CCNY team in quantum algorithm breakthrough

Researchers led by City College of New York physicist Pouyan Ghaemi report the development of a quantum algorithm with the potential to study a class of many-electron quantums system using quantum computers. Their paper, entitled “Creating and Manipulating a Laughlin-Type ν=1/3 Fractional Quantum Hall State on a Quantum Computer with Linear Depth Circuits,” appears in the December issue of PRX Quantum,…

New York’s New Digital Subway Map

An anonymous reader shares a report: The date was April 20, 1978; the scene, the Great Hall of the Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art on Astor Place. On the stage where Abraham Lincoln once spoke sat two men, the Italian modernist Massimo Vignelli and the cartographer John Tauranac, constituting two sides of the Great Subway Map Debate….

A Group of Materials Called Perovskites Could Be a Game-Changer For Solar Power

Researchers from Australia have discovered that the widely acclaimed mineral perovskite can be used to transform the solar industry through cheaper and more efficient photovoltaics. The Independent reports: Perovskite, which is forged deep within the Earth’s mantle, has been hailed for its unprecedented potential to convert sunlight into electricity. Researchers have already improved its sunlight-to-energy efficiency from around 3 per cent…

European service module structure for moon landing arrives in Bremen

The structure that will fly the first woman and next man to land on the moon and return on the Artemis III mission by 2024 arrived at the Airbus integration hall in Bremen, Germany, from its Thales Alenia Space manufacturing site in Turin, Italy. Source: https://phys.org/news/2020-10-european-module-moon-bremen.html…

Amazon’s Latest Gimmicks Are Pushing the Limits of Privacy

At the end of September, Amazon debuted two especially futuristic products within five days of each other: a small autonomous surveillance drone, called Ring Always Home Cam, and a palm recognition scanner, called Amazon One. “Both products aim to make security and authentication more convenient — but for privacy-conscious consumers, they also raise red flags,” reports Wired. From the report: Amazon’s…

SpaceX Starlink Aids Native American Tribe: ‘It Catapulted Us Into the 21st Century’

Just a week after news broke that SpaceX was gifting Starlink internet service to Washington State’s Emergency Management department, the state has revealed SpaceX’s satellites are also benefitting the Native American Hoh Tribe. Teslarati reports: Now, with SpaceX’s help and encouraged by the Washington State Military’s successes, the Washington State Department of Commerce’s Broadband Office has deployed Starlink terminals at the…

Building skills through online learning: 4 data-driven best practices

By: Alexandra Urban, Senior Teaching & Learning Specialist, Coursera Teaching and learning online can feel daunting, especially at first. With the pandemic forcing millions of instructors and students abruptly into remote schooling, many have questioned the quality of online learning and its effectiveness — especially those new to the online setting. This new landscape inspired […]
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New approach to exotic quantum matter

In a three-dimensional world, all particles must be either fermions or bosons, but in fewer dimensions, the existence of particles known as anyons, which have intermediate quantum statistics, is possible. Such fascinating objects are strongly believed to exist as emerging quasiparticles in fractional quantum Hall systems, but despite great efforts, experimental evidence of anyons has remained very limited. Since quantum statistics…

The observation of Bloch ferromagnetism in composite fermions

Composite fermions are exotic quasi-particles found in interacting 2-D fermion systems at relatively large perpendicular magnetic fields. These quasi-particles, which are composed of an electron and two magnetic flux quanta, have often been used to describe a physical phenomenon known as the fractional quantum Hall effect. …