Category Archives: Quantum Physics

The Physical Measurement Laboratory of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) anticipates the need for a Division Chief of its Quantum Electromagnetics Division (QED) (https://www.nist.gov/pml/quantum-electromagnetics). The QED has more than 45 permanent scientific and engineering staff and over 60 students, postdoctoral researchers, and contractors. Its permanent scientific and engineering staff consist primarily of physicists and electrical engineers with PhDs. The Divisions multidisciplinary activities include advanced materials analysis using X-ray spectrometer arrays, superconducting electronics and nanomagnetics fabrication and metrology for neuromorphic computing and signal processing, development of superconducting sensor arrays for microwave, X-ray, and gamma ray instruments, and cryogenics science and engineering for photon detector arrays and quantum measurements, all of which support industry, government, and academic stakeholders. The principal duties for the Division are carried out on the Boulder campus of NIST.

Interested candidates should have research and management experience and a degree in physics or electrical engineering in accordance with the

OPM qualification standards. Interested candidates must be a U.S. Citizen and should submit a Curriculum Vitae or a Resume and a list of potential references by September 24, 2021 to Zulma Lainez, 100 Bureau Drive MS 8400, Gaithersburg, MD 20899-8420 or by email to zulma.lainez@nist.gov. If you have technical questions concerning this position please contact James Kushmerick, Director Physical Measurement Laboratory (james.kushmerick@nist.gov).

Whether submitting a Curriculum Vitae or a resume, the candidate must provide sufficient information to clearly articulate their leadership and management capabilities and experience, including both personnel and financial management. This may be provided in a separate cover letter. Individuals should also include a list of publications and a list of talks and presentations covering at least the past 5 years showing research experience. The identified candidate will be hired as a ZP-V (GS-15) equivalent.

Depending on the identified candidates professional background they will be hired as a Supervisory Physicist, ZP-1310, Grade V or as a Supervisory Electrical Engineer, ZP-0855, Grade-V. Applicants Curriculum Vitae or Resume must provide positive evidence that they have performed highly creative or outstanding research that has led or can lead to major advances in a specific area of research, to a major advance in the discipline or field of science involved, or to major advances in science in general, can be rated under this provision for highly demanding research positions requiring similar abilities or show at least 1 year equivalent at the GS-14 level. The position when available will be posted at (http://www.usajobs.gov). The salary range for the position is $140,428-$172,500 per annum. The National Institute of Standards and Technology of the Department of Commerce is an Equal Opportunity Employer.

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a Division Chief of its Quantum Electromagnetics Division (QED) in Boulder, CO for National Institute of Standards and Technology - Physics

A detailed look at the Universe reveals that it's made of matter and not antimatter, that dark ... [+] matter and dark energy are required, and that we don't know the origin of any of these mysteries. However, the fluctuations in the CMB, the formation and correlations between large-scale structure, and modern observations of gravitational lensing all point towards the same picture.

Whenever you hear the phrase, its just a theory, it should trigger alarm bells in the scientific portion of your brain. While most of us, colloquially, use the term theory synonymously with a word like idea, hypothesis, or guess, you have a much higher bar to clear when it comes to science. At the very least, your theory needs to be formulated within a self-consistent framework that doesnt violate its own rules. Next, your theory needs to not (obviously) conflict with whats already been observed and established: it must be a non-falsified theory.

And then, even at that, your theory can only be considered speculative until the critical and decisive tests arrive, allowing you to discern whether your theory matches the data in a way that alternatives including the prior consensus theory do not. Only if your theory passes a series of tests will it be accepted by the mainstream. Quite famously, string theory does not meet the necessary criteria for this, and can be considered, at best, a speculative theory. But many astrophysical theories, including inflation, dark matter, and dark energy, are far more sound than almost everyone realizes. Heres the science behind why were so certain that all of them exist.

Quantum gravity tries to combine Einsteins general theory of relativity with quantum mechanics. ... [+] Quantum corrections to classical gravity are visualized as loop diagrams, as the one shown here in white. In reality, we know that general relativity works where Newton's gravity does not and where special relativity does not, but even general relativity should have a limit to its range of validity.

The history of science is filled with ideas, some of which have been shown to accurately describe reality over some particular range which we can probe it, and others of which turned out not to describe reality, although they could have if nature had answered our questions differently. We have a Universe that obeys Newtons laws of motion and his theory of universal gravitation, so long as speeds are low compared to the speed of light. At higher speeds, Newtons laws of motion no longer apply, and must be superseded by Special Relativity. In strong gravitational fields, even Special Relativity and universal gravitation arent enough, and General Relativity is required.

Although General Relativity holds up as our theory of gravity everywhere weve probed it, we fully expect that when we dive deep into the quantum Universe to small enough distance scales or at high-enough energy scales even General Relativity is known to give nonsense answers: answers that indicate an end to its range of validity. Despite all of its predictive power, and its status as arguably the most successful physical theory of all time, its powerless to describe the region around a black holes singularity, physics near the Planck scale, or the emergence of space and time themselves. For those phenomena, a quantum description of gravity will be necessary.

The particle tracks emanating from a high energy collision at the LHC in 2014. These types of ... [+] collisions test conservation of momentum and energy far more robustly than any other experiment. While there may be new physics out there, and in fact there almost certainly is, the LHC only reaches collision energies of ~10^4 GeV, or 1-part-in-10^15 of the Planck scale.

Of course, weve never gotten anywhere near that far in practice. Directly, we can produce collisions in particle colliders up to a little more than 104 GeV: enough to unify the electromagnetic and weak forces and to create all the particles (and antiparticles) of the Standard Model, but still a factor of a quadrillion (1015) beneath the Planck scale. Whatever the physics of:

we dont have any direct evidence supporting it.

But that hasnt stopped us from, well, theorizing. We can concoct scenarios where new physics physics that, if we added it in, wouldnt conflict with the low-energy, late-time Universe thats already been observed comes into play. Many of these scenarios are quite famous within the physics community, and include such novelties as extra dimensions, supersymmetry, grand unification theories, compositeness to certain particles presently thought to be fundamental, and string theory.

The Standard Model particles and their supersymmetric counterparts. Slightly under 50% of these ... [+] particles have been discovered, and just over 50% have never showed a trace that they exist. Supersymmetry is an idea that hopes to improve on the Standard Model, but it has yet to make successful predictions about the Universe in attempting to supplant the prevailing theory. If there is no supersymmetry at all energies, string theory must be wrong.

However, there exists no direct experimental evidence to support any of these scenarios. You cant exactly rule them out by not finding evidence for them; you can only place constraints on them, saying that if they exist, they exist below a certain experimental threshold. In other words, their couplings to the observed particles must be below a certain value; their cross sections must be below a certain value with normal matter; the masses of new particles must be above a certain threshold; their effects on the decays of the known particles must be below the measured limits.

