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Science Technology

Quantum Computer Possible From Silicon Fab 254

Posted by timothy from the quintiddlydidillion dept.
Cash Mitchell writes: "This article from the EE Times says 'Researchers at the University of Wisconsin in Madison claim to have created the world's first successful simulation of a quantum-computer architecture that uses existing silicon fabrication techniques.... With existing fabrication techniques, the team estimates that a million-quantum-dot computer (1,024 x 1,024 array) could be built today and operated in the megahertz range.'"
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Quantum Computer Possible From Silicon Fab More

Quantum Computer Possible From Silicon Fab

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  • just in time for a port of Doom III. Carmack gets to develop even more technology.

    • Re:Just in time (Score:2, Informative)

      by jordanda ( 160179 )
      I can't imagine a port would be necessart since Doom III uses entirely deterministic algorithms and the non-deterministic computation the quantum computer is capable of is a superset of deterministic computation.
  • So where's the linux kernel hacks? (First Post?)

  • The simulation works perfectly.... (Score:5, Funny)

    by pollock ( 453937 ) on Sunday August 18, 2002 @07:16PM (#4094679) Homepage
    ...unless of course you try to look at the results.
  • Will this significantly improve my porn viewing experience?
  • the athlon or pentium computers that operate at gigahertz speeds with 20-30x the 'transistors'?

    • Re:How is this an improvement over, say... (Score:1, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Parallel processing. Instead of one operation at a time you can perform many.

      Think, sequencing a DNA strand in one step or cracking large encryption keys in seconds.
    • It can solve NP complete problems in seconds instead of taking longer than say, the present age of the universe.

      • How does parent have score 2? (Score:1, Informative)

        by Anonymous Coward
        Most experts would bet a lot of money on the *exact opposite* of what you just wrote.

        Quantum computers almost certainly cannot solve NP-complete problems in polynomial time. Despite years of research, factoring couldn't be shown to be NP-complete, which is probably not a coincidence.
        • Because it's correct. If the only application of quantum computers were to factoring numbers their usefulness would be quite limited. Please look at this article in nature [nature.com], which talks about the speedups derived from quantum computing techniques when solving NP complete problems.
  • "With existing fabrication techniques, the team estimates that a million-quantum-dot computer (1,024 x 1,024 array) could be built today and operated in the megahertz range."

    Intel's lawyers [slashdot.org] could not be reached for comment.

    However, within minutes the domain name "million-quantum.com" [netsol.com] was registered by some greedy slashdotter hoping to cash in.

  • So when can I get a quantum processor from Intel/AMD running with holographic solid state memory with instant data access (read and write) using spooky particles, and a total 3d holographic and tactile monitor?

    And if these first prototypes get off the ground... can Intel still say their ghz procs are faster than these mhz procs?

  • Schrodinger must die! (Score:5, Funny)

    by NewtonsLaw ( 409638 ) on Sunday August 18, 2002 @07:19PM (#4094696)
    How many cats will be sacrificed to test a 1024x1024 quantum array I wonder?

  • uh-oh (Score:1, Redundant)

    by r0b0t b0y ( 565885 )
    say goodbye to computer security as you know it. what else is our there that can replace our current systems that are based on hard factorizations of large numbers?

    • Re:uh-oh (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Myco ( 473173 )
      Uh, hate to burst the bubble of your little security apocalypse, but encryption schemes which will baffle quantum computers have been worked out for a while now, well in advance of the hardware's availability. Of course, for all I know it may *take* a quantum computer to implement these schemes (otherwise it seems like we'd just use them now), which would create two security classes of users, one of whom could penetrate the other's security at will. Yikes.
      • What about all the software that's already in place that would have to be modified? Sounds like another Y2K.

        What about the stuff people encrypted that they assumed would be uncrackable for a long time?

        The whole public-key infrastructure is still in its infancy. Oops, now we have to start building a new one before we finished building the original one.

        Maybe strong crypto was just a short golden age, never again to occur. Maybe it's just normal that all codes become obsolete within 10 years, and nobody should expect the kind of information privacy we've started to take for granted.

      • Re:uh-oh (Score:3, Informative)

        by eddeye ( 85134 )

        There was a recent discussion about quantum computers (QCs) on sci.crypt. The consensus is, given a powerful enough QC, all public-key methods (RSA, Diffe-Helman, Elliptic Curve systems, etc) are badly broken by Shor's algorithm.

