Of all the advances made in theoretical physics in the last twenty years, I still have no doubt that the most impressive one is the so called Maldacena’s conjecture, the guess that the physics involved in some models of quantum gravity living in a very concrete 5-dimensional spacetime has a one-to-one correspondence with the physics […]
Localization, or knowing “where am I” is a central topic of research in mobile robotics today, and it has been like that for more than 30 years. One cannot conceive ordering a futuristic personal assistant robot “go to the coffee machine and bring me a large one” if the robot is unable to know where […]
Saturn is truly a weird place. Apart from having quite a peculiar thermal history and one of the most interesting satellites in the Solar System, this planet displays arguably the most fascinating meteorological phenomenon ever seen. Suppose for a moment that next spring a storm raises in your hometown. Nothing unusual to care about, probably […]
Entanglement is a fundamental tool in quantum computing and several quantum information protocols, such as quantum teleportation, quantum cryptography and quantum key distribution. The basic unit of entanglement is the entangled bit ( ebit ), represented by a maximally entangled state of two qubits (quantum bits). Entanglement can also be implemented in a higher dimensional […]
A complex myriad of factors, many of them related with the global economic crisis, have given rise to a large number of social movements in the latest years. From the Occupy movement to the Arab Spring, or the more recent Turkish protests, most of these phenomena share a notorious fact: having the social networking and […]
Quantum computing is one of the most interesting fields of study nowadays, both from theoretical and pragmatic point of views. A universal quantum computer can potentially solve certain problems, as factorizing numbers, much faster and with fewer resources than a classical one . This developing technology is based on the use of quantum mechanics as […]
Cryptography is, beyond any doubt, an important technology. Keeping the privacy of communications has many applications in modern societies. For instance, being able to send a message, as your credit card number, with the confidence that no one will understand it if it is intercepted, is a basic assumption for electronic transactions. Also, nowadays and […]
Artificial intelligence (AI) is one of the most actives fields of computer science. The idea of a computer learning, in an autonomous way, complicate tasks is exciting from both the fundamental and applied points of view. One very recent and interesting approach to this problem is Deep Learning . This technology is becoming popular very […]
Quantum computers are one of the most promising technologies under development, and all their promises are completely justified. Quantum systems are extremely expensive to compute, where “expensiveness” can be measured either by the memory or the computational time required in classical computers. But it should be much cheaper if the computer uses quantum mechanics rules […]
Proteins perform most of the daily work of the cell, they catalyse most of the biochemical reactions, initiate and mediate the electrical signals in our neurons and form an important part of the structure of our bodies. Formed by up to several thousand amino acids (from a set of 20 different types) chained one after […]