Many scientists who work in these fields on the frontiers of high-energy and particle physics have begun to openly express frustrations about the lack of promising new directions to explore. At the Large Hadron Collider, theres no indication of any particles beyond the Standard Model, or even of any non-standard decay channels for the Higgs boson. Proton decay experiments have extended the lifetime of the proton to ~1034 years, ruling out many grand unified theories. Experiments probing for extra dimensions have come up empty.

On every front, the search for new fundamental particle physics that takes us beyond the Standard Model has thus far come up empty. Even the Muon g-2 experiment, vaunted for its precision in measuring a particular fundamental constant of the Universe, is arguably more likely to point to a problem in how we calculate quantities using different methods than it is to point to new physics.

While there is a mismatch between the theoretical and experimental results in the muon's magnetic ... [+] moment (right graph), we can be certain (left graph) it isn't due to the Hadronic light-by-light (HLbL) contributions. However, lattice QCD calculations (blue, right graph) suggest that hadronic vacuum polarization (HVP) contributions might account for the entirety of the mismatch.

Although a few alternative ideas have emerged in theoretical high-energy physics and in quantum gravity circles in recent years, its proven very difficult to introduce new physical ideas or concepts that arent already ruled out by the vast suite of data we already possess. The combined measurements of subtle effects like quark mixing, neutrino oscillations, decay rates, and branching ratios severely limit what sorts of new physics can be introduced. And yet, as long as youre willing to push whatever new physics you want to invoke to higher energies and smaller cross-sections or couplings, you can keep ideas like supersymmetry, extra dimensions, grand unification, and string theory alive.

It poses a conundrum for theoretical physicists who work on these problems, though: what should they work on? Its one thing to engage in fanciful ideation and to calculate the consequences of whatever scenario youve envisioned; its quite another to continue to plow ahead, undaunted, into further exploring a scenario with no evidence behind it. You can, of course, but you must worry that youre deluding yourself in doing so, just like perhaps the previous ~40 years of high-energy theorists have done. You can always attempt to explore alternative scenarios as well, although that has arguably not been fruitful, either.

But theres a third option. You can take your ideas and try to bring them into a place where there is lots of compelling evidence for physics beyond whats well-established: the field of cosmology.

During the earliest stages of the Universe, an inflationary period set up and gave rise to the hot ... [+] Big Bang. Today, billions of years later, dark energy is causing the expansion of the Universe to accelerate. These two phenomena have many things in common, and may even be connected, possibly related through black hole dynamics.

A lot of high-energy theorists and string theorists have begun working on cosmological problems in recent years, and in some ways thats a good thing. Particle physics plays a tremendously important role in astrophysical systems across the Universe, and in particular in high-energy environments, including:

Processes such as matter-antimatter annihilation, pair creation, neutrino emission and capture, nuclear reactions, and the decay of unstable particles all occur in copious amounts in these extreme environments. The fusion of cosmology with high-energy physics has led to the emergence of a new field at their intersection: astroparticle physics.

Whats most exciting, however, is that some of the astrophysical observations weve made indicate theres more to the Universe than the Standard Model alone can account for. In many ways, its our measurements of the cosmos itself the Universe on the largest scales that offers us the most compelling clues to what might be out there in the Universe beyond the limits of currently known and well-understood physics.

Four colliding galaxy clusters, showing the separation between X-rays (pink) and gravitation (blue), ... [+] indicative of dark matter. On large scales, cold dark matter is necessary, and no alternative or substitute will do. However, mapping out the X-ray light (pink) is not necessarily a very good indication of the dark matter distribution (blue).

In particular, there are four arenas where simply starting off from an extremely hot, dense, uniform, matter-and-radiation-filled, expanding Universe, and evolving the clock forward in time, simply wont reproduce the cosmos that we see today. If we did that with the laws we know of General Relativity plus the Standard Model of particle physics we would get something that looked very different from our Universe.

These four sets of observations are vital to our Universes history, pointing towards baryogenesis and the creation of a matter-antimatter asymmetry, dark matter, dark energy, and cosmic inflation, respectively.

The observation of even more distant supernovae allowed us to discern the difference between 'grey ... [+] dust' and dark energy, ruling the former out. But the modification of 'replenishing grey dust' is still indistinguishable from dark energy, although that is an ad hoc, unphysical explanation. Dark energy's existence is robust and quite certain.

There isnt just one line of evidence for any of these phenomena, but its very clear that if you want to reproduce the Universe we have, as we observe it to be, these ingredients and components are required. The combination of multiple sets of observations, including:

all indicate that these four things exist or occurred: baryogenesis and inflation occurred, and dark matter and dark energy exist. The only alternatives we have are to finely-tune the initial conditions that the Universe was born with and to add in some sort of new particles or fields that mimic dark matter and dark energy in every way measured so far, but differ in some subtle way that has yet to be identified.

An equally-symmetric collection of matter and antimatter (of X and Y, and anti-X and anti-Y) bosons ... [+] could, with the right GUT properties, give rise to the matter/antimatter asymmetry we find in our Universe today. However, we assume that there is a physical, rather than a divine, explanation for the matter-antimatter asymmetry we observe today, but we do not yet know for certain.

It is true that many of the details of these scenarios particularly when you combine all four pieces of the cosmic puzzle together lead to consequences that may or may not be observable.

Using speculative theoretical ideas from high-energy physics to motivate the exploration of various scenarios may be popular, but it is neither the only approach nor is there any reason to believe its a compelling approach. When you add speculation to solid science, you get speculation. It doesnt detract from the soundness of the sound science, however. Baryogenesis, inflation, dark matter, and dark energy are as real as ever, and dont depend in the least on any of the speculative ideas from high-energy physics, like supersymmetry or string theory, being true or correct in any way.

The quantum fluctuations that occur during inflation get stretched across the Universe, and when ... [+] inflation ends, they become density fluctuations. This leads, over time, to the large-scale structure in the Universe today, as well as the fluctuations in temperature observed in the CMB. New predictions like these are essential for demonstrating the validity of a proposed fine-tuning mechanism.

There are an unreasonable set of moving goalposts that some scientists particularly contrarians to the mainstream set up to add a false legitimacy to their claims, as well as a disingenuous uncertainty to the (well-justified) consensus positions. We do not need to identify the exact mechanism of baryogenesis to know that a matter-antimatter imbalance came about in our Universe. We do not need to directly detect whatever particle is responsible for dark matter, assuming dark matter even is a particle with a non-zero scattering cross-section, to know it exists. We do not need to detect gravitational waves from inflation to confirm inflation; the four discriminatory tests weve already performed are decisive.

And yet, there are still unknowns that we must be honest about. We do not know the cause of baryogenesis, or the nature of dark matter. We do not know whether inflation really must go on for an eternity, whether it really began from some non-inflationary predecessor state, and we cannot test whether the multiverse is real or not. We do not know, to put it bluntly, how far the range of validity for these theories extends.

