Physics Archives - Page 8 of 21 - Scitke

No, Chinese Quantum Computers Have not Broken Military-Grade Encryption

Recent headlines claim Chinese researchers used D-Wave quantum computers to hack RSA, AES, and “military-grade encryption.” This is both true and misleading. A May 2024 white paper in the Chinese Journal of Computers details how researchers used D-Wave’s quantum annealing to factor RSA-protected integers using Ising and QUBO models. The paper reports successful decryption of […]

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Nobel Prize in Physics: How Hopfield and Hinton’s AI Transformed Our World

Physics / Marcílio Santos

If you’ve enjoyed an AI-generated video, fraud protection, or voice-to-text, you can thank scientists like physicist John Hopfield and computer scientist Geoffrey Hinton. On Oct. 8, 2024, they received the Nobel Prize in Physics for their pioneering work on artificial neural networks, which, though inspired by biology, relied heavily on statistical physics. How neurons compute

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Scientists Finally Uncover What Really Happens When an Atom Splits

The term “atom,” derived from Latin for “indivisible,” can be misleading. A recent simulation by U.S. theoretical physicists has provided a detailed microscopic view of how an atom splits in two, shedding light on an energetic event that has significantly impacted science and technology. In 1938, physicists Otto Hahn, Lise Meitner, and Fritz Strassmann demonstrated

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Physicists Create Sound Waves That Move Exclusively in One Direction

Physics / Ngoma Manuel

Imagine three people arranged in a circle, where each can only hear one other directly. Scientists have created a device that directs sound waves in just this way, allowing them to travel in a single direction only. Developed by researchers at ETH Zurich and the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne, the device consists of

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Nuclear Fusion vs. Fission: A Physicist Clarifies the Distinction

Physics / Mauro Lucas

Nuclear power generates about 10% of the world’s electricity, with countries like France relying on it for nearly 70%. Tech giants like Google are also turning to nuclear energy to power their demanding data centers. The energy for nuclear power comes from atomic binding energy, released through two primary processes: fission and fusion. Fission splits

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High School Students Publish Impossible Proofs of Pythagoras Theorem

Physics / Salomão André

What started as a bonus question in a high school math competition has led to an astonishing 10 new proofs of the ancient Pythagorean theorem. It has long been considered impossible to use trigonometry to demonstrate a theorem that is foundational to trigonometric principles, as this creates a logical fallacy of circular reasoning by attempting

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Study Proposes Diamond Injection to Cool the Planet

Physics, Science / Samilton Santos

Heist movies are rarely about solving climate change, and for good reason. It’s hard to imagine George Clooney racing down the highway with a truckload of stolen diamonds, saying, “Hey, let’s crush these sparkly gems into powder and scatter them through the stratosphere to cool the planet.” Calculating Diamonds for Global Cooling However, a team

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Two Scientists Won the Nobel Prize in Physics for Discoveries Enabling Machine Learning

Physics, Science / Jorge Paka

John Hopfield and Geoffrey Hinton, two pioneers of artificial intelligence, were awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics on Tuesday for their contributions to the foundation of machine learning, which is transforming how we live and work, while also posing new risks to humanity. Geoffrey Hinton, known as the godfather of artificial intelligence, is a dual

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Superconductivity Breakthrough: Frictionless Flow of Edge State Atoms

Physics, Science / Marcílio Santos

MIT scientists have successfully guided atoms into a unique “edge state” for the first time, enabling them to move without any friction. This breakthrough could pave the way for improved superconductor materials. When electrons pass through various materials, they experience varying degrees of resistance. Insulators block most movement, semiconductors permit some, conductors allow a significant

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World’s First Nuclear Clock May Outperform Atomic Clocks

Experimental Physics, Physics / Salomão André

Atomic clocks are currently the most precise timekeepers, losing only seconds over billions of years. However, nuclear clocks could potentially surpass them, enhancing GPS and internet technologies. Scientists have now developed and tested the first prototype nuclear clock. Atomic clocks measure time by counting the vibrations of specific atoms, which are highly consistent. For example,

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