Yue Yang

Two vortex rings launched one after the other pass through each other and swap places. This dance, first seen in the 19th century with smoke rings, has now been reproduced on a quantum processor. Vortices are the actors on a quantum stage where time plays the role of an extra dimension.

Water in a river, flowing around a stone, changes its course: some streams press against the surface, others detach and swirl downstream. A classical computer calculates such flows by dividing the fluid into millions of tiny parcels and tracking each one.