gravity

defy the laws of gravity

by

There is no need to brush up on school time to know that rivers originate in the mountains and literally fall to the sea. Essentially gravity takes care of everything. This is how all the rivers on the planet work. What’s more, if you yourself spill a glass of water on the floor you could discover if there is an unevenness. But sometimes there is fine print and it can confuse what at first seems logical. What’s wrong with the Green River?. Without going any further, the green river in Colorado (United States) It has been making the scientific community think for 157 years because this river flows against all odds through the Uinta Mountains (Wyoming/Utah) instead of around them to flow into the Colorado River. A recent study has found the solution to this mystery by investigating the geodynamic mechanism that makes it possible. The Green River in Utah. Droid41, CC BY-SA 3.0 The context. To understand why it is essential to talk before those Uinta Mountainsa most unusual mountain range in that it runs from east to west, unlike most of the United States, for almost 250 kilometers. With peaks up to 4,000 meters high, it is also the highest of those arranged in this way. The bulk of the US mountain ranges follow a North-South orientation due to the tectonic forces between the pacific plates and the north american plate. The Uintas are the most prominent case of transverse structure and their origin is due to much older faults that were reactivated. More specifically, the Uinta were formed about 50 million years ago. The Green River, for its part, traced its current channel less than 8 million years ago where there is something that draws attention: a canyon that the river eroded in the middle of the mountain range of about 700 meters in length, the Canyon of Lodore. The tributaries of the Colorado. Shannon – Background and river course data from DEMIS Mapserver and The National Map, both public domain, CC BY-SA 4.0 Better to cross than to go around. Rivers flow according to gravity, yes, but also following the path that offers least resistance (in general). Following this basis of geology, it seems a priori surprising that the Green decided to traverse the mountain range instead of through it. The canyon is a mechanical paradox in an environment without active compressive tectonics, that of the Uinta. The study and the discovery. Rivers have memories, so by studying their current shape you can reconstruct what the terrain was like before. To do this, they used a mathematical model (a 2D topographic inversion of the river networks) that allowed them to reconstruct the ancient topography. Then they detected a rise in the terrain of about 450 meters in the center of the mountain range with a circular pattern. This particularity was validated with a seismic tomographya type of terrestrial ultrasound that allows you to see hundreds of kilometers below the ground, which revealed a lithospheric blob. What is a lithospheric drop? A dense mass of mountain root that breaks off and sinks into the deep mantle, acting as an internal engine that deformed the surface and allowed the Green River to pass through the mountain barrier. The lead author of the study, Adam Smithhe explained in a press release that “We believe we have gathered enough evidence to demonstrate that lithospheric trickling is responsible for pulling up the terrain enough to allow rivers to link and merge” thus establishing the permanent channel that remains today. Why is it important. Because this geological event united two of the largest river systems in North America, thus modifying the drainage of the continent, which also has its implications at the level of biodiversity, as it allowed different species to interbreed. On the other hand, it is the umpteenth reminder that the Earth’s interior continues to shape the landscape, sometimes abruptly, in areas that seem geologically dead. How it all happened. With the Stokes’s Law and fluvial response time, they estimated that this landslide occurred 2.3 to 4.7 million years ago. The model suggests that this drip first generated a topographic subsidence that allowed the Green River to surpass the barrier of the mountains and begin its incision. When that dense root was removed, the isostatic and dynamic uplift that we see today was generated. In a sentence: first the mountain crouched down to let the river pass and then it rose abruptly, forcing the river to cut through the rock to maintain its course. In Xataka | The US has a plan for its rivers: bombard them with 6,000 logs from helicopters to fix a decades-old mistake In Xataka | Finally we have salmon without an environmental footprint, without overfishing and without microplastics. It’s just not salmon Cover | mypubliclands, CC BY 2.0 via Wikimedia

