Search

A principal of science called Ockam's Razor holds that competing theories related to a single proposition should be judged on the basis of both their relative usefulness and their relative [...]

Byline: Ronald E. Hagen Recent years have seen a growing interest in the possibility of building new nuclear power plants in Canada and the USA. Electricity generating companies, especially in the south-eastern USA and Ontario, announced plans during 2005 and 2006 which could lay the groundwork for future decisions to construct commercial reactors that could come on line as early as 2015. The possibility of new nuclear power construction is also being examined in Mexico. This growing interest is driven by less expensive technologies, concerns regarding the environmental impacts of generation using fossil fuels and more favourable attitudes toward nuclear power from national and regional governments.

Neither public nor private sector by itself can provide ‘the answer’… though through private long-term care insurance most middle income elderly (current and future) can afford themselves the asset/lifestyle protection they desire and deserve. These seniors want to predictably plan for their own long-term care needs and not be forced to rely upon public assistance or welfare programs. The universal entitlement advocates who are intent upon destroying the credibility of this market should not be taken too seriously. At the same time, the industry must go much further in ‘policing’ itself and working with state regulators to rid this neo-natal industry of the ‘bad actors.’ Responsible insurers and citizens have no other choice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A key challenge toward future quantum internet technology is connecting quantum processors at metropolitan scale. Here, we report on heralded entanglement between two independently operated quantum network nodes separated by 10 kilometers. The two nodes hosting diamond spin qubits are linked with a midpoint station via 25 kilometers of deployed optical fiber. We minimize the effects of fiber photon loss by quantum frequency conversion of the qubit-native photons to the telecom L-band and by embedding the link in an extensible phase-stabilized architecture enabling the use of the loss-resilient single-click entangling protocol. By capitalizing on the full heralding capabilities of the network link in combination with real-time feedback logic on the long-lived qubits, we demonstrate the delivery of a predefined entangled state on the nodes irrespective of the heralding detection pattern. Addressing key scaling challenges and being compatible with different qubit systems, our architecture establishes a generic platform for exploring metropolitan-scale quantum networks.