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China's Quantum Radar Could Detect Stealth Planes, Missiles (popsci.com)
hackingbear shares a report from Popular Science: China Electronics Technology Group Corporation (CETC), China's foremost military electronics company, announced that its groundbreaking quantum radar has achieved capability of tracking high altitude objects, likely by increasing the coherence time entangled photons. CETC envisions that its quantum radar will be used in the stratosphere to track objects in "the upper atmosphere and beyond" (including space). Quantum can identify the position, radar cross section, speed, direction and even "observe" on the composition of the target such as differentiating between an actual nuclear warhead against inflatable decoys. [...] Importantly, attempts to spoof the quantum radar would be easily noticed since any attempt to alter or duplicate the entangled photons would be detected by the radar. The news is an important illustration of a larger trend of Chinese advancement in the new, crucial area of quantum research. Other notable projects in China's quantum technology include the Micius satellite, and advances by Alibaba and the Chinese University of Science and Technology in a world record of entangling 18 photons (a quantum supercomputer would require about 50 entangled photons), such that China arguably leads the world in quantum technologies.
We should implement Blockchain RADAR immediately as a response to this newfangled Quantum RADAR.
Huh, looks like something's wrong with the microverse battery.
We're gonna have to go inside.
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
They get two coherent photons, bounce one of a plane, receive it again and compare it to the original photon to see what's changed.
Obviously it's not 'quantum entanglement' anything, because if it was, the BOUNCED PHOTON AND COMPARISON PHOTON WOULD ALSO CHANGE by fuzzy action at a distance.
Sort of the exact opposite, since you need the original photon to not change to match the bounced photon. So if entanglement actually worked, this system wouldn't work.
Sounds like Interferometry 101.
Why would China brag about this new advanced technology, telling the world that a "quantum radar" is indeed possible? To mislead westerners? If they really achieved such amazing military weaponry success, wouldn't they better keep silent? Or maybe China is simply aware of their superiority in quantum fields, which is more worrying..
Slashdot, fix the reply notifications... You won't get away with it...
Why would you suspect that? Detection at an extreme early phase (think pre-launch even) allows for an unprecedented strategic window for countermeasures.
If what you're saying is, "who cares if they can detect is at unprecedented distances and time-frames, our JASSM's are unstoppable" you're repeating an oft-made military blunder. Never fall back on your last presumed advantage when all others have been obviously stripped away. It's likely you simply aren't aware that your last advantage has (also) already been eliminated.
If they've cracked quantum detection, don't be so confident about simple kinetic countermeasures -- let alone asymmetric tactics.
EDITORS, EDIT !!!
YMBNH.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
I am a researcher in the quantum communication area. Admittedly I can only judge by the poorly written Pop Science article, but the whole thing triggers my BS detector.
"the coherence time entangled photons", "Quantum can identify..." - bad grammar is already a red flag.
The whole "spoofing can be detected" sounds like someone made some confusion with QKD (quantum key distribution), a completely unrelated application of quantum technology.
Finally, "a quantum supercomputer would require about 50 entangled photons"... Seriously, this is nonsense. I can't even.
Quantum entanglement has only been demonstrated in labs or down shielded cables with high frequency EM , ie light. Not with radio waves and not in the outdoor enviroment. It sounds like someone in the chinese Ministry of Propaganda has slung together a load of terminology picked at random from an undergrad physics book to try and impress. Plus as others have said, if it really worked it would be about as top secret as you can get.
Sure, but they look very different. I heard that's it's hard to distinguish a stealth aircraft from a large bird (eg. a seagull) because of the much-reduced radar profile.
The fact that the 'seagull' is flying at Mach 2 is a bit of a giveaway though.
No sig today...
As opposed to the other classic military blunder: “Never go in against a Sicilian, when death is on the line!”
"Freedom in the USA is not the ability to do what you want. It is the ability to stop others from doing what THEY want"
The Russians have been able to spot them for years using "radar" that looks at disturbances in background radiation.
