Quantum Turns 100—New Scientist Maps the Next Technological Land Rush

Commemorating a century since Heisenberg’s breakthrough, New Scientist weaves five big stories into a manifesto for deep-tech disruption. The cover package “Our Quantum Century” updates Moore’s Law for qubits: device counts now double every 30 months and Google’s Sycamore-II gulps 50 kilowatts per noisy circuit, spotlighting energy as the hidden cost of quantum supremacy. An analysis asks “Should We Give Up on Recycling Plastic?”—sobering readers with the fact that only 14 percent of the 268 million tonnes of plastic waste collected in 2022 was recycled, and a mere 5 percent became new products. “Our Deepest Effect on the Planet” reveals that draining the Aral Sea has lifted Earth’s mantle by up to 7 millimetres per year, quantifying geo-engineering backlash. Food-tech feature “Raising the Bar” covers lab-grown chocolate start-ups racing to hedge against a 44-year-high cocoa price, while culture critic Bethan Ackerley’s Black Mirror review laments tech-dystopia fatigue yet concedes the season nails post-quantum privacy anxieties. The editorial “Beyond Weird” urges readers to embrace quantum uncertainty as creative fuel, uniting science, policy and art under one provocative question: What if not knowing is a feature?