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

At about 18:30 on November 16, 2024, at Wuxi Vocational and Technical College of Technology in Yixing City, Jiangsu Province, the People's Republic of China, a 21-year-old man, Xu Moujin, indiscriminately attacked students in the college with a knife. According to the police report, the attack caused 8 deaths and 17 injuries.
This is the second indiscriminate attack in the People's Republic of China in a week that resulted in multiple deaths. On November 11, 2024, a car-driving accident occurred at the Zhuhai Sports Center in Zhuhai, Guangdong Province, resulting in 35 deaths and 43 injuries, and the attacker attempted suicide after the attack. This incident is also the second indiscriminate knife-wounding case in a month, and it has caused the most casualties in recent knife attacks.
The location of the incident, Wuxi Vocational and Technical College of Technology, is a public full-time general college located in Wuxi, Jiangsu Province. According to its school profile, the school covers an area of nearly 1,000 acres and has a construction area of about 290,000 square meters.
In mainland China, some vocational schools act as "black intermediaries" or "contractors", sending students to factories to fill labor shortages in the name of internships; students work long hours but only receive meager pay. According to the country's regulations, secondary vocational students need to spend more than one year on "practical learning", while higher vocational students need more than one semester.
The BBC quoted Xiong Bingqi, president of the 21st Century Education Research Institute, as saying that although the Ministry of Education of the People's Republic of China had formulated the "Regulations on the Management of Internships for Vocational School Students" in 2016 to supervise the phenomenon of vocational schools and internship units exploiting students, the results were not satisfactory. And students do not have enough channels to protect their rights to protect their interests. "In this situation, students may have extreme ideas."
The Wall Street Journal pointed out that China's current economic weakness, high youth unemployment and long-lasting real estate slump have triggered social instability, which in turn has led to doubts about the Communist Party's ability to govern.
According to online news cited by the media, the attacker hid in the bushes before the attack and then indiscriminately stabbed students on campus.Pictures from the scene showed that many people fell to the ground on the campus road, and some people's clothes were stained with blood. Some students said that their roommates were stabbed and told others not to go out. Many students hid in their dormitories and even sealed their doors with wardrobes to prevent the attacker from breaking in and continuing the attack.
Several police cars and ambulances were parked outside the school, and the police entered the school holding shields. The attacker confronted the police on the school playground with a knife. The police shone flashlights at the attacker. A police officer subdued him when he turned sideways, and several male students came forward to help.
Later, the Yixing Public Security Bureau reported that the attacker was arrested on the spot and admitted to the crime. Some of the injured have been sent to the new campus of Yixing People's Hospital.
A "suicide note" suspected to be left by the suspect circulated on the Internet, signed by Xu Jiajin. The article mentioned that he worked 16 hours a day, was owed wages, and the school refused to grant him a diploma. He hoped to use his death to promote the progress of the Labor Law. The "suicide note" also wrote "You bullied me too much" and "Some accounts must be settled", and then "Long live the workers" and "Long live the proletariat" appeared.
The incident was only five days after the car-running accident at the Zhuhai Sports Center, so it attracted much attention, but many media reports were deleted and social platforms frequently blocked posts. It was not until 11:30 p.m. that night that the CCTV News Weibo released the Yixing Public Security Report that the relevant news was discussed within a certain range. However, the relevant topic on Sina Weibo showed "The content of this topic is not displayed" and could not be included in the hot search list. On Chinese social media platforms, searching for keywords related to the incident will show the police statement, but there are no videos or pictures related to the incident.
"Jimu News" reported that the leadership of Wuxi Institute of Technology held a meeting for this incident. After receiving the report of the incident, Xin Changxing, secretary of the Jiangsu Provincial Party Committee of the Communist Party of China, issued an instruction, arranged for provincial leaders to rush to the scene to guide the disposal work, and held a meeting overnight. On November 17, Xin Changxing presided over a video conference, pointing out that not long after the Zhuhai car-driving pedestrian incident, such a tragic incident occurred in Jiangsu. This incident "has a bad nature and a bad impact, which is very distressing. We must deeply reflect, be vigilant, and learn lessons." We must find out the facts of the case as soon as possible, severely punish the murderer, and deter crime. At the same time, we must also learn from Xi Jinping's instructions on the Zhuhai case, comprehensively investigate all kinds of conflict risks, deal with conflicts at the source to the maximum extent, and strengthen campus safety management and patrols in key areas such as crowded places.
This incident caused an uproar on the Chinese Internet. Many netizens condemned the perpetrators and bluntly said that the perpetrators who attacked innocent people were cowards. Some comments forwarded Lu Xun's famous quote: "The brave are angry and draw their blades to the stronger; the cowardly are angry, but draw their blades to the weaker." Some online opinions believe that the social hostility is too heavy and call on the authorities to take measures to solve this problem. Some netizens also worry that using indiscriminate killing as a means of revenge against society has formed a copycat effect.
