Error correction

A new result shows that quantum information can theoretically be protected from errors just as well as classical information can.

By carefully constructing a multidimensional and well-connected graph, a team of researchers has finally created a long-sought locally testable code that can immediately betray whether it’s been corrupted.

Quantum bits are fussy and fragile. Useful quantum computers will need to use an error-correction technique like the one that was recently demonstrated on a real machine.

The same codes needed to thwart errors in quantum computers may also give the fabric of space-time its intrinsic robustness.

The mathematician Gil Kalai believes that quantum computers can't possibly work, even in principle.

To avoid garbled messages, mathematicians might translate them into geometric form.

A quantum computing pioneer explains why the near future of quantum computation may lie in simulators, not general-purpose quantum machines.

Improvements in how densely spheres and other shapes can be packed together could lead to advances in materials science, deep space communication and theoretical physics.