Course: “Quantum Computing for laymen”!

Incredible opportunity offered by Unicamp.

The Unicamp extension school, EXTECAMP, is now open for registration for an amazing opportunity for those who want to study further and deeper into quantum computing.

The course “Quantum Computing for Laymen” is now accepting applications until 11/16/22, targeting undergraduate and graduate students, enthusiasts in the field and professionals from various sectors. Registration can be made through this link.

This rare opportunity is being coordinated by professor Dr. Marcos Cesar de Oliveira, from the Institute of Physics “Gleb Wataghin” (IFGW) at Unicamp, as well as by researcher Dr. Luiz Gustavo Esmenard Arruda and professor of the Department of Physics and Meteorology of Unesp-Bauru, Felipe F. Fanchini.

The course has a workload of 60 hours, being 50 theoretical hours and 10 practical hours, with classes taught in portuguese, on 15 Saturdays from 8:00 a.m. to 12:00 a.m. (Brasília time). It is important to point out that the course will be taught virtually through Google Meet and Google Classrom, thus increasing the access possibilities for those who are not able to be in the city of Campinas, in the state of São Paulo.

The course will start on 11/26/22 and will end on 03/11/23, being a deep and complete course, covering from physical and mathematical aspects of quantum computing such as tensor product, quantum bits, vector spaces, to practical aspects of programming using Qiskit, quantum cryptography, cybersecurity and much more! The complete course outline can be found at this link.

The course has limited vacancies to a maximum of 60 students, so those interested should not leave it to the last minute to check the institution’s website for enrollment. The values for investing in the course, enrollment, and other information can be found at this link.

Other contact forms (Monday through Friday, from 9:00 AM to 5:00 PM in Brasília time zone):

• Email: extecamp@extecamp.unicamp.br
• Telephone: +55 (19)3521-4646/ or +55 (19)3521-4647

For readers of the blog, there is still a possibility of a 15% discount on the overall course price by writing to the email: quantumknowledge137@gmail.com

We would like to congratulate Unicamp’s extension school, EXTECAMP, for offering this unique study opportunity for those who want to deepen their knowledge in this area that is so strategic for the future of computing, organizations, business, and various aspects of society.

Bell’s State

During our research on quantum computing, we came across the words “Bell states” a lot. We think, then we ask: Where is this country called Bell? What is your capital? How many states should it has? How many people live in it? Does it have a bell shape? Or is it a bell with several states? 😱

Searching the internet we found that it is actually a theorem.

John Stewart Bell, Irish from Belfast and born in 1928, since he was a child he was interested in the sciences graduating as first in the class in experimental Physics in the year 1948 at Queen’s University Belfast. At the same university, he stayed another year as a student obtaining his second degree in Mathematics of Physics, again as first in the class. Economic needs made him postpone studies on the conceptual bases of quantum theory to work at the UK Atomic Research Establishment in Harwell on the accelerator project. In this project he met Marie Ross whom he married in 1954 and was his companion until the day of his death in 1990.

John S. Bell in Class

In the 1960s, John S. Bell formulated a quantum theorem, based on the contribution of hidden variables made by Bohm challenging the studies of Von Neumann, where Bell constructed his own hidden measurement variable of any component. This allowed the experiment to be simpler, more difficult to ignore and to demonstrate more clearly what Von Neumann’s argument was wrong. To learn more about Bell’s theorem.

QM News 01

Quantum Communications

Hello quantum people!

Continuing the posts of the most relevant quantum news on the world stage (and who knows about the multiple universes), this year we are changing the way we give them. Instead of indicating the month and year as we were doing, we will start to number them and adopt the initials of our beloved, esteemed and idolized blog (bless, bless) for its title. Following Moore’s law, this is our first issue of the new quantum age!

Quantum Research

Speaking of multiple universes, we will start with them. Two Russian physicists at the Federal Baltic University Immanuel Kant (IKBFU), Artyam Yurov and Valerian Yurov, proposed through their recent studies that the universe is a large quantum computer that interacts with several universes, that is, we would be a subatomic particle living a simulation. This indicates that our universe would be in a state of superposition with other universes and, therefore, interacting with them. They claim that math and science work best if we take into account that everything has quantum characteristics. Do we already live on a large quantum computer? In our review, Seth Lloyd in his book “Programming The Universe” theorizes the idea that the universe is a large quantum computer.

In November last year, the FAPESP Week France symposium took place, which brought together researchers from the State of São Paulo and the University of Lion, whose subject of the presentations were the physical phenomena and the manipulation of light for the transmission of information. Marcelo Martinelli and Paulo Nussenzveig from IF-USP (USP Physics Institute), presented the results of the entanglement experiment with 6 light waves generated by a laser source, called the Optical Parametric Oscillator (OPO).

Quantum News – October/2019

We’re back with the most relevant news from the quantum world this October 2019.