Reuters said the incident "sparked a rare but closely censored discussion" on the Chinese Internet, with topics focusing mainly on the mental health of the Chinese people, the pressures brought about by China's slowing economic growth, and whether today's young people face greater difficulties than previous generations who benefited from China's rapid development.

On the evening of November 11, 2024, in Xiangzhou District, Zhuhai City, Guangdong Province, the People's Republic of China, a 62-year-old man surnamed Fan drove a vehicle into the walking trail of the National Fitness Plaza of Zhuhai Sports Center and indiscriminately hit the crowd. According to the police report, as of the early morning of November 13, 2024, the incident had caused 35 deaths and 43 injuries (excluding one perpetrator who attempted suicide). The incident was named Zhuhai "11.11" car-running case by the public security organs.
This incident is one of the most serious attacks in mainland China since a series of terrorist attacks in Xinjiang in 2014; it is also another car-running incident in Zhuhai before and after the Zhuhai Air Show since the mud truck crash in 2008.
The location involved, "Zhuhai National Fitness Plaza", is an open public space of Zhuhai Sports Center, the largest sports venue in Zhuhai. It is located in Meihua Street, Xiangzhou District, Zhuhai City (also known as "New Xiangzhou"), and is open to citizens for activities during normal times. The square is about the size of two football fields, with walking trails, athletic fields, and football fields. In the evening, many residents take walks and gather to dance in the square. Stone piers and fences are set up around to prevent vehicles from entering.
According to multiple videos on social platforms, at around 19:48 on November 11, 2024, a small off-road vehicle with a local "Yue C" license plate rushed into the pedestrian path of the National Fitness Square of Zhuhai Sports Center. Witnesses said that after the vehicle destroyed the railings, it indiscriminately circled the sports center and hit the walking crowd. Many people were knocked to the ground or sat on the side of the road waiting for rescue because they could not escape in time. The vehicle fled the scene along the same route after hitting many passers-by.
Some of the people who fell to the ground at the scene of the incident wore the uniform sportswear of the local non-governmental organization "Beautiful Zhuhai Hiking Team" and held a red flag with the name of the non-governmental organization. A survivor said that there were six to seven hiking teams at the scene, each with 40 to 50 people, aged between 40 and 70. Some of the team members were seriously injured or even died on the spot after being hit. The rescue took about an hour. Fortunately, the incident did not happen on a weekend, otherwise the casualties would be more serious. A family member of the deceased said that her husband and some people were arranged to the last row of the team because they were not wearing hiking team uniforms, and became the most seriously hit group. An eyewitness said that the music played by the hiking teams was loud at the time of the incident, which covered the sound of the collision and shouting, leaving the crowd no time to dodge.
Xu Chengchun, a Singaporean architect who was responsible for designing the National Fitness Center, said in an interview afterwards: "Vehicles are not allowed to enter the square, and stone piers and fences are set up around it. The suspect may have driven all the way into the square area from the other side of the sports center."
On the evening of the day when the incident occurred, the Zhuhai Municipal Public Security Bureau issued a notice confirming the incident and preliminarily introducing the incident. On the evening of November 12, the Zhuhai police issued another notice disclosing details such as the time of the incident and the casualties. Zhuhai CPC Committee Secretary Chen Yong and Zhuhai Mayor Huang Zhihao went to the scene to direct the rescue and set up a working group led by municipal leaders to carry out rescue, investigation and follow-up work. Zhuhai Sports Center issued a notice at around 21:00 on the day of the incident, announcing that it would be closed immediately.
Guangdong Provincial Governor Wang Weizhong visited Zhuhai People's Hospital on November 13 to visit and comfort the injured in the case and listened to a report on the treatment of the injured in the hospital.
On November 14, the Standing Committee of the Zhuhai CPC Committee observed a moment of silence for the people who were unfortunately killed in the incident. [30] On the same day, Huang Kunming went to the Fifth Affiliated Hospital of Sun Yat-sen University in Zhuhai and the Zhuhai Air Show Command Center to supervise the investigation of the case, visit the injured and medical staff, and inspect the stability maintenance work. It is said that "with a high sense of political responsibility, we should do a good job in treating the wounded, comforting the aftermath, and investigating the case."
The Zhuhai Air Show is about to open in Zhuhai, where the incident occurred. Therefore, the search and dissemination of information about the incident are strictly censored in mainland China. Bloomberg believes that this also gives the Beijing authorities enough time to prepare for the response. Dr. Luqiu Luwei, a professor at Hong Kong Baptist University, said that the information control method in this incident is similar to other major casualties in mainland China. The authorities will try to censor it to control the narrative, "making the police statement the only official explanation, and no longer allowing anyone to question or discuss it." Part of the reason is to reduce panic and copycat effect (English: copycat effect).