We knew that Mars has gravity. Now we have just discovered the unexpected effect it has on the Earth’s climate

by

I don’t need to tell you that the Earth’s climate is not constant and it is not just because of the climate change: If we look at it in perspective, throughout the history of the planet it has gone through glaciations and warm periods. Many of these changes find explanation in the Milankovitch cycles or orbital variations, that is, the slow changes in the Earth’s orbit and the inclination of its axis due to the gravitational attraction of other planets. The surprising influence of Mars. It was known that the giant Jupiter or the nearby Venus are largely to blame, but now we have discovered another secondary actor that has gained importance: Mars, as explained this study collected in Publications of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific and led by scientist Stephen Kane. What’s surprising about it? That Mars only has 10% of the mass of the Earth, hence there are simplified climate models that downplay its importance. The simulations. The hypothesis is: what would happen to the Earth’s orbit if Mars were much larger or did not exist? Since human research teams do not have millions of years to wait, they used simulations with a solar system model of ten million years each to study gravitational interactions. The only factor they changed in each simulation was the mass of Mars: from zero (Mars does not exist) to being ten times larger than Earth. Mars “weighs” much more than we think. And the results were conclusive: Mars is directly responsible for the “Great Cycle”, a 2.4 million year gravitational beat in which Mars rhythmically stretches and shrinks the Earth’s orbit, acting as a metronome that regulates the amount of solar radiation received and regulates the frequency of ice ages. Without Mars, that cycle would not exist. However, Kane nuance: “It doesn’t mean that without Mars the Earth wouldn’t have ice ages, but it would completely change the frequency with which they occur.” But if Mars were giant, Earth’s climate cycles would also change: they would be shorter and more extreme, going from an ice age to suffocating heat waves. In short, life adaptation would become more complicated. What would not change, according to the study, is the “great Jupiter – Venus cycle”, the 405,000-year gravitational pattern driven by a secular resonance of both planets that acts as the “master clock” of the Earth’s climate as it is the most stable and constant cycle in the planet’s geological history. Why is it important. Knowing better the influence of the planets around us on the climate is good news that helps us better understand our past and be able to glimpse the future with more precision. But it has an impact on the search for habitable exoplanets: it is not enough to find something similar to Earth, but you also have to look at its neighbors and pay attention to the fine print. That is, if it has a “Mars-type” planet nearby but of great mass, its climate has every chance of being too chaotic for life. In Xataka | Mars has just entered the exclusive club of planets with rays. This is discouraging news for NASA. In Xataka | We had been wondering for decades how Mars could have water, cold and life. Today we finally have an answer Cover | Photo of Planet Volumes in Unsplash

Quantum computers will change the world when they don’t make mistakes. This milestone is closer thanks to quantum gravity

by

Some experts believe that all the effort that is being carried out in the field of Quantum computing Not anywhere. One of the members of the scientific community more critical of quantum computers is the Israeli mathematician Gil KalaiProfessor at Yale University. According to this researcher, the increase in the number of states of quantum systems and their complexity will cause them to end up behaving like classical computers, so the superiority of the former will end up evaporating. However, the absence of unanimous support by the scientific community should not tarnish the notable effort and advances that many research groups are doing, some of them in Spanish institutions such as the CSIC and others integrated into the structure of companies that have very bulky resources, such as IBM, Google or Intel, among others. In fact, as expected, the latter defend that the long -awaited error correction will reach quantum computers and will allow them to face a much broader fan of problems than that of current prototypes. Terra Quantum bets on quantum severity to correct errors The main problem facing quantum computers in the field of error correction is noise, understood as the disturbances that can alter the internal state of the cubits and introduce calculation errors. The strategy for which many of the research groups that are involved in the development of quantum computers are opting for monitoring the operations carried out by the cubits to identify real -time errors and correct them. The problem is that from a practical point of view this strategy is very challenging. QMM technology reduces errors by up to 35% in current quantum processors Logical cubits represent a way to overcome the difficulty of the use of hardware or physical cubits, which are extremely noise sensitive, and, therefore, prone to make mistakes. Each logical cubit is constructed abstractly on several physical or hardware cubits, so that a single logical cubit encodes a single cubit of quantum information, but with redundancy. It is precisely this redundancy that allows to detect and correct the errors that are present in the physical cubits. The error correction strategy proposed by the researchers of the Swiss Terra Quantum company is not an alternative to the solutions in which we have just inquired; It is a complement. In fact, as explained in the article they have published in Advanced Quantum Technologiesits QMM technology (Quantum Memory Matrix) Reduce errors by up to 35% in current quantum processors. And, in addition, it reaches 94% fidelity using ten times less cubits than conventional methods. An important note: Terra Quantum’s scientific article has been reviewed by pairs. Terra Quantum has tested its QMM technology in IBM superconductor processors, and works. It only requires adding a quantum circuit that does not alter the architecture of the processor, although it is very ingenious. In fact, its operation is inspired by A principle of quantum gravity which maintains that the space-time continuum can be described as a network of me memory cells. It is a complicated idea, it is true, but the really important thing is that we know that this theoretical concept is the one that has inspired Terra Quantum scientists the design of their quantum circuit of errors suppression. Anyway, this innovation joins the effort that IBM, the MIT and other organizations are making to invite us to tie the future of quantum computers with a very reasonable optimism. Image | IBM More information | Advanced Quantum Technologies In Xataka | Bitcoin encryption and other cryptocurrencies will fall. And those responsible will be quantum computers