        But symmetric ciphers (AES, DES, Blowfish, Serpent, etc) only have their effective key length cut in half, as a consequence of Grover's algorithm for searching an unordered list in O(sqrt(N)) time. So 64-bit keys become crackable with 2^32 work, and 128-bit keys in 2^64 work. Using 256-bit symmetric keys is considered sufficient to negate the threat of QCs.

        I'm not sure about other cryptographic constructs such as PRNGs (Yarrow, ANSI X9.17) or hash functions (SHA-1, MD5), but I'm guessing at worst you would just have to double the size of the internal state to achieve security levels comparable to today.

        Disclaimer: IANAC (I am not a cryptographer) but I do know quite a few.

  • "Of course it runs NetBSD."

  • So, what can a million qubits calculate? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by awfar ( 211405 ) on Sunday August 18, 2002 @07:24PM (#4094712)
    What are practical, everyday use? (besides breaking incredibly big and long keys to steal identities) These things operate at room temperature and are small and cheap enough for everyone to have.

    A personal weather forecaster, fluid dynamic calculating, realtime, 3d cellphone with a cute ring tone? Or a wash machine that can predict el nino's?

    Help me here...

    • Re: (Score:1, Offtopic)

      by account_deleted ( 4530225 )
      Comment removed based on user account deletion

    • Re:So, what can a million qubits calculate? (Score:4, Informative)

      by Misanthropic Lycanth ( 559885 ) on Sunday August 18, 2002 @07:39PM (#4094779) Homepage
      Quantum computer science is still in its infancy. There are some algorithms out there which operate much quicker than their classical counterparts (e.g. factoring, searching). There are others that are impossible. For instance, it is impossible to copy a qubit.

      This book [amazon.com] is pretty good. It's used at my university to teach an intro course in quantum computing.

      • You may be correct, but you're sending the wrong kind of message here. It has been shown that every classical algorithm can be performed on a quantum computer (quick note here [imsa.edu], but there are better sources) Sure, some may be slower, because of the quirks of quantum interaction, the necessity of error correction, or simply because an efficient algorithm hasn't yet been formulated.

        On the other hand, a fairly large body of problems have been shown to solvable exponentially faster using QC's. That, combined with the fact that QC/QInformation can be so fun to work with/theorize has contributed to the rapid growth of this field. It's like the Chaos Theory of the 00's.
        • It's like the Chaos Theory of the 00's.
          Gee, that's a real vote of confidence for QC's academic rigour.

          Idiotic popular books about the world and philosophy changing "truths" of quantum computing are just around the corner.

          • Wow, you mean the presence of popular books means it's not academically rigorous? Guess it's never been done for relativity...or quantum mechanics...or DNA...or cosmology...or nuclear physics...or orbital mechanics...or...

            Obviously, my point is that most interesting and/or obviously practical areas of science have been popularized. This says nothing about the rigor of the field of study. I'd point out that popularization is NECESSARY, You've seen "Contact," right? Jodie Foster plays the 'good' scientist who doesn't play politics and exepcts EVERYONE to automatically feel and believe the way she does; the movie is a fantasy, so everything turns out OK, but in real life, the super-conducting super-collider gets cancelled because some senators didn't understand what they were funding. Some better popularization (ie education of the non-scientific, non-technical public - that's 90% of the voters, you know) could have made the difference.

      • Re:So, what can a million qubits calculate? (Score:5, Funny)

        by huntz0r ( 580511 ) on Sunday August 18, 2002 @08:44PM (#4094958)
        For instance, it is impossible to copy a qubit.

        I can already hear the RIAA running like hell to back this technology.
      • ...to break RSA. Specifically, I believe that Shor's Algorithm requires 3n qubits, where n is the number of bits of the number you're trying to factor. Multiply by a factor of five to allow some error correction, and you need about 15k qubits to crack 1024-bit RSA.

        I work in the field (still an undergrad, but I'm doing some research), and I had the opportunity to meet Michael Nielsen a little while ago when he visited the Perimeter Institute [perimeterinstitute.com] and the University of Waterloo. Nielsen is one of the two authors of the book you mentioned. Out of curiousity, what university do you go to, Misanthropic?

        • Re:Several thousand qubits is enough... (Score:5, Informative)

          by Uller-RM ( 65231 ) on Sunday August 18, 2002 @09:37PM (#4095095) Homepage
          It needs 2n + 1 qubits; you start with a superposition, raise it to a power, then measure the result, collapsing the first superposition into a subset of logarithms. The discrete log step is the clincher: once you know the number has a log, you can just perform a Fourier transform on the superposition of logs, and the rest is all number theory.