But the fact that there are limits to what we know and to what we can know does not make our actual knowledge of the cosmos any less certain. Sympathy for contrarian positions and excitement about speculative ideas should only extend so far: to the extent that theyre supported by the full suite of available evidence. Especially when youre attempting to push the frontiers of science forward, its important to not lose sight of what is actually, solidly known and established along the way. After all, as Richard Feynman put it, when it comes to science, if you don't make mistakes, you're doing it wrong. If you don't correct those mistakes, you're doing it really wrong. If you can't accept that you're mistaken, you're not doing it at all.

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Dont Let String Theory Ruin The Perfectly Good Science Of Physical Cosmology - Forbes

In 1905 Albert Einstein wrote four groundbreaking papers on quantum theory and relativity. It became known as Einsteins annus mirabilis or wonderous year. One was on brownian motion, one earned him the Nobel prize in 1921, and one outlined the foundations of special relativity. But its Einsteins last 1905 paper that is the most unexpected.

The paper is just two pages long, and it outlines how special relativity might explain a strange aspect of radioactive decay. As Marie Curie most famously demonstrated, some materials such as radium salts can emit particles with much more energy than is possible from simple chemistry. Einsteins little paper speculated about the excess energy might be balanced by a loss of mass of the nuclear particles. This idea eventually led to Einsteins most famous equation, E = mc2.

This equation is often taken to mean that matter and energy are two sides of the same coin. It actually means that the apparent mass and energy of an object depend upon the relative motion of an observer, and because of this, the two are intertwined, similar to the connection between space and time. But one consequence of this relation is that under the right circumstances objects should be able to produce energy via a loss of mass.

We now know this is exactly what happens in radioactive decay. The effect is also how stars create energy in their cores via nuclear fusion. Of course, if matter can become energy, then it should also be possible for energy to become matter. That tricks a bit more difficult, and it took particle accelerators to pull it off. These days we do this all the time. Accelerate particles to nearly the speed of light and slam them together. The large apparent mass of the particles releases tremendous energy, and some of that energy changes back into particles. All of modern particle physics can trace its history to Einsteins two-page paper.

But the laws of physics dont just say you can create energy from matter and vice versa, it places specific constraints on the nature of the created matter and energy. One of the simplest examples of this is electron-positron annihilation. This happens when an electron collides with its antimatter twin. The two particles have the same mass, but opposite charge, so when they collide they produce two high-energy photons. The mass of the electron and positron are transformed entirely into energy. This experiment was first proposed in the 1930s, but it wasnt done until 1970.

If you can convert matter entirely into energy, you should be able to do the reverse. Its known as the BreitWheeler process and involves colliding two photons to create an electron-positron pair. While we have used light to create matter several times, converting two photons directly into matter is very difficult. But a recent experiment shows it can be done.

The team used data from the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) and looked at more than 6,000 events that created electron-positron pairs. They didnt simply beam two lasers at each other but instead used high-energy particle collisions to create intense bursts of photons. In some cases, these photons collided to create an electron-positron pair. From the data, they could show when a pair was created directly from light.

Since these pair productions occurred in the intense magnetic field the team also demonstrated another interesting effect known as vacuum birefringence. Normal birefringence occurs when light is split into two beams of different polarization. This effect occurs naturally in materials such as Iceland spar. With vacuum birefringence, light passing through an intense magnetic field is split into two polarizations, with each polarization taking a slightly different path. Its an amazing effect if you think about it because it means you can change the path of light in a vacuum, using only a magnetic field. Vacuum birefringence has been observed in the light coming from a neutron star, but this is the first time its been observed in the lab.

Reference: Einstein, Albert. Ist die Trgheit eines Krpers von seinem Energieinhalt abhngig? Annalen der Physik 323.13 (1905): 639-641.

Reference: Sodickson, L., et al. Single-quantum annihilation of positrons. Physical Review 124.6 (1961): 1851.

Reference: Breit, Gregory, and John A. Wheeler. Collision of two light quanta. Physical Review 46.12 (1934): 1087.

Reference: Adam, Jaroslav, et al. Measurement of e+ e? Momentum and Angular Distributions from Linearly Polarized Photon Collisions. Physical Review Letters 127.5 (2021): 052302.

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Matter From Light. Physicists Create Matter and Antimatter by Colliding Just Photons. - Universe Today

Jen Malia

The rarefied world of high-level physics conferences is usually inaccessible to scientific laypeople. Meetings are by invitation and conducted in jargon that few nonexperts understand. We learn in Jeffrey Orens book The Soul of Genius: Marie Curie, Albert Einstein, and the Meeting That Changed the Course of Science that such gatherings can be disappointing, no matter how brilliant the invitees are. The First Solvay Conference in Physics, in Brussels in October 1911, accomplished far less than its organisers envisioned, making Orenss subtitle something of a mystery.

The conference was called in the hope of making significant progress toward settling an argument that was raging in the physics world: the debate between the classic Newtonian physics and the new quantum physics, a view of the subatomic world in which light could be thought of as travelling either in waves or as particles called quanta. At many scientific meetings, paper presentations follow one another with only brief intervals between for comments and questions. This conference, by contrast, provided ample time for discussion. It was a remarkable opportunity for the most influential people in physics and chemistry to meet in person, but they made little headway in resolving the debate. According to one attendee, Albert Einstein, Nothing positive has come out of it.

But on a personal level for Einstein, the occasion was not without consequence, for the First Solvay Conference allowed the elite of physics and chemistry to make his acquaintance. Orens called it Einsteins debutante ball. A second positive outcome was the friendship that began there for Einstein and Marie Curie. Sadly, near the close of the meeting, the press in France published reports of Curies affair with a younger married physicist, Paul Langevin, her late husbands assistant. The news caused an onslaught of condemnation, severely damaged her personal and professional reputation, and threatened her second Nobel Prize. The issue is familiar today: Should a failure to live up to current standards of morality diminish appreciation for professional achievements?

Orens is not an academic scientist, but a former chemical engineer and business executive with the chemical company Solvay. Curious about wall-size photographs of Solvay conferences in the reception areas and hallways of many Solvay offices, Orens became particularly interested in the first of these meetings. The names of some who gathered in 1911 in the Grand Hotel Metropole in Brussels are familiar for their groundbreaking work in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Not only Einstein and Curie, but also Max Planck, Ernest Rutherford, JH Jeans and Henri Poincar were there. Nine participants had won or would win Nobel Prizes. Orens approach to the lives and work of the attendees, through the story of this conference, is unusual and well conceived. His account revisits what is certainly one of the most exciting, turbulent periods in the history of science and better acquaints us with people who played significant roles in this drama.

Curie was the only woman among the participants. Her story, beginning in Poland in a century when scientific education for women there could be had only clandestinely, is a harsh reminder of the obstacles facing women in science in her era. Her husband, Pierre Curie, refused the 1903 Nobel Prize for research on radiation until his wife was included in the honour. It was assumed that a woman could have assisted a man but surely not worked as an equal or leader. In America, Curie would become more famous for overcoming such prejudices than for her science. Touring the States in 1921, she was disappointed that only one of the planned celebratory events included meeting another scientist.

