who bet against the electric vehicle maker, now the world’s most valuable car firm.
SpaceX owner and Tesla CEO Elon Musk smiles at the E3 gaming convention in Los Angeles, California, U.S., June 13, 2019. REUTERS/Mike Blake/File Photo
His Boring Company, a tunnelling firm last valued at $5.7 billion, sold flamethrowers at $500 apiece in early 2018, raising $10 million. He also sold 50,000 Boring Company hats.
Musk’s ambitions over the years have ranged from colonising Mars to creating a new sustainable energy economy, and in the process he has built Tesla, rocket company SpaceX, and smaller firms.
Last week the billionaire proposed to proceed with his original $44-billion bid to take Twitter Inc (TWTR.N) private, calling for an end to a lawsuit by the social media company that could have forced him to pay up, whether he wanted to or not.
If successful, a deal would put Musk in charge of one of the most influential media platforms and end months of litigation that damaged Twitter’s brand and fed his reputation for erratic behavior.
The Boring Company did not respond to a query on how long it planned to keep the perfume listed.
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Reporting by Akriti Sharma and Shubham Kalia in Bengaluru; Editing by Clarence Fernandez
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BEIJING, Sept 19 (Reuters) – Before the pandemic, Doris Fu imagined a different future for herself and her family: new car, bigger apartment, fine dining on weekends and holidays on tropical islands.
Instead, the 39-year old Shanghai marketing consultant is one of many Chinese in their 20s and 30s cutting spending and saving cash where they can, rattled by China’s coronavirus lockdowns, high youth unemployment and a faltering property market.
“I no longer have manicures, I don’t get my hair done anymore. I have gone to China-made for all my cosmetics,” Fu told Reuters.
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This new frugality, amplified by social media influencers touting low-cost lifestyles and sharing money-saving tips, is a threat to the world’s second-largest economy, which narrowly avoided contraction in the second quarter. Consumer spending accounts for more than half of China’s GDP.
“We’ve been mapping consumer behaviour here for 16 years and in all of that time this is the most concerned that I’ve seen young consumers,” said Benjamin Cavender, managing director of China Market Research Group (CMR).
China’s ‘zero-COVID’ policy – including stringent lockdowns, travel restrictions and mass testing – has taken a heavy toll on the country’s economy. The government’s crackdown on big technology companies has also had an outsized effect on the young workforce.
Unemployment among people aged 16 to 24 stands at almost 19%, after hitting a record 20% in July, according to government data. Some young people have been forced to take pay cuts, for example in the retail and e-commerce sectors, according to two industry surveys. The average salary in 38 major Chinese cities fell 1% in the first three months of this year, data collated by online recruitment firm Zhilian Zhaopin show.
As a result, some young people prefer to save than splurge.
“I used to go see two movies every month, but I haven’t stepped inside a cinema since the pandemic,” said Fu, an avid movie fan.
Retail sales in China rose just 2.7% year-on-year in July, recovering to 5.4% in August but still well below the mostly 7%-plus levels during 2019, before the pandemic.
Almost 60% of people are now inclined to save more, rather than consume or invest more, according to the most recent quarterly survey by the People’s Bank of China (PBOC), China’s central bank. That figure was 45% three years ago.
Chinese households overall added 10.8 trillion yuan ($1.54 trillion) in new bank savings in the first eight months of the year, up from 6.4 trillion yuan in the same period last year.
That is a problem for China’s economic policymakers, who have long relied on increased consumption to bolster growth.
China is the only leading economy that cut interest rates this year, in an effort to spur growth. China’s big state-owned banks cut personal deposit rates on Sept. 15, a move designed to discourage saving and boost consumption. read more
Addressing the rise in people’s inclination to save, a PBOC official said in July that when the pandemic eases, the willingness to invest and consume will “stabilize and rise.”
The PBOC did not respond to Reuters requests for comment; neither did China’s Ministry of Commerce.
’10 YUAN DINNER’
After years of increasingly ardent consumerism fuelled by rising wages, easy credit and online shopping, a move toward frugality brings young people in China closer to their more cautious parents, whose memories of lean years before the economy took off have made them more inclined to save.