          And yes, you realistically need a LOT of extra qubits for error-correcting codes.

          (Just for completeness, the University of Portland used this [amazon.com] text for a 400-level semester course on QC. It's not too bad, although it expects you to be quite fluent in number theory and linear algebra.)
      • For instance, it is impossible to copy a qubit

        Actually, the controlled-NOT operation does precisely that, it copies the value of a qubit. The misconception that it is impossible to copy a qubit comes from a misunderstanding of Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle. The no-cloning theorem in simple terms says that you can't make a copy of a quantum system because you can't know its state, because to know its state completely would be to change it. The way around this is to use a gate such as C-NOT which lets you make copies of a qubit without actually observing or measuring its state. These qubits are then entangled such that if you ever measure one, they all collapse to the same value. (This is the behavior you would expect from a true quantum copy.)
    • If i had one of these chips the first thing I would try is a some sort of A.I. search tree. One could make a completely unbeatable chess player who could forcast all possible moves. Similarly, game A.I. would not be so stupid about running into doorframes.

      You could also do some really cool web searching algorithms that would find what your looking for to an almost scary degree.

      • Comment removed based on user account deletion

        • Re:So, what can a million qubits calculate? (Score:4, Funny)

          by dillon_rinker ( 17944 ) on Sunday August 18, 2002 @11:17PM (#4095508) Homepage
          "Computer...find me the drivers."
          (GooglePersonal does some context checking for the generic term "driver" and comes up blank...)
          "Do you want driver software for hardware attached to this computer, or are you looking for people who drive cars, or are you looking or something else?"
          "No, no...the printer drivers."
          (GooglePersonal polls the OS for a list of installed printers)
          "Do you want drivers for the Fax/Scanner/Printer or for the color laser printer?"
          "The color laser."
          (GooglePersonal queries the printer for its manufacturer and model ID)
          "Do you want to search only the manufacturer's web site?"
          "Yes."
          (GooglePersonal does the relevant search and returns 1 hit, a link that says "Click here to download and install the most up-to-date drivers for your printer.)
          "Only one hit? I wonder if it's the right one...and what am I supposed to do with it? DEAR! WHAT'S OUR SON'S PHONE NUMBER?"
          • Heh, I laughed out loud. Thanks.

            Aside from the truth factor, your post reminded me of this article [ftrain.com]. Thought I'd share it.
          • Um...yeah...The whole reason of the driver is so that the computer know what type of printer is installed and its capabilities. If it can query it for make and model, than what exactly is the point? Why not just be able to query for instruction set, etc?

            • For the simple reason that the driver could improve, while instructions in the hardware it self would harder to upgrade, and some what more dangerous (what happen if you fail to upgrade ypur bios?).


              The driver in the software can be upgraded/fixed easily, also gives you a choice. Would you think that the printer would have a driver for linux embeded? Epson, who does have linux drivers for their printers, dosen't even bother to put them in the CD that comes with the printer.

            • BZZZT! Thanks for playing. Have you never heard of plug-and-play? It permits the OS to query the hardware to determine what's out there. It may not have the drivers for the hardware, but it can enumerate and identify the hardware. Combine that with a persistent 'net connection, and poof...you've got an easy way to positively and uniquely identify any hardware attached to the PC.

              Once it queries for make and model, it knows WHAT drivers to install. You don't install drivers so the OS knows what's installed; you install drivers so the OS can communicate correctly with the installed hardware.

              Don't know what you mean by querying for instruction set; this is done now.. Ever hear of MMX? 3DNow? These are instruction set extensions and the OS is able to query the CPU for them. Kind of a funny thing - it's like drivers for your CPU...
    • They didn't say a million qubits, they said a million "quantum-dots", whatever they are (I guess they could be the same thing, but if they meant qubits, I am sure they would have said it).
    • Well having a million processors working in Parellel. Then you can can have programs that work in a Faster Big O. So for example if you have a million data points then you can sort the Data in Log(N) time compared to a N time. You can also use it to have one qubits to calculate each pixel on your screen thus improving graphics on vidio games. More processors to speed up a good game of chess. And perhaps just perhaps windows may run a good speed. Probably not.
    • IIRC, there have been some ideas that quantum computers could be used to more effectively model protein folding than we can now. Perhaps even allow the reverse problem of protein engineering (given a desired protein active site structure, to either find a structure that will fold to it or show that none will) to be tackled.
      If course, just like everything else that would be revolutionary, the best things are those we can't think of yet.
      I'm dubious of this though. I'll start believing it when I see a 10 by 10 demonstrator array running at a few kilohertz. Until then, it's just a nice idea.

