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NASA, Google to share a quantum computer
May 16, 2013 — xanthippaLet me just say – quantum computers are neat!
Not that I know that much about them, but my older son is rather fascinated with them and is actively focusing his education so as to work with them. As a matter of fact, he recently started his first research job in Mathematics – and, yes, it is in the field of combinatorics.
It will be shared by Google, Nasa, and other scientists, providing access to a machine said to be up to 3,600 times faster than conventional computers.
Unlike standard machines, the D-Wave Two processor appears to make use of an effect called quantum tunnelling.
This allows it to reach solutions to certain types of mathematical problems in fractions of a second.
Effectively, it can try all possible solutions at the same time and then select the best.’
Science rules!
The First Music Video Recorded in Space
May 15, 2013 — xanthippaHad to include it here…
Make sure to check out his amazing videos from the Space Station, like the following one where he wrings water out of a wash-cloth:
Brilliant!
Our Solar System May Be More Unusual Than Previously Thought
May 7, 2013 — xanthippaWe studied our Solar system an thought we understood how all kinds of solar systems form.
Then we looked around…and the evidence does not fit our hypothesies:
‘As of this month, we’ve discovered 884 planets, 692 planetary systems, 132 of them with more than one planet and, strange to tell, almost none of them look like us.
“We are now beginning to understand that nature seems to overwhelmingly prefer [planetary] systems that have multiple planets with orbits of less than 100 days,” says Steve Vogt, astronomer at the University of California, Santa Cruz. “This is quite unlike our own solar system, where there is nothing with an orbit inside that of Mercury. So our solar system is, in some sense, a bit of a freak and not the most typical kind of system that Nature cooks up.”
All of sudden, we’re the abnormal ones. We have to figure out why our solar system turned out different from all the others.’