“Amid the tough job market and strong downward economic pressure, young people’s feelings of insecurity and uncertainty are something they never experienced,” said Zhiwu Chen, chair professor of finance at Hong Kong University Business School.
Unlike their parents, some are making a show of their thriftiness online.
A woman in her 20s in the eastern city of Hangzhou, who uses the handle Lajiang, has gained hundreds of thousands of followers posting more than 100 videos on how to make 10 yuan ($1.45) dinners on lifestyle app Xiaohongshu and streaming site Bilibili.
In one minute-long video with nearly 400,000 views, she stir-fries a dish made from a 4-yuan basa fillet, 5 yuan of frozen shrimp, and 2 yuan of vegetables, using a pink chopping board and pink rice cooker.
Social media discussions have sprung up to share money-saving tips, such as the ‘Live off 1,600 yuan a month challenge,’ in Shanghai, one of China’s most expensive cities.
Yang Jun, who said she was deep in credit card debt before the pandemic, started a group called the Low Consumption Research Institute on networking site Douban in 2019. The group has attracted more than 150,000 members. Yang said she is cutting spending and is selling some of her belongings on second-hand sites to raise cash.
“COVID-19 makes people pessimistic,” the 28-year-old said. “You can’t just be like before, spend all the money you make, and make it back again next month.” She said she is now out of debt.
Yang said she has cut out her daily Starbucks coffee. Fu said she switched her makeup powder brand from Givenchy to a Chinese brand called Florasis, which is about 60% cheaper.
French luxury brands leader LVMH (LVMH.PA), which owns Givenchy, and coffee giant Starbucks Corp (SBUX.O) both said sales fell sharply in China in the latest quarter. read more
China has given no signal on when or how it will exit from its zero-COVID policy. And while policymakers have taken various measures in hopes of boosting consumption, from subsidies for car buyers to shopping vouchers, far more money and attention has been directed towards infrastructure as a way of stimulating the economy.
Stability has been the key theme for China’s policymakers this year, experts say, as President Xi Jinping gears up for a third leadership term at next month’s congress of the ruling Communist Party.
“In the past, when you had economic slowdown, consumers were more likely to feel that government policy is going to fix this problem very quickly,” said Cavender at CMR. “I think right now the challenge is when you interview younger consumers they really don’t know what the future holds.”
Fu, the marketing professional, said she has deferred plans to sell her two small apartments to buy a bigger one in a better school district for her son, and has given up for now on upgrading from her Volkswagen Golf.
“Why do I dare not upgrade my house and my car, even if I have the money?” she said. “Everything is unknown.”
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Reporting by Albee Zhang and Tony Munroe
Editing by Bill Rigby
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CACERES, Spain, Aug 18 (Reuters) – A brutal summer has caused havoc for many in rural Spain, but one unexpected side-effect of the country’s worst drought in decades has delighted archaeologists – the emergence of a prehistoric stone circle in a dam whose waterline has receded.
Officially known as the Dolmen of Guadalperal but dubbed the Spanish Stonehenge, the circle of dozens of megalithic stones is believed to date back to 5000 BC.
It currently sits fully exposed in one corner of the Valdecanas reservoir, in the central province of Caceres, where authorities say the water level has dropped to 28% of capacity.
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“It’s a surprise, it’s a rare opportunity to be able to access it,” said archaeologist Enrique Cedillo from Madrid’s Complutense University, one of the experts racing to study the circle before it gets submerged again.
It was discovered by German archaeologist Hugo Obermaier in 1926, but the area was flooded in 1963 in a rural development project under Francisco Franco’s dictatorship.
Since then it has only become fully visible four times.
The dolmen of Guadalperal, also known as the Spanish Stonehenge, is seen due to the receding waters of the Valdecanas reservoir in the outskirts of El Gordo, Spain, August 3, 2022. REUTERS/Susana Vera
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Dolmens are vertically arranged stones usually supporting a flat boulder. Although there are many scattered across Western Europe, little is known about who erected them. Human remains found in or near many have led to an often-cited theory that they are tombs.
Local historical and tourism associations have advocated moving the Guadalperal stones to a museum or elsewhere on dry land.