We will begin by talking briefly about the quantum controversy that is in the air, reverberating in the many parallel universes between the giants Google and IBM. Google claims to have achieved quantum supremacy through the Sycamore quantum computer experiment, but IBM strongly disagree. Click and check out the full post on the topic at: Quantum World Polemic – Google x IBM: Who’s Reasoning in Quantum Supremacy.

Summit x Sycamore: the battle of decade

In response to Google, IBM Research unveiled Oct. 25 a new nanotechnology technique that lets you position each atom and control its properties. The technique uses an STM (Scan Tunnel Microscope) with a needle-like instrument to find and push atoms. Scientists used microwave explosions sent from the tip of the STM to organize, sort and direct atoms. These explosions force the atoms to rotate as desired and thus were able to simulate quantum entanglement by creating a qubit. If you would like to read the article published in Science and have access, click on the following link: Coherent spin manipulation of individual atoms on a surface.

Simple titanium atom being controlled by the STM needle on top

Fernando Brandão – A Brazilian in Quantum Lands

With all this frenzy around quantum supremacy, was not missed the little finger (the hand, the arm, the mind… wand so on…) of a Brazilian who was not afraid to face this very strange world in the middle of strange people too. This is Brazilian Fernando Brandão.

Professor Fernando Brandão

California Institute of Technology (Caltech) faculty physicist Fernando Brandão, at age 36, contributed to the development of Google Sycamore’s quantum computer that solved in 200 seconds an issue that would take 10,000 years for classic computers to solve. If you, dear reader, were not in another world, you may have heard this news, but visit this link to learn more about quantum supremacy.

But who is professor Fernando Brandão? What parallel universe did he come from? Because here in Brazil we can’t get a ham sandwich to encourage anyone to reach this level… He is from planet Earth, more precisely from Minas Gerais, Brazil!!! After graduating in physics, he discovered quantum computing on the internet. From then on, he completed his master’s degree in entanglement at UFMG in 2005 and left for his doctorate at the Imperial College in London, England, funded by the CNPQ, between 2005 and 2008. He continued in England where he did his postdoctoral degree and before taking up his post. from Caltech’s division of physical theory, mathematics and astronomy in 2015, he traveled the world through Switzerland, doing another basic postdoc at UFMG and Microsoft’s Redmond division.

Caltech

Recognized by the American Physical Society (APS), winning the Rolf Landauer and Charles H. Bennett Prize for their research in Quantum Entanglement Theory and the intersection of commutation, thermodynamics and quantum theory of multibody systems (whatever you want say with it), Fernando aims to study and build computers capable of solving complex systems using quantum physics.

Quantum World Polemic – Google x IBM: Who’s Reasoning in Quantum Supremacy

Extra!! Extra!! Extra!!! Quantum world polemic is cutting heads.

The Article

On October 23, 1919 Google published an article in the journal Nature with the result of 5 years of study stating that it achieved quantum supremacy by being able to perform a mathematical calculation in three minutes and twenty seconds on the 53 qubit quantum computer called Sycamore, which it would take 10,000 years to be done by a classic computer. The result will still be discussed by the scientific community. It’s the same incomplete study published on NASA’s website erroneously (may only have been the intern) in September of that same year. In addition to Google’s funding, the survey brought together 76 researchers from 10 different institutions such as NASA, Google research, Caltech, and US and German universities such as Massachussets and California in Santa Barbara. The article is available at this link.

The Machine of Discord

Although Google developed a 72-qubit processor in early 2018, the 53-qubit processor received more focus because its results came close to quantum supremacy. In addition, the 72-qubit processor showed great instability due to a design error. Such controversial quantum supremacy was achieved when the researchers were able to unravel the operation of a random number generator that would take 10,000 years to crack in the world’s most powerful supercomputer, the IBM Summit.

Although the chip is less than 2 cm, since each qubit measures about 1 millionth of a centimeter, it needs a 1.80 m x 60 cm diameter cooling system at -272.99 ° C through Helium gas to maintain the stability of the qubits, besides each one being fed by 3 cables destined to the signal amplification and elimination of possible interference. So big that it reminds us of our late ENIAC in the early days of computing …

In the early days of ENIAC, now Sycamore: nothing has changed

As far as we know, the team was divided into:

• Theory: responsible for developing the experiment to be performed on the quantum computer.
• Experiment: responsible for executing the experiment adjusting the ideal temperature and recalibrating the qubits. This process could take hours and even weeks to complete.
• Data Collectors: Responsible for collecting experiment data in Sycamore to be sent for analysis.
• Data Analysts: Responsible for analyzing data from a supercomputer experiment that may take a few days.

But to be able to use a quantum computer to solve real problems, it would take a few more qubits of Sycamore’s 53, like … 1 million qubits. When we get to that level, quantum computers will finally make the long-awaited world revolution! (And may chaos reign !!!) For now, we are in the phase of quantum computers with less than 100 qubits and no error correction.

