Re: In quantum physics breakthrough, strange computer is on and off
- From: Jan Panteltje <pNaonStpealmtje@xxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Fri, 10 Mar 2006 15:10:44 GMT
On a sunny day (Fri, 10 Mar 2006 14:48:59 GMT) it happened Sam Wormley
<swormley1@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in <ulgQf.16064$oL.12012@attbi_s71>:
In quantum physics breakthrough, strange computer is on and off
http://www.kansascity.com/mld/kansascity/news/nation/13946424.htm
BY JEREMY MANIER
Chicago Tribune
CHICAGO - In the bizarre realm of quantum mechanics - the physics
theory that stumped even Albert Einstein - tiny things like electrons
and packets of light often seem to be in two places at once, in total
violation of common sense.
Now a University of Illinois physics team has taken that principle and
built something harder to fathom: a quantum-based computer that can be
awake and asleep at the same time, and spits out answers even if its
program is never triggered.
It's plenty strange, but some experts say such real-world spinoffs of
eerie quantum effects are growing so common that it's our understanding
of "strange" that needs to change.
"This is the way nature is," said Charles Bennett, an IBM researcher
who dreamed up some of the new uses of quantum physics. "We should be
learning how to get used to that."
Quantum mechanics is the theory physicists use to understand events at
the atomic level, which works far differently than the large-scale
world that people inhabit. The theory states that it's impossible to
gain complete knowledge about any subatomic particle, and its location
and other traits often exist only as probabilities.
That maddening, fuzzy quality is fueling creative ideas about how to
put quantum effects to work.
The University of Illinois experiment, published Thursday in the
journal Nature, could help refine the young field of quantum computing.
In theory, computers based on quantum effects could race through
calculations that would take an ordinary computer billions of years to
complete. Applications of such computers could include precise
simulations of how proteins work in the human body.
Recent research also has raised the prospect of unbreakable quantum
codes, a commercial opportunity that some companies already are vying
to exploit. Bennett and others have pioneered a form of "quantum
teleportation" that can replicate the characteristics of light
particles more than a mile away - though nobody expects to be able to
beam people around.
The not-quite-technical term many physicists use for such effects is
"quantum weirdness." Although quantum theory has proved one of the most
successful and accurate ideas in science since Max Planck laid its
foundations a century ago, most great physicists have pronounced the
theory nearly impossible to reconcile with common sense. Einstein could
not accept the theory's glorification of probability, complaining, "God
does not play dice with the universe."
University of Illinois physics professor Paul Kwiat, co-author of the
new quantum computing study, said one of his favorite quotes on the
subject is by Nobel laureate Murray Gell-Mann, who once said: "We know
how to use (quantum mechanics) and how to apply it to problems; and so
we have learned to live with the fact that nobody can understand it."
Kwiat said he and his team don't need to understand what quantum theory
ultimately means for philosophical notions of reality. But they do know
that quantum effects allowed them to dream up one really weird
computer.
Like a frantic one-man band, a quantum computer gets its unique power
by trying to do many things at the same time.
Such devices are far different from the digital computers everyone
uses, which can process just one "bit" of electronic information at a
time, in a stately procession of 0s and 1s.
One bitters existed, indeed, these day a few $ will buy an AMD 64 bitter.
I have some algo here that does math in parallel on the reigsters in 64 bits,
so uses 64 bits registers as 64 one bitters.
It has an incredible speed advantage actually.
If you, as mathematician, want to see that source (no it was
not done by me), I can let you have it, and its explanation.
It is in fact used to decode a cypher.
The rest also sucks in that article.
Regards
Jan
.
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- In quantum physics breakthrough, strange computer is on and off
- From: Sam Wormley
- In quantum physics breakthrough, strange computer is on and off
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