Their presence is also good news for Ruben Argentas, who owns a small boat tours business. “The dolmen emerges and the dolmen tourism begins,” he told Reuters after a busy day spent shuttling tourists to the site and back.
But there is no silver lining for local farmers.
“There hasn’t been enough rain since the spring… There is no water for the livestock and we have to transport it in,” said Jose Manuel Comendador. Another, Rufino Guinea, said his sweet pepper crop had been ravaged.
Climate change has left the Iberian peninsula at its driest in 1,200 years, and winter rains are expected to diminish further, a study published by the Nature Geoscience journal showed.
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Additional reporting by Susana Vera, writing by Anna Valderrama and Andrei Khalip; editing by John Stonestreet
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HONG KONG, July 29 (Reuters) – A huge video panel fell on the stage during a concert by popular Hong Kong boyband Mirror on Thursday, crushing one performer and trapping others, prompting a government investigation and the suspension of future shows.
At least two dancers were injured, with one in a serious condition and the other stable, local broadcaster RTHK reported. Three members of the audience were also injured, local media reported, with many fans emotional after the harrowing scenes.
“I am shocked by the incident. I express sympathy to those who were injured and hope that they would recover soon,” Hong Kong Chief Executive John Lee said on Friday.
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The government would investigate and review safety procedures to protect performers, staff and the public, he said.
Kevin Yeung, the city’s Culture Secretary, said the show would be suspended until the stage structure was safe. The government’s leisure bureau had already contacted the concert organiser about other stage incidents in recent days, he said in a statement.
The hugely popular cantopop group was formed in 2018 through a reality television show and had planned a series of 12 shows at Hong Kong’s Coliseum, next to the city’s Victoria harbour.
More than 13,000 Mirror fans signed an online petition asking the concert organiser to resolve the problems and ensure safety for all performers, according to the petition’s website.
MakerVille, the concert organiser which is owned by Hong Kong tycoon Richard Li’s PCCW Media Group, said it was thoroughly investigating the cause of the accident.
“We are deeply sorry that the incident caused unease to viewers or others affected.”
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Reporting by Farah Master and Twinnie Siu; editing by Richard Pullin
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KYIV, July 26 (Reuters) – A tongue-in-cheek petition to give outgoing British Prime Minister Boris Johnson Ukrainian citizenship and make him the country’s prime minister has garnered over 2,500 signatures hours after being put up on Ukraine’s official petitions site on Tuesday.
Despite losing domestic popularity and eventually having been forced to announce his resignation after dozens of ministerial departures in early July, Johnson remains a cult figure in Kyiv for his vocal support of Ukraine as it fights off Russia’s invasion.
Paintings, murals, and even cakes in Ukraine’s capital bear the likeness of the man some Ukrainians affectionately call “Johnsoniuk.” read more
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The petition, addressed to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, lists Johnson’s strengths as “worldwide support for Boris Johnson, a clear position against the military invasion of Ukraine, (and) wisdom in the political, financial and legal spheres.”
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskiy walk at Mykhailivska Square, as Russia’s attack on Ukraine continues, in Kyiv, Ukraine June 17, 2022. Ukrainian Presidential Press Service/Handout via REUTERS
The petition, however, does acknowledge one negative side of such an appointment: its non-compliance with Ukraine’s constitution.
In an apparent coincidence, several hours after the petition was put up on Tuesday, Johnson presented Zelenskiy with the Sir Winston Churchill Leadership Award for what his Downing Street office described as “incredible courage, defiance, and dignity” in the face of Russia’s invasion.
Zelenskiy did not mention the new petition when accepting the award, but he will be obliged to officially respond if it receives 25,000 signatures.
Accepting the award via video link from Kyiv, Zelenskiy quoted wartime British premier Churchill, saying that Johnson “had no thought of quitting the struggle” when the going got tough.
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Reporting by Max Hunder;
Editing by Sandra Maler
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The logo for Google LLC is seen at their office in Manhattan, New York City, New York, U.S., November 17, 2021. REUTERS/Andrew Kelly
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July 22 (Reuters) – Alphabet Inc’s (GOOGL.O) Google said on Friday it has dismissed a senior software engineer who claimed the company’s artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot LaMDA was a self-aware person.