Cloning or Not Cloning: That’s the Question!

In today’s post we will talk about cloning. In 1996, scientists dared to clone a sheep named Dolly. Conclusion: it presented telomeres shorter than normal sheep causing premature aging and incurable pulmonary problems, being sacrificed in February / 2003. Poor heretics, hahaha…¹

 

Any similarity in this cloning is mere coincidence…

In 2001 they were even bolder. They cloned a human being! By chance, everything worked out and he did not have any premature aging or pulmonary problems. The last thing we know is that the clone disappeared in the dunes along with its creator… But this only worked because the author of this novel decided that.

Original-creator-clone or Clone-creator-original?

– Oh, man… are you kidding me? To here to read quantum things and not to know of soap operas and sheep!

– Ah little Padawan, it’s all about it. Reality and fiction go hand in hand all the time …

Wootters, Zurek, and Dieks in 1982 have proven that it is impossible to create identical copies of an unknown quantum state, giving rise to the non-cloning theorem that is the basis for quantum cryptography. Before we get into the theorem and prove it, let’s copy a classic bit. For this we will use the CNOT port, we already talked about it in this post. 

Quantum Circuits

There are many types of circuit in the world: racing, integrated, electrical, electronic, quantum, logic, exercise, cultural events, fashion … even the circuit editor and let’s not forget the short circuit! (Bzzzt … Oops, beware!) But what is a circuit? According to the dictionary, a circuit is a closed line that delimits a perimeter. However, in this post we will stick to quantum logic circuits and their peculiarities. But first let’s take a brief tour of the classical logic circuits.

Some of the existing circuits in the world…

The classic logic circuits have some very clear characteristics like:

• Its behavior is governed by classical physics, where there are no restrictions on copying and measurements;
• Reading direction from left to right;
• The operations are performed by Boolean algebra;
• Converts sequences of n input bits into another sequence of n output bits according to the functions ƒ used;
• Its logical gates are well defined (AND, OR and NOT);
• They are fast and scalar;
• It is independent of the physical technology used in its implementation;
• Used by macroscopic technologies (transistors and ICs).

Let’s see how a classic logic circuit works with the following example.

Classic Logic Circuit

Using as input x = 0 and y = 0. Being x and y equal to 0 in an AND gate its output will be 1. The NOT gate receiving 0 on its input produces 1 on its output, so we have 1 and 1 as inputs on the OR gate. Consequently, the output in z will be 1, as shown in the truth table of the circuit.

Dirac Notation

One of the things that intrigued me in my studies of quantum computing was that I did not know which notation was this: |>. How do you read that? How do you pronounce it? The flea became a tortoise behind my ear, and it corroded my soul, and after a while I discovered what it was, it was Dirac’s notation. Our post today will talk about it, how it reads and how it represents vector operations.

Paul Dirac

In quantum physics, the physical state of a system is all the information obtainable from it, and can be represented by a complex wave function or by a state vector contained in a complex vector space. However, it is known that the representation of three-dimensional vector spaces of some elements, such as spins, is not possible. At this point comes the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1933 and pioneer of quantum physics and mechanics, Paul Dirac.

He grounded and introduced complex vector spaces by calling them kets, which represent a physical state of quantum mechanics containing all the information of that state. Kets are represented by the symbol “|>” and have a dual element of that state called bra represented by the symbol “<|”. The scalar product of this state can be represented by the symbol “<|>”, being called the brakets. The Dirac notation is also known as bracket notation.

The braket has some particularities like:

Quantum Cloud – Microsoft

Microsoft is another big company that has invested heavily in the advancements of quantum computing, trying to win quantum primacy. I have made predictions that in 5 years will have a practical quantum computer.

The company has launched a teaser, where it talks a little about the advances of the area, highlighting the immense computing power that quantum computing will provide. In addition, on its youtube channel, Microsoft Research provides dozens of videos and technical and scientific lectures on the area of quantum computing, available at this link.

Microsoft is investing in the field of quantum computing known as topology computing, using Majorana’s particular, including in its efforts a programming language, Q #, and a quantum simulator of 30 Qubits, all integrated with the Visual Studio programming environment of Microsoft. In the video below some details are demonstrated:

The company is also providing a quantum simulator, based on Azure, that can simulate more than 40 qubits. Microsoft has also made available, in this link, an extensive set of documentation, sample programs, and libraries in its kit. The kit is available at this link. More information is available on the official Microsoft website at this link.

References:
https://news.microsoft.com/pt-br/o-futuro-e-quantico-microsoft-libera-preview-gratuito-kit-de-desenvolvimento-quantico/
https://www.cbronline.com/news/microsoft-set-5-year-quantum-computing
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/quantum/