In his treatment of Einstein, Orens discusses a claim that science historians have almost unanimously dismissed that it was Einsteins first wife, Mileva, who developed the theory of special relativity. In a book much concerned with lack of recognition for women, Orens careful assessment of her minor contribution is appropriate. The cold correspondence that ended Einsteins marriage to Mileva reveals a less-attractive person than we prefer to think him. Otherwise, Orens describes a kind man who defended Curie when few did, an astonishing mind and a fervent advocate for internationalism in science.

Less known than the attendees at the First Solvay Conference is Ernest Solvay himself, the Belgian businessman and self-taught scientist who paid for the meeting. Solvay had been thinking since 1858 about matter and energy, speculating that one of these elements is only a transformation of the other. Lacking formal training in theoretical physics, Solvay was not equipped to argue decisively, as Einstein would, that this idea is correct. Instead, he devoted his scientific acumen to developing an improved method of producing industrial soda. He amassed a fortune.

It was German physicist Walther Nernst who in 1910 suggested that Solvay fund a gathering where the worlds top physicists could discuss Solvays ideas. Nernst knew that they would discuss much more than what Solvay would offer in his opening talk and material sent out ahead of time. He anticipated a productive albeit argumentative discussion of the classic physics vs quantum physics problem. Argumentative it was. Conclusive it was not.

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The conference that brought together Marie Curie and Albert Einstein Borneo Bulletin Online - Borneo Bulletin Online

It's hard to understate the genius of Albert Einstein. As one of the world's foremost physicists, his discoveries revolutionized the way we see not just our world but the entirety of the universe. It's little wonder how the name Einstein has come to be synonymous with scientific genius.

He is most well known for his theory of relativity, but his brilliance did not end there. He helped lay the foundations for quantum mechanics with his Nobel Prize-winning work on the photoelectric effect and was instrumental in bringing the world into the atomic age, though was generally opposed to the use of nuclear weapons.

By pushing our understanding of physics far beyond what anyone thought possible or could even imagine at the time, Einstein stands nearly alone in the pantheon of physicists with his unparalleled brilliance.

Albert Einstein was born on March 14, 1879, to Hermann Einstein and Pauline Koch-Einstein, Ashkenazi Jews living in Ulm, the Kingdom of Wrttemberg in the southern part of the German Empire.

Shortly after his birth, his family moved to Munich, where his father and uncle founded an electrical equipment manufacturing company. Einstein began receiving a primary education at a Catholic school in 1885 before transferring to the Luitpold-Gymnasium (since renamed the Albert Einstein Gymnasium, for obvious reasons) in 1888.

Einstein was, surprisingly or maybe not so surprisingly, a mediocre student. So mediocre in fact that when Einstein wanted to attend theEidgenoessische Polytechnische Schule (mercifully renamed ETH in later years) in Zurich, Switzerland, in 1895, he failed the entrance examination and had to attend the Kantonschule in Aarau, Switzerland, to remediate the subject areas whose test scores were insufficient.

Receiving a diploma from the school in 1896, he was able to enroll in ETH soon thereafter with the goal of becoming a math and physics teacher. Again, he was a passable student, but not much more than that, though he did manage to graduate with a diploma in July 1901.

By this point, he had already abandoned his German citizenship and had been formally granted Swiss citizenship in February 1901. He spent several months looking for a job, giving private instruction in math and physics to make ends meet, and taking short-term employment as a teacher from May 1901 to January 1902.

Albert Einstein's turn as the world's most famous patent clerk started with the help of a fellow student, Marcel Grossman, who helped get Einstein a probationary appointment at the Swiss Patent Office in Bern, where he had settled after school.

Einstein took up the position in December 1901 and by June 1902, he was promoted to Technical Expert, Third Class, giving him some measure of stability, and allowing him to pursue his research in theoretical physics.

At this time, he was also a founding member of the Akademie Olympia, a scientific society in Bern that greatly helped focus Einstein's work and thinking in the field of physics.

In April 1905, Einstein submitted a doctoral thesis to the University of Zurich titled, "A New Determination of Molecular Dimensions" which he had dedicated to Grossman. It was accepted by the University in July of that year, but by then Einstein was already well on his way to revolutionizing our understanding of the universe.

To say that the year 1905 was a landmark year for science is grossly underselling it. Einstein, still working as a "technical expert" in the Swiss patent office, published four revolutionary scientific papers in a span of just 7 months that would establish him as one of the greatest scientific minds of the time. Einstein later described the period by saying thatit was when a storm broke loose in my mind.

The first of the papers was "On A Heuristic Point of View Concerning the Production and Transformation of Light," which was the first paper to theorize that electromagnetic radiation, including light, consisted of "quanta".

The paper argued that, in effect, radiation was carried through space by means of measurable particles which we know today as photons. Interestingly, this theory was rejected at first before it was eventually confirmed by Max Planck, who was initially critical of the theory himself. For this discovery, Einstein would win the 1921 Nobel Prize for Physics.

The next paper was publishedon July 18, 1905, titled,On the movement of small particles suspended in a stationary liquid, as required by the molecular-kinetic theory of heat.Although it did not revolutionize the principles of physics, Einstein demonstrated through the physical phenomenon of Brownian motion empirical evidencethat matter is composed of atoms.Although many scientists already believed this, it was by no means universally accepted.Einstein not only mathematically confirmed the existence of atoms and molecules but also opened a new field in the study of physics,statistical physics.

Einstein wasn't done, however. His next paper, "On theElectrodynamics of Moving Bodies", and published in September 1905, was the most groundbreaking. It introduced the idea of Special Relativity, which addresses the problem of objects in different coordinate systems moving relative to each other at constant speeds.

It produced a new conception of space that would lay the groundwork for Einstein's theory of general relativity that would come later, and also established that as an object accelerates towards the speed of light, its mass also increases, which requires more energy to accelerate, which then adds even more mass to the object. As a result, as an object effectively approaches the speed of light, its mass becomes infinite, making the speed of light the effective speed limit for all matter.

His next paper that year, "Does the Inertia of a Body Depend upon its Energy Content?" was published in November 1905, and gave the mathematical proof of special relativity, confirming the equivalence of mass and energy, and introducing arguably the most famous equation in human history, E = mc2.

Finally, in 1907, Einstein published "Planck's Theory of Radiation and the Theory of Specific Heat", which was a foundational work of quantum mechanics.

While Einstein's Theory of Special Relativity was revolutionary in its own right, between 1909 and 1916, Einstein worked on a more general form of this theory that would be published in March 1916 as, "The Foundation of the General Theory of Relativity".

This paper was absolutely transformative. While Einstein's work on Special Relativity required an advanced understanding of math and physics, his theory of general relativity was much more accessible, owing to its elegance and (relative) simplicity.

Einstein envisioned gravity not as a force the way Newton described it but describing space and time as a fabric stretching out in all directions. If that space is empty, an object moving through it would travel in a straight line. But if that space has a massive object in the center, like the Sun, then the fabric of space warps toward that center of mass, turning the flat fabric of space into a kind of funnel.

