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⚛️ The Living Machine: What Quantum Computing Teaches Us About Persistence
Description
Please see the corresponding Substack resource.
We've been sold a particular story about progress. It goes something like this: breakthroughs happen suddenly, genius strikes like lightning, and revolution arrives in a single dramatic moment that changes everything overnight.
The reality, as usual, is messier and more interesting.
Consider what happened recently in a laboratory where scientists managed to keep a quantum computer running for two hours straight. Two hours doesn't sound particularly impressive until you understand that previous attempts measured their success in milliseconds—thousandths of a second. It's the difference between a sprinter managing a single stride and suddenly completing a marathon.
But here's what caught my attention, and what I think matters more than the technical achievement itself: the way they solved the problem tells us something important about how complex systems—including us—survive and thrive.
Neng-Chun Chiu et al, Continuous operation of a coherent 3,000-qubit system, Nature (2025)
Clearing significant hurdle to quantum computing
Harvard physicists working to develop game-changing tech demonstrate 3,000 quantum-bit system capable of continuous operation
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