    • Simulate other quantum systems (Score:2, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward
      This paper [umass.edu](umass.edu) suggests that one thing quantum computers could do really well is *simulate* other quantum systems.

      Like, a guy posted something about QC's being helpful in understanding protein folding; I think it could be much more than that. A good way of simulating atomic interactions, without ignoring their quantum aspects, could be revolutionary for any industry that works on the atomic-scale.

      These industries include biotech and medicine, chip design, MEMS, all kinds of materials science, nanotech, superconductivity research, how-to-wind-nanotubes-into-space-elevator-cable research, and, yes, how-to-build-better-quantum-computers research.

    • Already noted are the searching algorithms that exist for quantum computing. This would enable extremely fast database queries.

      I think the difficulty you are having in imagining uses for this technology is sort of a chicken-and-the-egg problem. All of modern computing is based off of hardware that is fundamentally different than this technology. Programming languages and VM's are (to a great extent) mere extentions and abstractions of the hardware. With quantum computing, completely new languages and algorithms need to be invented.
  • Well, so does my old 286!
  • I admit to knowing next to nothing about quantum computers or quantum computing. Well, actually I guess it is nothing.

    However something seems wrong about using the term "megahertz" in regards to a quantum computer. I didn't think quantum computing had anything in common with a typical synchronous design. Can anyone clarify this for me?
    • likely because while the qubits do their thing "instantaneously, reading their state from solid state electronics sometimes is a serial process and can only go so fast (a CMOS video chip is this way), though my experience is dated...

    • Re:megahertz? (Score:3, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Coventional quantum computing is described by a network diagram. This can be translated into a sequence of computational steps, one or two qubit gates acting on selected qubits. The simplest QC architecture would be to run one gate at a time.

      Parallel exucution of gates can be arranged (as long as gates act on different qubits) but this is highly dependent on the actual physical system used (ion trap, neutral atom trap, optical lattice, solid state nuclear spin, electron dots, SQUIDs etc).

      The key figure of merit is the ratio of gate execution time to the decoherence time. Current estimates of error correction efficiency place the upper bound of this ration at 10^-4 or so (this actually also depends on the ratio of the number logical qubits to physical qubits, sacrificing one for the other). Since quantum dots have very short relaxation times, this places severe constraints on the high speed control electronics. I'll wait for the pre-print or paper before coming to any conclusion on the report. There's still the problem of constructing the damn thing, the purity of the silicon, cooling, EM noise and readout (which isn't mentioned in the article). I'm wary of the heterostructure approach, getting pure silicon to work is hard enough (ask the UNSW guys).

      Cheers,
      D.
      (Not a solid state expert)

    • Re:megahertz? (Score:2, Interesting)

      by jordanda ( 160179 )
      With a deterministic computer we do several calculations in sequence therfore it is appropriate to think in terms of cycles per second. This doesn't change with a non-deterministic computer. The non-deterministic computer is still doing calculations in sequence The difference is that it is using the superposition of states of the bits to calculate the results of all possible bit combinations. The Quantum computer accomplishes a lot more in terms of computation per cycle in that it considers more than one bit patterm but it is still doing the same operation on all those patterns. It is necessary to do these operations in sequence, hence the need for a cycle.
  • "Our precise modeling elucidates the specific requirements for scalable quantum computing. for the first time we have translated the requirements for fault-tolerant quantum computing into the specific requirements for gate voltage control electronics in quantum dots, said professor Mark Eriksson."

    Is there a dilbert-esque techspeak generator they used for this article or what? The previous paragraph makes my head hurt...
    • "Our precise modeling elucidates the specific requirements for scalable quantum computing. for the first time we have translated the requirements for fault-tolerant quantum computing into the specific requirements for gate voltage control electronics in quantum dots, said professor Mark Eriksson."

      Translation for those who could not comprehend it:

      "We've figured how to build the darn thing on a silicon chip, layer by layer, and have the blueprints. It kinda works in a simulation. We are now going to make a very simple chip (perhaps few gates) and see how our design works in practice. Sure, there will be kinks, but if our idea turns out to be free from fatal flaws, it gonna rock - eventually."

