Nourishing Humanity without Destroying the Planet

Measuring a photonic qubit without destroying it.

Measuring the polarization of a single photon typically results in its destruction. We propose, demonstrate, and completely characterize a quantum nondemolition (QND) scheme for realizing such a measurement nondestructively. This scheme uses only linear optics and photodetection of ancillary modes to induce a strong nonlinearity at the single-photon level, nondeterministically. We vary this QND...

Destroying Civilization, Destroying Nature

Comment on "measuring a photonic qubit without destroying it.

quantum nondemolition measurements Recently, Pryde et al. reported the demonstration of a quantum nondemolition (QND) scheme for single-photon polarization states with linear optics and projective measurements. In this experiment, a single photon with a specific polarization in the signal mode interacts on a beam splitter with a second polarized photon in the meter mode. A destructive polarizat...

Nourishing archaeology and science.

Archaeology is an interdisciplinary science par excellence. In its quest to reconstruct human behavior in the natural and cultural environment of the past, archaeology uses knowledge and techniques from many different academic disciplines. Indeed, there are very few sciences that have no relevance to archaeology. The concept of “holistic archaeology” was specifically defined as an inclusive app...

Destroying the messenger

Big mammals have big (or slow) cells C ells use two basic strategies to adapt to the size of the organism in which they reside, say Van Savage and colleagues. Depending on how often they divide, comparable cells in a mouse and an elephant differ in either metabolic rate or cell volume, but usually not both. The need for such adaptation stems from simple geometry. As body volume increases, surfa...