Shreyas Insights

  In February 2025, Microsoft unveiled a groundbreaking advancement in quantum computing: the Majorana 1 chip. This development marks a significant step toward realizing practical, large-scale quantum computers. What Is the Majorana 1 Chip? The Majorana 1 chip is Microsoft's first quantum processing unit (QPU) designed to harness topological qubits. Unlike traditional qubits, which are susceptible to errors due to environmental noise, topological qubits are inherently more stable. This stability arises from the use of Majorana zero modes—quasiparticles that are their own antiparticles and are theorized to exist in certain quantum states. To create these topological qubits, Microsoft introduced a new class of materials known as topoconductors . These materials combine indium arsenide (a semiconductor) with aluminum (a superconductor) to achieve a state called topological superconductivity. When cooled to near absolute zero and exposed to specific magnetic fields, these materials...

Intro In today's world, digital computers are everywhere, from our pockets to the cold void of space. However, a new generation of computers that are faster and better are starting to emerge. These are quantum computers, and when they come out, they will change the world in ways that are unimaginable today. But the question is, how? How will this new generation of computers change the world? That is the question that we will answer in this blog post. Google's quantum computer, named Sycamore Quantum vs Digital Computers In order to understand how quantum computers will change the world, we need to understand the differences between quantum computers and their digital counterparts. A digital computer operates on bits. These bits have two options: 0 and 1. These bits have tiny switches called transistors that control the flow of electricity within the bit. Electricity that's flowing represents a 1, while no electricity flowing represents a 0. These bits are the foundation for...

Wind, solar, and energy storage will not be dominant     First, before everyone thinks that wind, solar, and batteries are the future of electricity, everyone reading should know a key statistic against a future where wind and solar are dominant: we've started investing heavily in those three since 2000. We're almost halfway to 2050; yet the wind and solar percentage in the global electricity mix doesn't even make up a fourth of it. If we keep on going like this, we're only going to achieve a dominant wind and solar future at the end of this century.  If you aren't convinced, a wind and solar dominant world would require a lot of land to provide for the world's electricity needs, and as they increase, the amount of land covered by wind and solar would only increase. The materials needed to make wind turbines and solar panels would have to be acquired by rare earth mining, which would have to take place in countries like China since the environmental regulations ...

  What is dark matter and dark energy? Dark matter and dark energy are two unknown things. Dark matter is a substance in the universe that keeps things together by using its mass to bend spacetime, hence creating gravity to keep things like galaxies together. Dark energy, however, is the exact opposite of dark matter. It is an unknown substance which pushes things away from each other. These forces have been in existence since the beginning of our universe and they engage in a cosmic dance that determines the fate of our universe. The story of dark matter Dark matter was the first of the two to be discovered. One day in the 1970s, at the Kitt Peak National Observatory located 56 mi (90 km) southwest of Tucson, Arizona, an astronomer named Vera Rubin was making some observations on Andromeda to check astronomers assumptions about the orbital speeds of stars, she found something out that was very strange: the outer edges of the galaxy were spinning extremely fast. In fact, they were ...

  A bit of background on Einstein Albert Einstein was a German physicist and Jew born on March 14, 1879 whose discoveries helped to open up a new world of physics. When Einstein was a kid, he had a speech disorder, but he was very good at math and had a very curious mind. When Einstein was 5 or 6, he got sick, so a father bought him a compass, which made him wonder how the needle of his compass always points in the same direction. This really got Einstein interested in science. When Einstein was an adult, he was working in the Swiss Patent Office at Bern. A few years after working at the patent office, it was Einstein's miracle year: 1905. Relativity In his miracle year, 1905, he made his 5 theories about relativity. Relativity states that everything in this universe, including space and time, is relative to one another. Theory 1: General Relativity So what is general relativity exactly? General relativity states that space and time are woven into a 4D...

Our current cities and why they stink Highways, stroads (which are streets and roads combined), and cars. This is the the city a regular North American lives in. North American cities are designed in such a way that the only option to travel is by car. This is absolutely bad for the environment because there are still gas cars that emit air and noise pollution. So then, just switch to electric vehicles, right? Well, not so fast. First of all, that requires A LOT of lithium mining, and that is absolutely bad from the environment, and when you let electric cars go at high speeds, the noise pollution is basically indistinguishable from gas cars. The outrageous thing about most shops in North America is that the parking lots are bigger than the shops, which absolutely shows that North America is in a crazy love with cars, and that's just bad. What is a stroad? In the last section, you heard me say the word stroad. Now to understand what a stroad is, we need to understand what a street ...