In the early hours of today, Google announced a significant breakthrough: its latest quantum chip, Willow, has achieved astonishing results in benchmark testing, completing a standard computation in less than five minutes. The world's fastest supercomputer would take more than 10^25 years to complete the same task, longer than the age of the universe!
The breakthrough with Willow allows for exponentially reduced errors when using a greater number of qubits, solving a quantum error correction challenge that has been under research for nearly 30 years.
Following the announcement by Sundar Pichai, CEO of Alphabet and Google, on this major advancement, Elon Musk promptly commented with "Wow." The two then engaged in a lively exchange in the comments section, with Pichai suggesting one day building a quantum cluster in space using SpaceX's Starship. Musk responded saying, "This is likely to happen.

According to CCTV News, Volkswagen CEO Oliver Blume and labor leaders clashed at a staff meeting on December 4 local time. About 20,000 workers attended the meeting, which was also attended by German Labor Minister Hubertus Heil, and the two sides will hold a fourth round of negotiations on December 9.
Volkswagen management said that in order to cope with competition, factories in Germany need to be closed and employees' wages need to be cut. But workers regard both measures as insurmountable red lines and threaten to strike further after going on strike earlier this week.
On December 2, nearly 100,000 Volkswagen employees went on strike to protest the company's cost-cutting proposals, and the strike affected nine factories in Germany. The German Metalworkers' Union (IG Metall) said the strike would take the form of two-hour strikes by morning shift workers and early departures for evening shift workers. Although the strike did not completely interrupt production, it would still cause huge economic losses to Volkswagen.
"As management, we don't live in a fantasy world, we make decisions in a rapidly changing environment," Blume told workers in Wolfsburg, warning that new competitors are entering the market with unprecedented force.
Workers booed several times during the speech by Volkswagen management, especially when Blume talked about growing up in the area and Wolfsburg being his spiritual home. Labor Minister Heil urged all parties to find a solution that does not include plant closures or forced layoffs to ensure that future investment can support Germany's industrial sector. Union officials said that if the two sides do not reach an agreement in negotiations next week, workers may increase pressure, leading to longer or even indefinite strikes.
On September 2 this year, Volkswagen issued a statement saying that in order to further cut expenses, the company is considering closing one of its car manufacturing plants and a parts plant in Germany. This will be the first time Volkswagen has closed a factory in Germany since its founding in 1926. The closure and forced layoffs of German domestic factories will be completed by 2026. On October 29, Volkswagen Group's works council informed employees on the 28th that management plans to close at least three plants in Germany, lay off tens of thousands of employees and shrink the size of all its remaining plants in Germany. The board of directors of Volkswagen in Germany has formulated a plan to save about 4 billion euros on underperforming passenger car brands. These proposals include a 10% cut in employees' monthly salaries, a suspension of wage increases in 2025 and 2026, and the closure of some German plants.
In November this year, the IG Metall union proposed a plan to Volkswagen to save 1.5 billion euros, including giving up bonuses in 2025 and 2026 and using part of the wage increase brought about by age to establish a fund to reduce working hours during periods of overcapacity. However, Volkswagen rejected the proposal, saying it could only provide short-term relief, which forced the union to take strike action.
Volkswagen is facing the challenge of declining performance. In the first three quarters of this year, Volkswagen Group's revenue increased from 235.102 billion euros in the same period last year to 237.279 billion euros; but operating profit dropped sharply from 16.241 billion euros in the same period last year to 12.907 billion euros; operating profit margin also shrank from 7.0% in the same period last year to 5.4%. Among them, the operating profit margin of Volkswagen, the core brand of Volkswagen Group, was only 2.1%.
At present, due to weak demand in the European auto market and the slower-than-expected popularity of electric vehicles, the European auto industry is in turmoil, and thousands of jobs at automakers and their suppliers are at risk. In addition to Volkswagen, many automakers and suppliers are also planning layoffs. According to incomplete statistics from the First Financial reporter, eight companies, including Volkswagen, Audi, Ford, Stellantis and four parts giants, will lay off a total of about 50,000 people in Europe.

