Scientists use quantum device to slow chemical process down by 100 billion times
www.sydney.edu.au
In a world-first experimental result, scientists at the University of Sydney have used a quantum computer to coax an atom to behave the same way as a photo-chemical process that underpins the speed of human vision and solar energy harvesting - only at speeds 100 billion times slower than in nature.

New research - and a world-first experimental result - display the potential for using quantum technology to explore new designs in material science, drugs or solar energy harvesting.

  • CubbyTustard@reddthat.com
    8·
    1 year ago

    that article says that they did a thing but never comes close to even trying to explain how they did the thing!

    How did a quantum computer slow the chemical processes down so they could be observed? The wind tunnel analogy gives some clue to how they observed things but nothing even hints at what the computer was doing to slow the reactions.

    • elouboub@kbin.social
      6·
      1 year ago

      Very frustrating.

      This allowed them to design and map this very complicated problem onto a relatively small quantum device ­– and then slow the process down by a factor of 100 billion.

      What does this even mean???

    • CanadaPlus@lemmy.sdf.org
      5·
      1 year ago

      It was simulated on the quantum “device”. Source: it pretty much says so in the article description. The atom singular mentioned here would be the quantum memory.

      A very clickbaity and misleading choice of headline, which is unbecoming of an actual university.

      • CubbyTustard@reddthat.com
        4·
        1 year ago

        this pull quote

        “Our experiment wasn’t a digital approximation of the process – this was a direct analogue observation of the quantum dynamics unfolding at a speed we could observe,”

        really makes it sound like it wasn’t a simulation but I believe you are right it’s just all misleadingly worded

        • CanadaPlus@lemmy.sdf.org
          5·
          1 year ago

          It sounds like it was an analogue simulation as opposed to a digital one, then, but they don’t want to use the s-word. It definitely didn’t involve an actual rhodopsin molecule or whatever.

    • Bebo@discuss.onlineOP
      2·
      1 year ago

      Tried to access the journal article but it’s pay walled. The abstract doesn’t explain much.