An object passing through that space is affected by the shape of that funnel so that it no longer travels in straight lines through that space but instead gets pulled toward the mass in the center, effectively rolling down the slope of space towards the mass in the center.

Critically, if the speed of something passing through that space is great enough, like light, then it is not pulled into the center mass entirely, but its course is instead refracted as a consequence of the gravitational effect of that massive object.

It was this aspect of Einstein's theory that would help cement his reputation. Convinced that this deflection of light from distant stars could be seen in the gravitational field produced by the sun during a solar eclipse, Einstein sought but failed to verify his theory personally. In 1919, however, English astronomer Arthur Eddington and French astronomer Andrew Crommelin observed the deflection of light at two separate locations during the May 29 eclipse that year.

Confirmation of Einstein's prediction was announced on November 6, 1919, during a meeting in London of the Royal Society and Royal Astronomical Society. Joseph John Thompson, the Royal Society's president, declared that "This is the most important result related to the theory of gravitation since the days of Newton...This result is among the greatest achievements of human thinking."

Confirmation of Einstein's theory of gravitation was printed on the front page of newspapers around the world, establishing him forevermore in the public consciousness as the greatest scientific mind since Isaac Newton, and possibly even greater.

While Einstein was working out his theory of general relativity, he had already established himself in 1905 as a brilliant scientist. He still had trouble landing an academic position for himself, though, being rejected by the University of Bern in 1907 for a professorial position. He was successful on his second go-around a year later, however, and landed a position in 1908, giving his first lecture as a professor at the end of that year.

Devoting himself to his scientific endeavors, he gave up his post with the patent office in 1909 and bounced around between Bern, Zurich, and Prague until 1914, when Planck and German chemist Walther Nernst convinced Einstein to take up a post in Berlin, then the world's epicenter for natural science research.

They offered him a non-teaching professorship at Berlin University, made him a member of the Prussian Academy of Sciences, and made him the head of the yet-to-be-founded Kaiser Wilhelm Insitute of Physics.

Einstein's global popularity led to invitations to speak from around the world, offers Einstein took up, traveling to the United States, France, Britain, Palestine, and elsewhere.

Einstein traveled to Asia as well, and contrary to his public image as a great humanitarian who decried racism as "a disease of white people," his travel diaries from that timeexpressed somesweeping and negative generalizationsof the people he met in Asia, especially the Chinese.

People are a study in contradictions, and Einstein could both believe that racism was social cancer while holding some particularly abhorrent views himself. And while many of his recently published personal papers were written in the early 1920s, when such opinions would not have been seen as particularly out of the mainstream, this certainly does not absolve him - although he also clearly changed over time.

This is especially true as he himself was the subject of some especially ugly anti-Semitic attacks from those inside the scientific community and among the broader public. There were those in Germany, including Nobel laureates like Johannes Stark and Philipp Lenard, who advocated for a "German physics" separate from "Jewish physics".

In December 1932, Einstein and his wife Elsa left for the United States for a series of lectures just as the Nazi Party was on the rise, having secured the most seats in the German parliament elections held earlier that year. In January 1933, Adolf Hitler seized power and in response, Einstein cut all ties with any scientific and academic institution in Germany that he had, including resigning from the Prussian Academy of Sciences. He would never again return to Germany.

Now more or less a refugee, Einstein was quickly given a position at the Institute for Advanced Studies in Princeton, NJ. He bought a house there, the famous 112 Mercer Street.

In 1940, Einstein was formally granted US citizenship and renounced his German citizenship for the second time though he retained his Swiss citizenship. He would live the rest of his life in the United States.

Einstein was a committed pacifist, but his horror at the thought of Nazi Germany working on atomic weapons compelled him to sign a letter to then-President Franklin D. Roosevelt that raised the alarm, recommending that the United States begin researching atomic weaponry as well.

Though this would be Einstein's only direct involvement in the Manhattan Project, giving hisimprimatur to the effort certainly helped make the case for the project, and his famous equation equating mass and energy was fundamental to the project's development.

Einstein spent the rest of his life pursuing aunified field theorybut was unable to make any breakthroughs in this area. His contemporaries had become enamored with some of what he regarded as the stranger aspects of quantum mechanics, which Einstein criticized.

Rejecting the use of probability and randomness in describing quantum effects, Einstein famously declared that, "[God] does not play dice with the universe."

This disagreement and his failure to make major progress in his work on unified field theory led to his isolation from the scientific community in his later years, though Einstein did not appear to be bitter about this fact.

On April 15, 1955, Albert Einstein suffered debilitating pain and was rushed to a hospital in Princeton. He was diagnosed with an aneurysm in his abdominal aorta, and doctors were unable to save him.

Einstein died on April 18, 1955. In accordance with his will, he was cremated that day and his ashes spread at an unknown location. Though his later career proved to be mostly fruitless, he exerted a substantial gravity of his own on those around him, even helping the likes of Niels Bohr refine the principles of quantum mechanics by virtue of his critiques of it.

Einstein's work redefined the universe as we know it and gave us the clearest, most elegant model to date to help even the layman understand it. The foundation he laid for theoretical physics has led to the discovery of gravitational lensing and the greatest cosmological monsters of all, black holes.

Albert Einstein, like Isaac Newton and other great minds before him, surely stood on the shoulders of the giants who came before them, but few giants have ever stood as tall as Einstein and it may be centuries before we see so revolutionary a scientific figure.

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Albert Einstein: The Life and Legacy of the Great Genius Albert Einstein was one of the - Interesting Engineering

Your teacher was wrong! Its a phrase many a high school or university student has heard. As practising and former science teachers, we have been challenged with this accusation before.

Whereas those with advanced science understanding (including the students lecturers and high school teachers) may well say their previous teachers were wrong, incomplete might be more appropriate. These teachers were probably right in selecting age-appropriate scientific models and teaching these in age-appropriate ways.

If we were to put Einstein in front of a year 7 class, he might well present content to those students way beyond their level of understanding. This highlights a common misunderstanding of what is (and isnt) taught in schools, and why.

Our cognitive development, defined by different stages according to age, means learning is gradual. Teaching involves choosing the right pedagogies to impart knowledge and skills to students in a manner that matches their cognitive development.

In this article, we will use understanding of forces in science to demonstrate this gradual progression and evolution of education.

In Australian schools, forces are taught from kindergarten (foundation) to year 12. Throughout their education, and especially in primary education despite the various challenges, it is more important that students learn science inquiry skills than simply science facts. This is done within the contexts of all science topics, including forces.

Read more: Five challenges for science in Australian primary schools

Before a child can learn about the science of the world around them they must first acquire language skills through interactions with adults such as book reading (particularly picture books).

In preschool and kindergarten, play-based learning using early years learning principles is particularly important. Dropping objects such as rocks and feathers to see which falls faster, or what sinks, might lead to comments like heavy things fall faster or heavy things sink. Of course, this is wrong since air resistance is not being considered, or density relative to water, but it is is right for five-year-old children.