  • All 4 researchers unloaded their holdings of PayPal and Verisign.
  • What happens when you try to factor too big a prime number [slashdot.org]? (If you've read the book, you'll know. ;) )
  • OK, let me see if I've got this straight:

    Quantum computing is just around the corner. Blind people can get optical implants [slashdot.org] directly into their brains, allowing them to recover sight. (Not perfect today, but just wait 'til Moore's [slashdot.org] law [slashdot.org] gets hold of this hardware.) It may be possible to build a space elevator [slashdot.org] within the next 15-20 years. And so on, and so on.

    The singularity [slashdot.org] is suddenly looking a lot less theoretical.

  • "The normal errors encountered during quantum calculations could mostly be corrected"

    Mostly be corrected? Am I the only one for whom this does not sound particularly reassuring...or usefull?

    • Qubits have a tendancy to degrade and lose their state. Researchers tend to be happy if you could get the right answer from a calculation 80-90% of the time. This just means you have to do the calculation multiple times to make sure they agree.
    • Mostly be corrected? Am I the only one for whom this does not sound particularly reassuring...or usefull?

      I'm not certain.

  • So much for RSA (Score:4, Insightful)

    by po8 ( 187055 ) on Sunday August 18, 2002 @07:57PM (#4094838)

    Keep in mind that such a computer, if successfully built, will spell the end of RSA. Too bad, that. Does anyone have a quantum-secure public-key system yet?

    • With quantum the encryption is in the transmission. Quantum can trasmit over fiber perfectly securly using something thats fairly simular to quantum entanglement, only problem is it can't go through routers or anything, but thats the point if anything but the recipient tries to read it, it gets destroyed. But encyption on the storage medium? Not yet.
    • ...from the Swiss company ID Quantique [idquantique.com]. I've spoken with people from the company. It's still in the early stages, but if you need the ultimate in secure OTP distribution over medium ranges (tens of kilometers), this is it.

      The price? If you have to ask, you can't afford it.
    • This technology if it works will spend the end of hackable keys. The beauty of quantum computing is that you can see "observations" of information, hence intended hacks. Now this requires networking changes and others but once we move into a quantum world there is ZERO chance of anyone hacking your Quantum Key.

      Or to put it another way, there is zero chance of the US goverment risking this falling into the hands of dangerous consumers.
    • It isn't that hard in theory, but it can be a little tricky in practice.

      RSA works on the idea of non-reversible functions. It's pretty trivial to calculate what 23 * 13 is, but quite a bit more difficult to determine what the factors of 299 are, and this with values that could be stored in 5 bits. RSA is considered secure because finding those factors at increasing key sizes becomes nontrivially hard to pull off.

      Quantum computers wreck all of this because they can more or less try all possible values at once. However, qubits also have the interesting quality of having their value destroyed when it is observed, meaning you can send some data and if it's munged when it arrives, somebody else has peeked.

      So if we go with the use of a one-time pad, we get to gain the advantages of that, but with the added bonus that you can send the key as plaintext, only using it if both parties agree it hasn't been tampered with (just do something like TCP does when setting up a connection: Sender: SYN, Recipient: SYN+ACK, Sender: ACK + data).

      Of course there's still the possibility of a man in the middle attack here. Alice wants to talk to Bob. Eve wants to see what Alice has to say, so she interecepts the key as it's going to Bob, and sends Bob a different key. Eve gets to see the plaintext, Alice and Bob never the wiser.

      The other big issue is getting good random data for the one-time pads. Plenty of decent pseudorandom number generators out there, though. Might be good enough.

      My apologies if I've really munged any of the concepts here. I've not studied any of this in depth.

      -transiit

  • For the physics-savvy (Score:5, Informative)

    by carambola5 ( 456983 ) on Sunday August 18, 2002 @07:59PM (#4094841) Homepage

    I truly take pride in this discovery... mostly because I attend UW. But I suppose a love of physics helps in that area, too.

    Anyways, here's a somewhat technical article [lanl.gov] regarding the research (PDF).


    Oh, and "On Wisconsin!"

  • No Beouwulf remarks?

    Ok... "Imagine a beouwulf cluster ...." :P

  • Is this the end of privacy? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Sanity ( 1431 ) on Sunday August 18, 2002 @09:00PM (#4095011) Homepage Journal
    One of the wonderful things about assymetric cryptography [everything2.org] is that it removed the need for secure transmission of private keys, an expensive process that in many cases made cryptography the sole-preserve of governments and other powerful organisations.

    Quantum computers could render assymetric crypto next-to-useless, and as-such may permenantly set electronic privacy back decades for all but the super-powerful.

