Breakthru in quantum computing: salty nanoscale bar magnets!

[daaron]

8. Fair questions.

1. Like you said - funding goes to projects seen as progressing and important, and media helps. I figure in this bizarre era of anti-intellectualism, it doesn't hurt to be a booster, when one doesn't have any further stake in a project. Like me, Science Daily has no stake, so they promote science, written for the lay reader, that they think will spark people's interest and imagination, hopefully counter some of the anti-intellectualism of this bizarre era.

2. It's true what you say - this is a potential breakthrough, not a eureka moment, and the practical obstacles to quantum computing are many, even for experiment. But then, it's not always about the application of the science. Sometimes it's just about the science. I'm just saying ... this is some cool science! Maybe there's no use for it, but really, that's not the whole point, is it? Many a discovery has been made along the way to somewhere else.