Google’s Quantum Advantage Now Entirely Gone

Remember when Google claimed “Quantum Supremacy” in 2019? They said they had done a calculation that took only 200 seconds on a quantum computer but would take 10,000 years on a conventional computer. Supremacy has meanwhile been renamed to “advantage,” but that was one of the larger innovations we have seen in quantum computing since. A year after Google’s supremacy claim, a Chinese group did the calculation on a conventional computer cluster in about 300 seconds. While that’s a bit shorter than 10,000 years, it didn’t actually beat the quantum computer. However, a new calculation on a conventional computer cluster now beat the Google record by finishing in a mere 86 seconds. The results are to be interpreted with caution because, since 2019, hardware has improved. Paper here.

This episode of Science News covers time dilation. Physicists from the University of Queensland in Australia have found evidence that time ran slower in the past. In this video I explain how time-dilation is related to redshift, what that means for light from distant galaxies, and what happens to an observer who falls into a black hole. You can take the quiz here.

Americans Sue for Their Right to be Misinformed

The Stanford Internet Observatory (SIO) in California faces funding challenges, and the reasons are as murky as they are concerning. For the past five years, the SIO has studied the spread of misinformation on social media, which forced its researchers to dabble in areas that are perceived to be controversial by some, such as the results of the 2020 presidential election in the U.S. or COVID misinformation. The SIO has also proposed ways to combat the problem. However, the institute has been sued by right-leaning organisations repeatedly because some people have other ideas about what is and isn’t misinformation. Two weeks ago, The Platformer wrote that the institute was being dismantled. In response, the institute put out a press release saying that this isn’t true but acknowledged they have difficulties securing sufficient funding.

Intelligence Not Correlated with Mental Health Problems, Study Finds

Have you heard that intelligent people are more likely to be chronically depressed? Yes, me too. It sounds superficially plausible – that the better you understand the world, the bleaker it looks. However, while the correlation between various mental health problems and IQ was found in previous studies, a newer study using a large U.K. sample (> 200k) found no such correlation. The authors also point out several problems with earlier studies. For example, they say that some previous studies were done on members of Mensa, which is basically a high-IQ club. However, IQ tests are often administered to assess behavioural problems – especially in children – making it more likely that those who know their IQ have mental health problems to begin with. The paper is not super new (published 2023), but I hadn’t seen it previously. Now updating my priors… Paper here.

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