At this age, they are learning to make observations to make sense of the world around them through curious play. Children may lack a full understanding of complicated topics until they are capable of proportional reasoning.

In junior high school, students learn about Newtons Laws of Motion through various experiments. These typically use traditional equipment such as trolleys, pulleys and weights, as well as online interactives.

In senior years, students examine uniform acceleration and its causes. As well as performing first-hand investigations, such as launching balls in the air and using video analysis, students need higher mathematical skills to deal with the algebra involved. Strictly speaking, they should take into account friction, but ignoring it is normal at this level.

Online simulations are particularly good for this topic. Our research has shown simulations can have a statistically significant and positive effect on student learning, particularly with the student-centred opportunities they present. (They are also very useful while learning from home in lockdown.)

Have a go at the simulation below.

Read more: Students with laptops did better in HSC science

Students then extend their learning to Newtons Universal Law of Gravitation. Students now need to apply higher mathematical skills, with further algebra and potentially calculus. Although this model is incomplete, and cannot explain the orbit of Mercury (among other things), this knowledge was enough to get us to the Moon and back.

Getting beyond Newtonian physics and its limitations, undergraduate students learn Einsteins General Theory of Relativity where gravity is not thought of as a force between two objects, but as the warping of spacetime by masses. To tackle this content, students need the mathematical prowess to solve Einsteins nonlinear field equations.

So have we finally reached the correct view? No, general relativity does not provide a complete explanation. Theoretical physicists are working on a quantum theory of gravity. Despite a century of searching, we still have no way to reconcile gravity and quantum mechanics. Even this is an unfinished model.

Read more: Approaching zero: super-chilled mirrors edge towards the borders of gravity and quantum physics

Teachers arent wrong, they are being appropriately incomplete, just as Einstein was incomplete. So how can we avoid such accusations?

Perhaps the answer lies in the language we use in the classroom. Rather than say This is how it is we should instead say One way of looking at it is , or One way to model this is , not as a matter of opinion, but as a matter of complexity. This allows the teacher to discuss the model or idea, while hinting at a deeper reality.

Is Einstein actually wrong? Of course not, but it is important to realise that our models of forces and gravity are incomplete, as with most of science, hence the academic pursuit of higher knowledge.

More importantly, our teachers understand the process of introducing students to increasingly sophisticated models so they better understand the universe we live in. This matches their cognitive development through childhood.

Learning is a journey, not simply the end point. As the aphorism attributed to Einstein states, Everything should be as simple as it can be, but not simpler.

This article was co-authored by Paul Looyen, Head of Science at Macarthur Anglican School and Content Creator at PhysicsHigh.

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Einstein was 'wrong', not your science teacher - M - The Conversation AU

With the passing last month of Steven Weinberg, the world lost a great theoretical physicist. Born to Jewish parents in New York in 1933, Weinberg received the Nobel Prize in 1979 for unifying two of the four fundamental forces of physics, the electromagnetic and weak nuclear forces. His proposed unification, later confirmed by experiment, proved key to the development of the Standard Model of particle physics, the best current theory of fundamental physics and our guide to the strange world of elementary particles. In addition, Weinberg made seminal contributions to quantum theory, general relativity and cosmology.

His death also marks the twilight of an increasingly dated view of the relationship between science and religion. Though Weinberg was a friend to the State of Israel, he was not sympathetic to Judaism or any theistic belief. Weinberg wrote many popular books about physics in which he often asserted that scientific advance had undermined belief in God and, consequently, any ultimate meaning for human existence. The First Three Minutes, his most popular book published in 1977, famously concluded: the more the universe seems comprehensible, the more it seems pointless.

Weinbergs aggressive science-based atheism now seems an increasingly spent force. Since 1977, Carl Sagan, Richard Dawkins, Stephen Hawking, Victor Stenger, Lawrence Krauss and many other scientists have published popular anti-theistic broadsides. Many of these stalwarts have since passed from the scene. Others have so overplayed their hands with overt attacks on religion that they have provoked even fellow atheists and agnostics to recoil.

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Figures such as historian Tom Holland, social critic Douglas Murray, psychologist Jordan Peterson and social scientist Charles Murray now openly lament the loss of a religious mooring in culture, though they personally find themselves unable to believe. These New New Atheists, as distinct from the Old New Atheists, do not regard sciences alleged support for unbelief as one of its great achievements, as Weinberg described it.

Nevertheless, many such religious skeptics have yet to recognize the most important reason to reject science-based atheistic polemics: The most relevant scientific discoveries of the last century simply do not support atheism or materialism. Instead, they point in a decidedly different direction.

In The First Three Minutes, Weinberg described in detail the conditions of the universe just after the Big Bang. But he never attempted to explain what caused the Big Bang itself.

Nor could he. If the physical universe of matter, energy, space and time had a beginning as observational astronomy and theoretical physics have increasing suggested it becomes extremely difficult to conceive of an adequate physical or materialistic cause for the origin of the universe. After all, it was matter and energy that first came into existence at the Big Bang. Before that, no matter or energy no physics would have yet existed that could have caused the universe to begin.

Such considerations have led other prominent scientists such as Israeli physicist Gerald Schroeder and the late Caltech astronomer Allan Sandage to affirm an external creator beyond space and time as the best explanation for the origin of the universe. The logic of this view made Weinberg initially reluctant to accept the Big Bang and inclined him, instead, to favor the rival steady state theory. As he explained before coming around, the steady state is philosophically the most attractive theory because it least resembles the account given in Genesis.

Fellow Nobel laureate and physicist Arno Penzias whose discovery of the cosmic background radiation helped kindle Weinbergs interest in Big Bang cosmology noted the obvious connection between the Big Bang and the concept of divine creation. As he argued, the best data we have are exactly what I would have predicted had I nothing to go on but the first five books of Moses, the Psalms and the Bible as a whole.

Weinberg also brilliantly used anthropic reasoning to estimate the value of the cosmological constant the outward pushing, anti-gravity force responsible for the expansion of the universe from its singular beginning. He showed that if we assume the universe needed to produce life, then the cosmological constant had to fall within a narrow, highly improbable and otherwise unexpected range as has proven to be the case.

To explain such extreme fine tuning without recourse to a transcendent fine-tuner, Weinberg favored the postulation of a multiplicity of other universes, an idea he acknowledged as speculative. The multiverse concept portrays our universe as the outcome of a grand lottery in which some universe-generating mechanism spits out trillions and trillions of universes so many that our universe with its improbable combination of life-conducive factors would eventually have to arise.

Yet, multiverse advocates overlook an obvious problem. All such proposals posit universe generating mechanisms that themselves require prior unexplained fine-tuning thus, taking us back to the need for an ultimate fine-tuner.

On his passing, Scientific Americans tribute to Weinberg described how scientifically literate people need to learn to live in Steven Weinbergs pointless universe. Yet Weinbergs own research built upon, or helped to make, two key scientific discoveries the universe had a beginning and has been finely-tuned from the beginning that do not imply a purposeless cosmos. Arguably, they point, instead, to a purposeful creator behind it all.