Anyway, why send a $1bn plane in to drop bombs when a cluster of supersonic or hypersonic missiles will do exactly the same thing for a few $m a piece.
Why would China brag about this new advanced technology, telling the world that a "quantum radar" is indeed possible?
Let's assume this technology actually exists and works more or less as indicated. If you have a technology to plan to use as a deterrent, there is no point in keeping it a secret from the people you are trying to deter. A credible threat forces the other party to adjust their behavior. Keeping a weapon secret that you plant to user for deterrence is likely to be counterproductive.
Now let's say that they don't have this technology and are bluffing. If they can get the other party to react to a non-existent threat then that has value as well. Of course the downside is if your bluff gets called. Say what you want about the US military but they are pretty good at what they do and getting them to bite on this if it isn't true is going to be challenging.
You never let your enemy know your position.
No, you let them know your position when it is useful to let them know your position. You keep it a secret when that is more useful. There are times for each approach. If you are trying to deter an aggressor from attacking in the first place you don't keep it a secret that attacking you would be a bad idea. A deterrence kept a secret isn't a deterrence at all.
You are quite right that many times it is useful to not show your full capabilities. But sometimes it is more valuable to let some information be known.
The Chinese are bluffing because of the trade war and trying to spread FUD. They're screwed and they know it.
Screwed? Not likely. Only delusional idiots like our president actually believe that a pointless trade war will benefit the US and hurt China. It's going to hurt both sides without any likely upside to anyone. And this has literally nothing to do with that unless you think the trade war is going to turn into a shooting war. Pray that doesn't come to pass.
(think pre-launch even)
You mean by following the enemy president's twitter account?
Nae king! Nae laird! Nae yurrupiean pressedent! We willna be fooled again!
Perhaps we are playing "Two Lies, One Truth?"
Perhaps... but, I'm not sure what they gain announcing these technologies- unless it's to set our researchers in a tizzy.
If you really have technology to detect stealth planes on radar- why let the world know that- you've just lost your ace in the hole.
"That's the way to do it" - Punch
A spoon? LOL try a shovel.. nay a truckload.
I mean this is the same country that alters the AQI measurements and banned Winnie the Pooh.
So to think that they have anything remotely capable of what they claim, without, you know PROOF (not just a research paper) if laughable.
You'd ban someone too if you knew he had a habit of running off into the woods without any pants, with a baby pig, while carrying a jar of honey.
Obviously it is more about claiming developments in quantum technology, than stealth aircraft. To detect stealth aircraft all you need is high accuracy weather radar. You do not look for the aircraft, you look for it's impact on the atmosphere, pressure wave, changes in water density in the atmosphere and the exhaust itself. For searching this is far superior, because it presents a much, much larger target, a huge target. You don't see the plane but you see a very suspicious polluted cloud moving at hundreds of kilometre an hour, with out any regard to wind patterns and presenting a shock wave. How big a target, I'll bet it would be the best way to do over the horizon radar, not targeting the plane at all, just it's impact on the atmosphere, likely making over the horizon far easier and extend it's range far, far beyond line of site.
So in reality stealthy planes are only stealthy if they don't move or start their engines and of course any plane is stealthy if it hides in a hanger. So why is everyone still paying for brand new stealthy, cough, cough, aircraft, the lust for profit and corruption. It's not like they don't know this and have not been aware of it for years, but when there is a buck in it for the military industrial complex, expect lies and the truth to be buried.
Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
So to think that they have anything remotely capable of what they claim, without, you know PROOF (not just a research paper) if laughable.
That doesn't matter. All that matters is:
a) Trump voters will believe it (and demand action!)
b) Some department in the US Military will "believe" it (and ask for more funding...)
No sig today...
the US govt developed this tech 40 years ago. the chinese stole the technology and just now figured out how to kind of make it work. they sell a home version on aliexpress for cheap, but it'll only last two uses before breaking. but you can throw it away and buy another.
