[tenaciousDaniel]

I'm a software developer with absolutely 0% experience in physics, so if this is a basic/silly question then mea culpa.

If the atoms "flip" when exposed to an electromagnetic pulse, it seems like this could be used to represent state at the atomic level, so highly relevant for computing.

Is there any current indication of how "stable" this flipped/non-flipped state is?

[jdrov]

The state of the nuclear spin (up or down, or superposition) is definitely something that has been proposed as a quantum bit ("q-bit"), and many quantum computer proposals have used the nuclear spin as their proposed q-bit. The tricky thing is that these nuclear spins are all interacting with each other, and exercising control of the full state in the presence of those interactions is very tricky.

[figgis]

Just wanted to share since I didn't know what it meant and googled it. It's "mea culpa". I love when people use these old Latin phrases. Never got (or taken) the chance to learn about it and it's always a very quick history lesson alongside learning a new phrase!

>In about 1220, the rite of public penance in Siena for those who had committed murder required the penitent to throw himself on the ground three times, saying: Mea culpa; peccavi; Domine miserere mei ("Through my fault. I have sinned. Lord, have mercy on me").

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mea_culpa#Religious_use

[thomasfortes]

Mea culpa is pretty common and translate similarly in Brazil (minha culpa), after all, portuguese is a language that has latin as an ancestor, but my favorite and the one that confused me the most the first time I saw is "Quod erat demonstrandum", almost all mathematical proofs that I did in college had Q.E.D. instead of the portuguese C.Q.D. at the end to indicate that that was the point where the proof was finished.

[tenaciousDaniel]

Goddamnit, I always misspell it. Interesting; had never read about the origin of the term.

[stochastic_monk]

If it helps for the future, it's pronounced "mayuh coolpuh", so the e makes the "ay" sound.

[jdmichal]

The IPA is /me.a kul.pa/.

So that's a reasonable approximation. The vowels are off. If you know Spanish pronunciation, it's exactly the same for this word.

Specifically, The E sound is actually the single-vowel /e/, not the diphthong /aɪ/. The "uh" in both words is closer to "ah".

[dang]

I fixed it for you. If you want it changed back, let me know.

[tannhaeuser]

Ut desint vires, tamen est laudanda voluntas.

[poopchute]

The latin way to say "my bad"

[posterboy]

miserere does sound much closer to misery than mercy. In English, it also "A medieval dagger, used for the mercy stroke to a wounded foe" ... That seems more like it.