The writer is director of Discovery Institutes Center for Science & Culture and the author most recently of Return of the God Hypothesis: Three Scientific Discoveries That Reveal the Mind Behind the Universe.

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Steven Weinberg and the twilight of the godless universe - The Jerusalem Post

Department of Physics

Grade 7: - 33,797 to 35,845 per annumFixed Term - Full TimeContract Duration: 36 monthContracted Hours per Week: 35Closing Date: 27-Aug-2021, 6:59:00 AM

Durham University

Durham University is one of the world's top universities with strengths across the Arts and Humanities, Sciences and Social Sciences. We are home to some of the most talented scholars and researchers from around the world who are tackling global issues and making a difference to people's lives.

The University sits in a beautiful historic city where it shares ownership of a UNESCO World Heritage Site with Durham Cathedral, the greatest Romanesque building in Western Europe. A collegiate University, Durham recruits outstanding students from across the world and offers an unmatched wider student experience.

Less than 3 hours north of London, and an hour and a half south of Edinburgh, County Durham is a region steeped in history and natural beauty. The Durham Dales, including the North Pennines Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, are home to breathtaking scenery and attractions. Durham offers an excellent choice of city, suburban and rural residential locations. The University provides a range of benefits including pension and childcare benefits and the Universitys Relocation Manager can assist with potential schooling requirements.

Durham University seeks to promote and maintain an inclusive and supportive environment for work and study that assists all members of our University community to reach their full potential. Diversity brings strength and we welcome applications from across the international, national and regional communities that we work with and serve.

The Department

The Department of Physics at Durham University is one of the leading UK Physics departments with an outstanding reputation for excellence in teaching, research, and employability.

The Department is committed to advancing equality and we aim to ensure that our culture is inclusive, and that our systems support flexible and family-friendly working, as recognized by our Juno Champion and Athena SWAN Silver awards.

We recognise and value the benefits of diversity throughout our staff and students.

The Role

A Postdoctoral Research Associate position is available to pursue experimental research in the field of atomic and laser physics within the Durham Atomic and Molecular Physics group. The position is associated with an existing experiment funded by the UK Engineering and Physical Science Research Council (EPSRC) focused on Quantum Optics using Rydberg atoms.

The post holder will be expected to display the initiative and creativity, together with the appropriate skills and knowledge, required to lead and develop the existing experiment to meet the project goals. The post holder will be expected to be familiar with the ultra-stable lasers, and have experience in atomic physics, quantum optics or laser cooling and trapping. The post holder is expected to be able to work effectively both independently and as part of a small research team. It is expected that the post holder will enhance the international contacts of the group through the presentation of work at international conferences. The post holder will also be expected to aid in the supervision of graduate students within the group as well as contributing to the undergraduate teaching within the Department.

The goal of the Rydberg project is to realise strong photon interactions with a high fidelity (preservation of properties of the incoming photons). The successful candidate will be required to take a lead role in all aspects of their project, contributing directly to the experiment and working closely with Prof Charles Adams, Prof Kevin Weatherill, project partners, and graduate students as well as other members of the research group and will be expected to undertake an active role in the laboratory activity

The Department of Physics is committed to building and maintaining a diverse and inclusive environment. It is pledged to the Athena SWAN charter, where we hold a silver award, and has the status of IoP Juno Champion. We embrace equality and particularly welcome applications from women, black and minority ethnic candidates, and members of other groups that are under-represented in physics. Durham University provides a range of benefits including pension, flexible and/or part time working hours, shared parental leave policy and childcare provision.

Responsibilities

The post is for a fixed term of 36 months as it is associated with an existing experiment with fixed-term funding from the UK Engineering and Physical Science Researcher Council (EPSRC) focused on Quantum Optics using Ryberg atoms.

The post-holder is employed to work on research/a research project which will be led by another colleague. Whilst this means that the post-holder will not be carrying out independent research in his/her own right, the expectation is that they will contribute to the advancement of the project, through the development of their own research ideas/adaptation and development of research protocols.

Successful applicants will ideally be in post by 1st October 2021.

How to Apply

For informal enquiries please contact Kevin Weatherill (K.j.weatherill@durham.ac.uk).All enquiries will be treated in the strictest confidence.

The Joint Quantum Centre (JQC) is one of the UKs leading centres for atomic, molecular and optical physics research. Members of the JQC span the Physics and Chemistry Departments at Durham University and the Applied Mathematics Department at Newcastle University. Projects within the JQC investigate experimental and theoretical topics ranging from laser cooling and Bose-Einstein Condensation to nonlinear optics and Rydberg physics. The atomic and molecular physics group in the Department of Physics comprises 10 faculty, 11 post-doctoral researchers and 22 Ph.D. students. Further details of the research activities of the group can be found athttp://www.jqc.org.uk/

We prefer to receive applications online via the Durham University Vacancies Site.https://www.dur.ac.uk/jobs/. As part of the application process, you should provide details of 3 (preferably academic/research) referees and the details of your current line manager so that we may seek an employment reference.

Applications are particularly welcome from women and black and minority ethnic candidates, who are under-represented in academic posts in theUniversity.

What to Submit

All applicants are asked to submit:

Next Steps

Shortlisted candidates will be invited for interview and assessments.

The Requirements

Essential Criteria:

Desirable Criteria:

DBS Requirement:Not Applicable.

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Postdoctoral Research Associate in Quantum Light and Matter job with DURHAM UNIVERSITY | 262887 - Times Higher Education (THE)

An artists impression of Tcc+, a tetraquark composed of two charm quarks and an up and a down antiquark. Credit: CERN

Discovery of a new exotic hadron containing two charm quarks and an up and a down antiquark.

Recently, the Large Hadron Collider beauty (LHCb) experiment at CERN presented a new discovery at the European Physical Society Conference on High Energy Physics (EPS-HEP). The new particle discovered by LHCb, labeled as Tcc+, is a tetraquark an exotic hadron containing two quarks and two antiquarks. It is the longest-lived exotic matter particle ever discovered, and the first to contain two heavy quarks and two light antiquarks.

Quarks are the fundamental building blocks from which matter is constructed. They combine to form hadrons, namely baryons, such as the proton and the neutron, which consist of three quarks, and mesons, which are formed as quark-antiquark pairs. In recent years a number of so-called exotic hadrons particles with four or five quarks, instead of the conventional two or three have been found. Todays discovery is of a particularly unique exotic hadron, an exotic exotic hadron if you like.

The new particle contains two charm quarks and an up and a down antiquark. Several tetraquarks have been discovered in recent years (including one with two charm quarks and two charm antiquarks), but this is the first one that contains two charm quarks, without charm antiquarks to balance them. Physicists call this open charm (in this case, double open charm). Particles containing a charm quark and a charm antiquark have hidden charm the charm quantum number for the whole particle adds up to zero, just like a positive and a negative electrical charge would do. Here the charm quantum number adds up to two, so it has twice the charm!