Scott
It makes perfect sense if their strategic aim is to deter aggression from an over-confident superpower by raising the known materiel and thus political cost.
Detection does not equal an ability to target the aircraft. All stealth aircraft need to accomplish is to break some step in the "kill chain" between detection and a weapon arriving on target. Simply being detected without providing quality targeting information is not enough to obviate stealth aircraft. Also, your suggestion requires very precise information; likely weather radar cannot provide that resolution and detail. Even if it could, that's a massive amount of computing power required to monitor the entire border region of a target area 24/7/365 and twice on Sundays.
And weather radars are large, stationary, and easy to destroy before sending in the aircraft. There are other radar arrays that can detect, but not target, stealth aircraft; they have the same faults. Stealth aircraft are designed to get closer to military radars than non-stealth equivalents. They are not invisible and it's always possible new detection technology will force changes in stealth technology. The point is not invisibility, the point is being able to penetrate enemy air defenses more reliably than previously possible.
On the trade war, it's important to be clear about who the participants in the war are and what their role is. It's not the US vs. China; it's the US government against the Chinese government, with the Chinese government playing the game with the assets of the Chinese nation.
It's governments playing games with OUR money. Both sides.
This is a bit like invading Russia. It's a truism that invading Russia is a bad idea; like most truisms it's only true some of the time. Sure there are historical examples of disastrous invasions, but there are just as many examples of successful invasions.
Name one successful invasion of Russia in the last 250 years.
A trade war with the PRC isn't an intrinsically bad idea; it's a matter of timing.
As a general proposition it's a terrible idea. At the end of the day the only result is going to be a lot of economic hardship for people like you and me on both sides of the ocean and elsewhere. The only time a trade war is a "good" idea is when one country is threatening a vital resource or asset. The US government should be more concerned with helping build up US business rather than trying to tear down Chinese ones.
A trade war with the PRC isn't an intrinsically bad idea; it's a matter of timing.
I disagree but let's assume that is true for the sake of argument. How would you know the time is right? You probably wouldn't. So basically it is huge gamble with no likely winner but a near certainty of economic hardship. And let's assume we wage a trade war all in against China. What does "victory" look like? What is the goal of these tariffs? What specific concessions is Trump trying to get from China? You'll notice that he has picked a fight without deciding on a victory condition. Anyone who starts a fight without a very specific goal for the end game is an idiot. Doubly so for someone fighting with other people's money.
The point?
. . . I'm not really even sure what the point is anymore. Theoretically, they're weapons of war. A saber to rattle to keep our enemies at bay. If shit hits the fan these things will be used to make strikes against Russia and China and their assets. But.... not really because if shits hitting the fan, nukes are flying, and no one gives a shit about planes. But they're fun to rattle and wave around. Whole generations of stealth planes are never utilized against the targets they're made to thwart.
So if not developed nations, we can use them to kick the shit out of developing nations. So far EVERY god damned time we've done that it's been a clusterfuck that I wish we hadn't. The europeans had success bombing the Balklans back into peace. Are there ANY others?
Cruise missles are expensive, but cheaper unless you've got a bunch of stuff you want blown up.
Ship destroyers are hyper-sonic missles.
Close air support and local surveillance are about 20 seconds from being taken over by drones that are cheap enough you might as well call them decoys. I expect to hear more stories about people launching million dollar missiles at targets that cost ~$1000. oh hey, would you look at that. Hot off the press.
Surveillance? Spy planes evolved to be so fast and fly so high that they're in orbit now and we call them satellites.
I think we were so caught up in the arms race during the cold war that "making a better fighter jet" is just an expected thing we do now. There are simply too many people afraid of the concept of "not having the best plane". We no longer have ships with the biggest cannon, we gave up on battleships. So what's the point of these planes? At this point too many people have jobs tied to this whole thing to simply shut it down. I like Ike, and he said it best: "we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military–industrial complex". On the other hand... hey, a lot of scientific and technical advancement comes from that limitless funding that is national defense budget. Quantum radar, for instance.