SYCAMORE, SYCAMORE

by Sally Zakariya

“Today we published the results of this quantum supremacy experiment in the Nature article, ‘Quantum Supremacy Using a Programmable Superconducting Processor.’ We developed a new 54-qubit processor, named ‘Sycamore,’ that is comprised of fast, high-fidelity quantum logic gates, in order to perform the benchmark testing. Our machine performed the target computation in 200 seconds, and from measurements in our experiment we determined that it would take the world’s fastest supercomputer 10,000 years to produce a similar output.” —Posted on October 23, 2019 to the Google AI Blog by John Martinis, Chief Scientist Quantum Hardware and Sergio Boixo, Chief Scientist Quantum Computing Theory, Google AI Quantum. Photograph of the Sycamore processor by Erik Lucero, Research Scientist and Lead Production Quantum Hardware.

Hello world, things are changing.
What I knew only as a shag-bark tree—
Sycamore—now names computing
power beyond imagining, now quantum,
supreme, superlative, incomparable.

A dance of particles, tangling, entangled.
To Einstein, “spooky action at a distance.”
To me, complex mystery of mysteries,
wonder of intelligent wonders.

How can I comprehend such power
and speed, such limitless possibilities?
Like us prone to error, but unlike us
capable of brilliance beyond measure.

A human attempt to emulate creation?
Perhaps. Or is it proof how far our
mortal minds can reach?


Sally Zakariya’s poetry has appeared in some 75 print and online journals and been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net. Her most recent publication is Muslim Wife (Blue Lyra Press, 2019). She is also the author of The Unknowable Mystery of Other People, Personal Astronomy, When You Escape, Insectomania, and Arithmetic and other verses, as well as the editor of a poetry anthology, Joys of the Table.

BLACK HOLE

by Sally Zakariya

Today (April 10), a global collaboration of more than 200 astronomers presented the first image of a directly-observed black hole. The picture of a glowing orange-yellow ring around a dark core, was compiled from observations by eight ground-based radio telescopes known collectively as the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT). —Live Science

Einstein dreamed them
far flung across the cosmos

Scientists to come had faith in them
believed in them, believed in the math
  that proved them

But until now only God could see them
their aura so bright a thousand suns blush
their pull so unimaginably great
their dark core so unfathomably deep
that to dare to submit to the immensity
to cross the impossible threshold
is to plunge to eternity


Sally Zakariya’s poetry has appeared in some 75 journals and been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net. Her most recent publication is the chapbook The Unknowable Mystery of Other People from The Poetry Box. She is also the author of Personal Astronomy, When You Escape, Insectomania, and Arithmetic and other verses, as well as the editor of a poetry anthology, Joys of the Table.

WAVES

by Geoffrey A. Landis

"Cosmic Chirp From Black Holes Colliding Vindicates Einstein:" The sound of the collision from a billion light-years away is the first direct evidence of gravitational waves, the ripples in the fabric of space-time that Einstein predicted a century ago. —NY Times, Feb. 11, 2016

Waves in space and time:
a billion light years away
black holes whirl and dance.


Geoffrey A. Landis is a scientist, a science fiction writer, and a poet. As a scientist, is a fellow of the NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts, working on developing new concepts for space missions.  As a science fiction writer, he's written one novel and over fifty short stories, winning the Hugo and Nebula awards.  As a poet, he has written numerous poems, including this one.

FOR THE 2013 NOBEL PRIZE IN PHYSICS

by Eric A. Weil

Neutrino, quark, lepton, superstring;
The “God Particle” is a Theory of Everything.

Some physicists used the Large Hadron Collider
To make Einstein’s theories just a bit tidier.

Infinitesimally smaller than infinitesimal,
The boson named Higgs flies faintly recognizimal;

So now that we know Higgs bosons exist,
The question remains:  Of what do they consist?


Eric A. Weil teaches at Elizabeth City State University in North Carolina.  He has two chapbooks:  A Horse at the Hirshhorn (Finishing Line, 2002) and Returning from Mars (Main Street Rag, 2009).