The possibility that quantum entanglement rewrites gravity is the most shocking thing that physics proposes us

by

In the exotic world of Quantum physics There are probably few strangest phenomena than entanglement. This quantum mechanism does not have an equivalent in classical physics, and is that the state of the quantum systems involved, which can be two or more, It is the same. This means that these objects, in reality, are part of the same systemeven if they are physically separated. In fact, the distance does not matter. If two particles, objects or systems are intertwined through this quantum phenomenon, when we measure the physical properties of one of them we will be instantly conditioning the physical properties of the other system with which it is intertwined. Even if it is on the other tip of the universe. It sounds for science fiction, it is true, but however strange and surprising that this phenomenon seems empirically proven. In fact, it is, together with the overlap of states, one of the fundamental principles of Quantum computing. This study suggests that gravity is a consequence of quantum information A way of defining quantum gravity requires observing it as the theory of physics that aspires to unify gravity as described The General Theory of Relativity of Einstein and quantum mechanics. It is, in short, a theory of all that attempts to explain what are the mechanisms that lead the behavior of gravity in the scale of subatomic particles. The problem is that so far gravity as we understand it from Einstein It only works well in the macroscopic world with which we are familiar. Physicists have been trying to clarify the relationship between gravity and quantum physics. In this context there is no doubt that each new contribution counts, and the one made One of the most surprising How many have emerged in recent years. And is that what he proposes in the scientific article he has published in Annals of Physics It is objectively revolutionary. Neukart argues that quantum interlocation has the ability to directly condition the geometry of the space-time continuum Its text raises the possibility that gravity is not a fundamental force, but the result of the way quantum information in the universe is organized. The reason why I have dedicated the first lines of this article to quantum interlacing is that Neukart argues that this phenomenon has the ability to condition directly The geometry of the space-time continuum. This means that gravity could be the result not only of the curvature that propitiate objects with mass or energy in space-time, but also of quantum interlocation. To reach this conclusion, this scientist has developed Einstein’s equations by adding a variable that represents quantum information. The effects of their prediction are so tiny that They are currently undetectable From an experimental point of view, but there is the possibility, if finally Neukart’s theory is confirmed, that their theoretical framework helps cosmologists to better understand the extreme phenomena that take place, for example, in The interior of black holes. In addition, this physicist suggests that quantum entanglement could explain where the value of the cosmological constant comes from. A form not quite precise but affordable to understand what this constant is is to observe it as a uniform and continuous force that stretches the space that contains everything. Anyway, Neukart’s theoretical proposal has several limitations that we should not overlook. On the one hand its effects are presumably noticeable only near the Planck scale. And, in addition, it does not solve the quantum gravity, of which we have spoken a few lines above. Even so, this proposal is very interesting for a reason: it suggests that, in reality, the space-time continuum It could be a manifestation of quantum information which contains the universe, so it invites physicists to address new lines of research. Image | Xataka with Dall-e More information | Annals of Physics In Xataka | The CMS experiment of the CERN has signed up an order: it has measured a crucial parameter of the standard model

Log In

Forgot password?

Forgot password?

Enter your account data and we will send you a link to reset your password.

Your password reset link appears to be invalid or expired.

Log in

Privacy Policy

Add to Collection

No Collections

Here you'll find all collections you've created before.