Google, which placed software engineer Blake Lemoine on leave last month, said he had violated company policies and that it found his claims on LaMDA to be “wholly unfounded.” read more
“It’s regrettable that despite lengthy engagement on this topic, Blake still chose to persistently violate clear employment and data security policies that include the need to safeguard product information,” a Google spokesperson said in an email to Reuters.
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Last year, Google said that LaMDA – Language Model for Dialogue Applications – was built on the company’s research showing Transformer-based language models trained on dialogue could learn to talk about essentially anything.
Google and many leading scientists were quick to dismiss Lemoine’s views as misguided, saying LaMDA is simply a complex algorithm designed to generate convincing human language.
Lemoine’s dismissal was first reported by Big Technology, a tech and society newsletter.
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Reporting by Akanksha Khushi in Bengaluru; Editing by William Mallard
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Through the looking glass: The world of quantum physics and quantum computing is challenging for most people to wrap their heads around. I have read a fair number of books on the subjects, but the research I’m about to report has my head spinning. Somehow, scientists have created a new phase of matter with two-dimensional time.
Scientists at the Flatiron Institute’s Center for Computational Quantum Physics in New York City have created a new, never-before-seen phase of matter. The peculiarity of it is that the atoms have two dimensions of time even though they exist in our singular flow of time. The team published their study in Nature on July 20.
The physicists created this odd phase of matter by firing a laser with a pulse based on the Fibonacci sequence at atoms used inside a quantum computer. They contend that this could be a breakthrough in quantum computing because it can protect stored information from the errors that occur in current methods of quantum storage. Data degradation still happens but at a much slower rate.
The paper’s lead author Philipp Dumitrescu said he has been working on the theory behind the science for over five years, but this is the first time it has been “realized” in practical experiments.
“[This dynamical topological phase] is a completely different way of thinking about phases of matter,” Dumitrescu told Phys.org.
Must read: Quantum Computing, Explained
The researchers realized their theory by strobing ions of an element in quantum computers called ytterbium. When they hit the ions with a standard repeating pattern (AB, AB, AB…), the resulting qubits stayed quantum for 1.5 seconds, which they noted is an incredible improvement.
However, when they blasted the ions with a Fibonacci pulse (A, AB, ABA, ABAAB, ABAABABA…), the qubits remained in a superstate for an astounding 5.5 seconds. The results are remarkable, considering that the average lifespan of a qubit is about 500 nanoseconds (0.00000005 of a second). This short life is because a qubit leaves its superstate (where it exists simultaneously as both a 1 and a 0) whenever it is observed or measured. Even interactions with other qubits are enough to destroy this quantumness.
“Even if you keep all the atoms under tight control, they can lose their quantumness by talking to their environment, heating up or interacting with things in ways you didn’t plan,” Dumitrescu said. “In practice, experimental devices have many sources of error that can degrade coherence after just a few laser pulses.”
The physics behind it is pretty hard for laypeople to wrap their heads around but is illustrated in the Penrose tiling pattern above. Like typical crystals, this quasicrystal has a stable lattice but with a structure that never repeats. This pattern is a 2D representation of a 5D square lattice.
The researchers wanted to create a similarly symmetrical structure, but rather than constructing it in space, they built it in time. The physicists used the Fibonacci pulsed laser to create a higher dimensional qubit possessing a “time symmetry.” When “squashed” into our 4D realm, the resulting qubit has two dimensions of time. This extra dimension somewhat protects the qubit from quantum degradation. However, it is only applied to the outside “edges” of a 10-ytterbium-ion series (the first and the tenth qubit).
“With this quasi-periodic sequence, there’s a complicated evolution that cancels out all the errors that live on the edge,” said Dumitrescu. “Because of that, the edge stays quantum-mechanically coherent much, much longer than you’d expect.”
Although the physicists have demonstrated that the technique creates much more robust qubits, they admit that they still have much work ahead. This new phase of matter can result in long-term quantum information storage, but only if they can somehow integrate it into a quantum computer.
“We have this direct, tantalizing application, but we need to find a way to hook it into the calculations,” Dumitrescu said. “That’s an open problem we’re working on.”