In the early days after the incident, related topics and videos related to the car-running incident were banned by multiple social platforms including Sina Weibo, Douyin and Xiaohongshu, and some official media forwarded the local police's police report and deleted it. In the second version of the police report released by the Zhuhai Public Security Bureau on the 12th, the third paragraph that originally described the past personal dispute and judicial case of the parties was deleted.
On November 12, BBC news reporter McDevitt was under surveillance and questioned by security personnel at the scene while reporting from the scene. However, an unidentified man who claimed to be a "Chinese citizen" questioned whether he was qualified to interview and pushed him. The BBC pointed out that when sensitive incidents occur in China, local officials usually organize people to play the role of angry local people to interfere with foreign journalists' reporting. [40] According to the BBC, many mainland Chinese media received explicit bans not to report on the incident, and the authorities adopted a strict defense attitude towards foreign media. Japanese TBS TV reporter Murotani Yota said that after the incident, he was surrounded by unidentified people at the scene when he came to the scene for an interview. He was then taken away by the police for questioning and forced to delete all the interview materials. In addition, Japanese TV reporter Watanabe Yoshiyo was also told by a man who claimed to be a government employee that he was not allowed to film when he went to the scene to report. When Watanabe asked the reason, the other party said that the scene was "undergoing work" and it was inconvenient to disclose details.
On November 14, the Zhuhai Funeral Home, which was responsible for receiving the bodies of the deceased, had tight security. There were many police officers and police cars stationed at the door. People entering and leaving had to be checked, and only the relatives and friends of the deceased were allowed to enter. A funeral home staff member revealed that some of the deceased had been forcibly cremated; some relatives of the deceased said that due to the large number of injured people, the scene in the hospital was chaotic, and some injured had to wait for two to three hours before receiving treatment; other relatives said that the hospital did not allow them to see the injured or arrange for them to be sent to the hospital; after some injured people were confirmed dead, their families directly accused the hospital of not allowing them to see their family members for the last time.
Some foreign media such as NHK, Radio Free Asia, Central News Agency, Bloomberg, and Reuters pointed out that in recent years, the number of indiscriminate injuries involving citizens at home and abroad in mainland China has increased significantly, and they believe that this is related to the economic downturn and increased social pressure. Shi Zonghan, a Chinese politics expert at the University of California, San Diego, commented that when domestic demand is weak and the real estate bubble bursts, the wealth of most families will shrink, which will inevitably lead to a large number of social conflicts. Song Wendi, a political scientist at the Australian National University, said that China's economic downturn will inevitably weaken the legitimacy of the country's political system, because its legitimacy is based on the promise of achieving economic growth. Liu Hanzhang, a professor at Pitzer College, said that China's recent series of attacks reflect the deterioration of its social and macroeconomic conditions. Although these incidents are sporadic, their increasing frequency shows that more and more people in China are experiencing unprecedented difficulties and despair. She also pointed out that violent incidents are a "thorny challenge" for China to cope with the economic slowdown. China usually responds by strengthening public security and surveillance systems. However, since the government is already facing "unprecedented financial difficulties", such an approach will only increase the pressure on public finances.
Some comments also believe that a series of indiscriminate attacks in mainland China highlight the limitations of large-scale surveillance systems. Suzanne Scoggins, an associate professor of political science at Clark University, commented that the recent attacks show that there is no all-seeing and all-knowing police state in the world. Minxin Pei, a Chinese-American political scientist, believes that large-scale surveillance systems are very effective in monitoring known threats, but not in dealing with unknown or unidentified threats. The perpetrator of the Zhuhai car-ramming incident may not have been considered a threat by the police before the crime.
Tang Renwu, dean of the Institute of Government Management at Beijing Normal University, said in an exclusive interview with Singapore's Lianhe Zaobao that the driver who hit people "clearly vented his dissatisfaction with society" and was a typical case of failure to resolve conflicts in a timely manner in the process of governing society. Tang also said that the incident reflected the security omissions of the stadium and the lack of public vigilance. The Zhuhai police focused their energy and attention on maintaining public order on the newly unveiled Zhuhai Air Show, and they also need to bear the responsibility for negligence. Xu Jilin, Zijiang Distinguished Professor and Doctoral Supervisor of the History Department of East China Normal University, believes that the entire Chinese society has been too tense in the past few years, and it needs to ease this tense nerve through policy and environmental improvements; he also believes that society needs to provide appropriate safety valves to allow these social hostility to have a legal space to vent. If it is always not allowed to vent, it may degenerate into a vicious outbreak.
Radio Free Asia reported that the Zhuhai Sports Center where the incident occurred is near the Zhuhai Intermediate People's Court and the government staff housing complex. Some netizens believed that the suspect's target was retired people within the system who were participating in walking at the sports center.