The quark content of Tcc+ has other interesting features besides being open charm. It is the first particle to be found that belongs to a class of tetraquarks with two heavy quarks and two light antiquarks. Such particles decay by transforming into a pair of mesons, each formed by one of the heavy quarks and one of the light antiquarks. According to some theoretical predictions, the mass of tetraquarks of this type should be very close to the sum of masses of the two mesons. Such proximity in mass makes the decay difficult, resulting in a longer lifetime of the particle, and indeed Tcc+ is the longest-lived exotic hadron found to date.

The discovery paves the way for a search for heavier particles of the same type, with one or two charm quarks replaced by bottom quarks. The particle with two bottom quarks is especially interesting: according to calculations, its mass should be smaller than the sum of the masses of any pair of B mesons. This would make the decay not only unlikely, but actually forbidden: the particle would not be able to decay via the strong interaction and would have to do so via the weak interaction instead, which would make its lifetime several orders of magnitude longer than any previously observed exotic hadron.

The new Tcc+ tetraquark is an enticing target for further study. The particles that it decays into are all comparatively easy to detect and, in combination with the small amount of the available energy in the decay, this leads to an excellent precision on its mass and allows the study of the quantum numbers of this fascinating particle. This, in turn, can provide a stringent test for existing theoretical models and could even potentially allow previously unreachable effects to be probed.

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Twice the Charm: Long-Lived Exotic Particle Discovered at Large Hadron Collider - SciTechDaily

CQ has implemented a quantum safe security layer in LACChain to protect the system from future quantum computers.

Image: Shutterstock

It may be only a matter of time before the quantum computer decrypts the cryptographic keys that support sensitive data and cryptocurrencies on the blockchain network. Currently, Quantum software company Cambridge Quantum (CQ) says it has developed a quantum-safe method that can guarantee the blockchain in the future by making the system vulnerable to quantum attacks.

CQ has partnered with the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) and its Innovation Lab IDB Lab. IDB Labs is actively investing in blockchain technology to support social and economic applications in Latin America and the Caribbean.

Specifically, IDB Lab has developed LAC Chain, a blockchain platform used by more than 50 organizations in the region, from cross-border e-money payments to data exchange between customs authorities in different countries. Did.

look: What is Quantum Computing?Everything you need to know about the strange world of quantum computers

CQ has implemented a quantum safe security layer in LACChain to protect the system from future quantum computers.

To that end, CQ has deployed its own off-the-shelf platform called Iron Bridge on LAC Chain.

Blockchains vulnerability to quantum computers results from its widespread reliance on encryption.

This technology, also known as a distributed ledger, is essentially a computing system where information is securely logged and shared and synchronized between participants networks. The system is dynamically updated through messages called transactions, and each participant can have a verified copy of the systems current state and the entire transaction history.

Strict security protocols are required for this type of distributed data sharing system to work. This is necessary not only to protect information and communications within the sensitive blockchain, but also to verify the identity of participants, such as by digital signatures.

These protocols currently rely on classic cryptographic keys to convert information into mashes that are unreadable to anyone but the intended recipient. The encryption key is used to encrypt the data. The data can only be read by someone who has the appropriate key to decode the message.

Therefore, the strength of the encryption depends on how difficult it is for a malicious attacker to decode the key. Also, to make life difficult for hackers, security protocols now rely on algorithms such as RSA and digital signature algorithms to generate the most complex encryption keys possible. As a general rule, these keys can only be decrypted by processing a huge number of numbers.

Thats why its too difficult to decode most cryptographic protocols today at least on classic computers. However, one day a quantum computer, which is expected to have exponential computing power, could eventually decipher all the security keys generated by the most established classical algorithms. I have.

Quantum computers are still emerging technologies and are not yet mature enough to reveal secrets. However, scientists have already identified several quantum algorithms, Shors algorithms, which can eventually break existing security protocols.

look: Supercomputers are becoming another cloud service.This is what it means

Alexander Lvovsky, a professor of physics at Oxford University, therefore says that quantum computers pose a threat to blockchain security processes such as digital signatures.

Using Shors algorithm, a quantum attacker can calculate a users private key based on a signed message. This is not possible with traditional computers, and thus the required party. You can impersonate, says Lvovsky. ZDNet.

Quantum computers in the hands of hackers can have dramatic consequences for the important information currently stored. For example, hundreds of billions of dollars denominated in cryptocurrencies rely on blockchain ledgers, and the World Economic Forum estimates that 10% of GDP could be stored on blockchain by 2027.

This could one day be at risk of a quantum attack. A recent analysis by Deloitte estimates that more than $ 40 billion in quantum attacks can now steal a quarter of all Bitcoins.

Therefore, CQ and IDB worked together to deploy what is called post-quantum cryptography on the blockchain. This is a form of cryptography adapted to the world where quantum computers are no longer the future.

There are many ways to deal with post-quantum cryptography, but all approaches basically consist of making the encryption key harder to crack, even on a quantum computer. This requires additional randomness or entropy. In fact, purely randomly generated keys are much more difficult to decode than keys that are the result of mathematical operations that can be reverse engineered on a powerful computer.

Quantum computers can take advantage of the special non-deterministic properties of quantum mechanics to generate this true randomness, although classical algorithms rely on mathematics. CQ took advantage of this to create the IronBridge platform. The platform uses these quantum processes to create random numbers and even more secure encryption keys.

IronBridge has been successfully used with LAC Chain to protect communications and protect digital signatures. The LAC Chain blockchain was an ideal target for the keys generated by the IronBridge platform, said Duncan Jones, CQs Head of Quantum Cyber Security. Only keys generated from certified quantum entropy can withstand the threat of quantum computing.

look: Bigger Quantum Computers, Faster: This new idea could be the shortest route to real-world apps

CQ has rolled out Ironbridge as a Layer 2 service. In other words, it is on top of the original architecture of the LACChain blockchain and can be adapted to other systems.

Even if large quantum computers are still a bit far away, this announcement could address the concerns of blockchain users. Whether five, ten, or fifteen years later, quantum computers can crack the security protocols that currently protect information. In short, sensitive information currently stored on the blockchain is at risk of future hacking.

The security currently used on most blockchains is vulnerable to quantum attacks, Deloittes quantum specialist Itan Barmes told ZDNet. No one knows when these attacks will be feasible. Estimates range from 5 to 30 years. On the other hand, the transition to Quantum Safe solutions is expected to take years, which is a problem. Ignoring is an unnecessary risk.

Blockchain isnt the only way to prepare for the future of cryptography. Governments around the world are also rushing to develop post-encryption protocols, as there is growing concern that information about defense and national security may one day be revealed by quantum computers.

The UKs National Cyber Security Center, for example, has long said that it needs to end its reliance on classical cryptography. While in the United States, the National Security Agency is currently investigating several algorithms that may improve the resilience of encryption keys.

Quantum computers can threaten the security of the blockchain.These new defenses may be the answer

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Quantum computers can threaten the security of the blockchain.These new defenses may be the answer - Texasnewstoday.com