Even new states of matter before GTA 6💀

Microsoft have just shocked the world of renouncing that they have created an entirely new state of matter. Yeah, you heard that right. It's not a solid, liquid, or gas. It's a phase of matter that only exists at the quantum level called a topological state. So what the hell is a tech company doing making scientific breakthroughs? One very important reason. Quantum computing. Because yes, while we're all currently talking about AI, there's another, less spoken about pursuit that would drastically change the world as we know it. And after Microsoft's quantum chip breakthrough, which I'll get into, it now seems more possible than ever. Let me explain. Remember that scene from Endgame when Tony Stark asked Jarvis to run a bunch of different simulations to see if his models would work for time travel? Well essentially, that's the capability of quantum computers. Currently, if scientists wanted to create, let's say, like a new material that self-heals so that buildings would just fix themselves, or clothes would stitch themselves back together if torn, well they would have to trial and error their way through the discoveries. They'd mix a bunch of chemicals, test their properties, and hope to find something useful. But this can take years. However, kinda like how Jarvis did with time travel, quantum computers could step in and simulate a bunch of different materials at the atomic level with extreme accuracy, predicting their properties before they even exist. Essentially, they could exponentially speed up that trial and error phase. And that level of problem solving could tackle so many issues we face today. Cure for cancer? Sure. Climate change? Why not? Nuclear fusion for potentially limitless clean energy? Sure. But where the hell does Microsoft come into all of this? Well, they just said that the chip they created, the Majorana 1, has the potential to hold more computational power than all the combined computational power that exists on the planet. And it fits in the palm of your hand. Yeah. And they were only capable of achieving this because of that new state of matter that we mentioned earlier. The topological state. And it is wild. Now because Majorana particles hiding quantum information from environmental noise means nothing to you, think of this new state of matter like this. If normal states of matter are like ink on a paper where a small mistake like smudging it with your hand ruins everything, a topological state is like a tattoo where even if the skin stretches or moves, the design stays intact. More simply put, this state of matter is more resistant to errors and this stability could help Microsoft solve the biggest problem we currently face with quantum computing, which is error correction. And while this is a genuine breakthrough, we're not like fully there yet. It's more of a we made the engine moment rather than we just made the entire car and you're ready to go. They would need around one million qubits to start solving those real world problems at scale and currently they've created about eight. But it's still damn impressive.