Readers ask about self-correcting quantum computers, oobleck’s experimental value

Experimenting with food

Mayonnaise’s texture is perfect for mimicking what a fuel capsule goes through when it’s blasted with lasers to ignite nuclear fusion, Emily Conover reported in “Mayonnaise may shed light on nuclear fusion experiments” (SN: 10/5/24, p. 5).

Reader Linda Ferrazzara wondered if mayo qualifies as a non-Newtonian fluid, one whose viscosity changes having a look on the stress applied to it. If that is so, may researchers in its place use oobleck — a non-Newtonian fluid crafted from cornstarch and water ­— as a stand-in for nuclear fuel capsules in experiments? Ferrazzara asked. Oobleck also could be more easy to take care of consistent between experiments than mayo, which has different formulations having a look on the emblem.

Mayonnaise is a non-Newtonian fluid, says mechanical engineer Arindam Banerjee of Lehigh University in Bethlehem, Pa. But oobleck would now not work for fusion experiments. The substance gets thicker, or more viscous, when hit by an out of doors force — a phenomenon in most cases also is famous as shear thickening. So it “would freeze up when we spin our experiment,” Banerjee says. Mayo is the choice: It gets less viscous.

Repeatability is critical to the team’s scientific process, so the materials used in each experiment has to be well-characterized and consistent, Banerjee says. “Now we have used Hellmann’s Real Mayonnaise for the last 12 years. We measure properties of each batch and have found them to be remarkably consistent. We do now not make our own mayonnaise,” he says. “Previous to selecting mayonnaise, we tried yogurt. But my students at that time were now not ready to copy the yogurt consistency and thus the properties were different, leading to massive variations in observed behavior.”

Move over, Simone Biles!

A globular springtail can backflip (shown below) at a rate of 368 spins per 2d, Jonathan Lambert reported in “How an arthropod does the area’s fastest backflip” (SN: 10/5/24, p. four). X user @FluronaVirus wrote: “That’s incredible! The agility of globular springtails is of course unheard of. High-speed camera footage capturing their spin rate is an enchanting insight into their aerial abilities. Nature never ceases to amaze with its wonders.”

Machines make mistakes

A quantum computer improved its results by over and over correcting its mistakes midcalculation, Emily Conover reported in “A quantum computer fixes its errors” (SN: 10/5/24, p. 6).

X user @Lightning456243 asked how a quantum computer can discover its own errors.

“Quantum computers correct their very own errors by inserting some redundancy of their data and periodically checking whether the tips is still self-consistent,” Conover says.

Classical computers do that too by copying bits, which have a cost of either 0 or 1. As an instance, 1 will likely be copied thrice to change into 111. If a form of bits gets unintentionally flipped (say, 111 becomes 110), the mismatch between the three bits would indicate an error. By having a look at which value is kind of all, the computer can discover which bit needs fixing.

The complexities of quantum physics complicate this process, but quantum computers likewise encode information redundantly, Conover says. As an alternative of without delay copying individual quantum bits, however it, the computers spread the tips between a pair of quantum bits that are entangled, or linked (SN: 6/20/20, p. 18).