We're Ending Our Coverage, But Science Goes On
Inside Science is reaching the end of a decades-long journey, showcasing the science behind the discoveries and the headlines.
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Inside Science has shared the wonder and excitement of science with curious readers, viewers and listeners for well over 30 years. Our stories have appeared in many forms of media, from vinyl records to videotapes to our current website. Through all those changes, our staff and contributors have strived to produce engaging, resonant stories about how research and reason benefit humanity, and we've been so pleased to share them with you.
It's with great sadness that the team and I share that we will cease publishing new articles, videos and other content on March 31. That's because the organization that founded Inside Science, the American Institute of Physics, has decided to reallocate its finite resources to further support advancing the physical sciences.
Our team has reached many millions of people over the years, both via our own channels and through syndication to major media outlets. It's been a privilege to be involved with this publication, and I'll certainly miss connecting with our audience and working with the many people who have contributed to its rich history. I'll also miss the chance to develop special projects like this, exploration of the incredible potential of quantum science in the 21st century. Many scientists believe we are poised to develop new quantum technology with the power to transform society. Inside Science has created a guide to help interested readers make sense of the prophecies. Click on the image below to explore key quantum issues and learn about the history and future of a world-changing field.
While researchers continue to make quantum computers increasingly capable, regular computers still hold a massive advantage: Their data, represented in sequences of zeros and ones, can ride the information superhighway. Quantum computers, which instead run on quantum superposition of zeros and ones, can’t use the internet to communicate with each other.
Multiple projects across the world are working to create a “quantum internet,” a network where quantum computers can share and exchange information. One such project, a collaboration between Brookhaven National Lab and Stony Brook University in New York, recently hit a major milestone: demonstrating that quantum bits, or cubits, from two distant quantum computers can be entangled in a third location. This is a critical step in creating a quantum internet, and significantly, the researchers did it over standard internet cables. Similarly, the “quantum internet” will not be a superfast and secure version of today’s internet. Instead, it will likely have particular applications transferring quantum information between computers. To do this, the computers’ cubits are entangled, meaning they are put in a superposition in which their separate possible quantum states become dependent on each other and the cubits then become a single quantum system. Measuring the state of one of these cubits breaks the superposition, immediately influencing the state of the others -- and this measurement is his quantum information can be transmitted. Entanglement between two quantum computers has been experimentally possible for several years, but the team at Brookhaven and Stony Brook has gone one step further: They have created the longest quantum network in the United States by showing that two quantum computers can be entangled using a third node. This is the first step in building a network where many computers can “talk” to each other through a central node.
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