The history of physics is a journey of intellectual exploration spanning thousands of years, recording the gradual deepening of humanity's understanding and knowledge of the fundamental laws of nature. Here are some of the key developments and milestones in the history of physics:
### Ancient Period
- **Ancient Greek Philosophy**: Ancient Greek philosophers such as Thales, Pythagoras, and Aristotle laid the foundations of Western scientific thought. They explored natural phenomena through logical reasoning and proposed some preliminary theories about the structure of the universe.
- **Archimedes** (c. 287-212 BC): He is considered one of the greatest mathematicians of antiquity, as well as a physicist and engineer. Archimedes discovered the principle of buoyancy (Archimedes' principle) and provided a theoretical basis for the principle of leverage.
### Middle Ages and Renaissance
- **Ptolemaic System**: In the 2nd century AD, Claudius Ptolemy proposed a geocentric model, which held that the Earth was at the center of the universe and that other celestial bodies revolved around it. This model was widely accepted in medieval Europe.
- **Arab scholars**: In the Middle Ages, the Arab world preserved and developed the scientific heritage of ancient Greece. For example, Ibn al-Haytham conducted in-depth research on optics, and his book "Optics" had a far-reaching influence.
### Scientific Revolution
- **Copernicus's heliocentric theory** (Nicolaus Copernicus, 1473-1543): Copernicus proposed the view that the sun, not the earth, was the center of the universe, challenging the long-dominant geocentric theory.
- **Galileo Galilei** (Galileo Galilei, 1564-1642): Galileo supported the heliocentric theory with new discoveries such as observing Jupiter's satellites through a telescope. He also conducted free fall experiments and laid the foundation for classical mechanics.
- **Johannes Kepler** (Johannes Kepler, 1571-1630): Kepler discovered the laws of planetary motion and revealed the fact that planets orbit the sun in elliptical orbits.
- **Isaac Newton** (1642-1727): Newton integrated the work of his predecessors and proposed the law of universal gravitation and the three laws of motion, marking the establishment of the classical mechanics system. His book "Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy" (Principia Mathematica) has become a scientific classic.
### 19th century
- **Development of electromagnetism**: The research of Michael Faraday and James Clerk Maxwell promoted the progress of electromagnetism. Maxwell's equations unified the phenomena of electricity, magnetism and light.
- **Thermodynamics**: Rudolf Clausius and others developed the laws of thermodynamics, especially the second law introduced the concept of entropy.
### 20th century
- **Relativity**: Albert Einstein proposed the special theory of relativity (1905) and the general theory of relativity (1915), which completely changed people's understanding of time and space.
- **Quantum Mechanics**: Max Planck, Niels Bohr, Werner Heisenberg, Erwin Schrödinger and others pioneered the field of quantum mechanics to describe the behavior of microscopic particles.
- **Nuclear and Particle Physics**: Ernest Rutherford discovered the existence of the atomic nucleus, opening a new era of nuclear physics. Subsequently, scientists continued to discover new subatomic particles and established the standard model to describe these particles and their interactions.
### Contemporary Physics
- **Cosmology**: Modern cosmology has made great progress with the discovery of Hubble's law and the establishment of the Big Bang theory. Scientists continue to explore questions such as dark matter, dark energy, and the origin and fate of the universe.
- **Condensed Matter Physics**: Studies the behavior of electrons in materials, especially phenomena such as superconductivity and topological insulators under low temperature conditions.
- **High Energy Physics**: Facilities such as the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) are used to detect the Higgs boson and other potential new particles.
The history of physics shows how human intelligence gradually uncovers the mysteries of nature, and each major breakthrough is accompanied by new questions and the need for deeper understanding. As a fundamental discipline, physics has not only promoted the progress of science and technology, but also profoundly influenced our understanding of the world. If you are interested in physics of a specific period or a specific person, please let me know and I can provide more detailed information.

IT Home News on November 20, recently some users found that the text highlighting function was abnormal when visiting certain websites using the latest version of Chromium-based browsers (such as Chrome 131). The reason seems to be a conflict between Tailwind CSS and the new selection style changes of Chrome 131.
On affected websites (such as the post editor of the X platform), users may still be able to select, copy, and paste text, but there is no visual indication to confirm the selected content. Even some users may not be able to copy and paste text at all, or encounter other problems when trying to select specific text.
Tailwind CSS has updated its CSS tools and provided corresponding solutions, but not all websites have implemented fixes. It is not clear how wide the scope of affected websites is.
This problem stems from the new selection style inheritance behavior introduced by Chrome 131 and other browsers based on the latest version of Chromium. In previous Chrome versions, the selection style was inherited from the ::selection pseudo-element of the selected element. Starting with Chrome 131, elements inherit the selection style behavior of their parent elements.
IT Home noticed that Adam Wathan, the creator of Tailwind CSS, has shared a solution on the X platform, but it may take some time to fix the website.

When an avalanche occurs, no snowflake is innocent. All people are actually a whole, and the misfortune of one person is the misfortune of all people... Regarding the factory's malicious withholding of my wages,... The workers in the factory work in two or three shifts every day, working 16 hours a day, and not having a day off in a month,... I will speak for the workers, this world needs to be changed,... I would rather die than be squeezed and exploited again, and I hope to promote the progress of labor laws with my death. There is also a school that maliciously withheld my diploma,... You bullied me too much,... I will fight with my life, I will completely wash away my shame,... Long live victory, long live the people, long live the workers, long live the proletariat, let history judge me,... I love this world, I love my family, goodbye.
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            Xu Jiajin on November 16, 2024