    Those that claim quantum cryptography will redress this problem don't understand that quantum crypto will likely be even more expensive than secure symmetric cryptography.

    In essence, the advent of quantum computers may be the turning point, the point where advances in computer communication are no-longer tools of freedom, but become, once more, tools of the powerful.

    • I don't get it. Quantum computers could easily break 128-bit encryption, the same encryption which would take todays supercomputers eons to break.

      Why not just use encryption that's high enough that it would take even quantum computers eons to break? (i.e., 1giga-bit encryption)?
      • Quantum computers work differently from computers today. In computer science there's something called Big O notation to sort of describe relative speeds of algorithms. Most brute-forcing methods probably have exponential times. SO if an algorithm had a O(2^n), adding a single extra-bit would double the time it took to brute force. Quantum computers can reduce this to polynomial time for a O(n^2). So if you add an extra bit, the time it takes is only increased slightly. And I think that key-lengths that take a long time to brute force with quantum computers, would be so large, that it wouldn't be feasible to use.

        But there are different methods of encryption for quantum computers. Althought as far as I understand, they all work on the transmission medium, and not on the actual data, so I don't how this would apply to routed data, or stored data.
      • Why not just use encryption that's high enough that it would take even quantum computers eons to break? (i.e., 1giga-bit encryption)?
        Because it would take almost as long to encrypt the information as it would to break that encryption.
        • What about encryption techniques designed specifically to foil quantum computers?

          There must be some way which encryption can be made to work so that they can't break it in polynomial time.

  • Doesn't Windows make your computer a quantum computer?

    You never know its stability state until you attempt an operation. Upon doing so you can't tell what it will do next.

    (With apologies to Mr. Schrodinger and Mr. Heisenberg)

  • I thought it was very difficult to simulate a quantum computer on a classical computer. Some problems in quantum mechanics can't be properly simulated by a classical system at all.

    Once you go past a certain number of qubits, it takes too long to simulate all the possible interactions.

    Not that I don't believe we'll see a working quantum co-processor in the next few decades, I'm positive we will.

    But I'm just wondering how they came up with the "million qubits" number.

  • ...will quantum-computer only have a virus if anti-virus programs look?
  • So we use a quantum computer as a signal processor.

    But be willing to accept errors in the data transmission.

    Bit errors would be data from other universes.

    devise a communications protocal.

    Have conversations with the infinite number of your alternates that are also working on their quantum computers to acheive the same effects.
  • I wonder whether they used perl [perl.com]...

    Favorite quote: "The Quantum::Entanglement module attempts to port some of the functionality of the universe into Perl."

  • hmmm, (Score:2)

    by Sarin ( 112173 )
    a million-quantum-dot computer (1,024 x 1,024 array) should be enough for anybody!
  • The article doesn't appear to be too clear on the point but it appears that the researchers at the University of Wisconsin in Madison didn't succeed in actually building anything. Rather they've "created the world's first successful simulation [my emphasis] of a quantum-computer architecture that uses existing silicon fabrication techniques."

    Of course, if that's the case, an interesting question comes to light: how acurate and predictive are these simulations, that they would be able to predict quantum effects? Does anyone know anything about this sort of "simulated research?"

  • My first computer was made out of a process that has acheived Megahertz speeds. The VIC-20

    It ran at about 1MHz. Maybe they should start by building a quantum VIC-20 and work their way up the scale again. A quantum 64 with quantum SID, and so on...
  • So if this is for real, RSA will soon be dead. Does there exist a quantum algorithm for solving the discrete logrithm problem in manageable time?
  • (A.P. New Your City, 2011 August 19) Early beta testing of Microsoft's Windows QP Pro (quantum) installed on a Intel Octoplex 19 Gigahertz quantum MPU resulted in less than stellar results.

    Commander Taco in his test lab grumbled, "I can transport myself to Hong Kong, get measured for a suit, grab a quick hooker, and be back before this think has booted!"

    Other anomolies included past life echos, fire, brimstone, and the aparent "voice of God".

    Bill Gate's head could not be reached for comments.

  • Yeah, yeah, yeah (Score:3)

    by SIGFPE ( 97527 ) on Monday August 19, 2002 @03:38PM (#4100130) Homepage
    A quantum computer isn't just the sum of its parts (technically it's the product, the tensor product). You just can't go sticking individual components together and expect that the combined system is going to be able to maintain coherence. I bet that if they build a 1024x1024 array they'll be using almost all of it to do the quantum error correction for just a handful of useful quantum bits.


    Either this story has been severely garbled by journalists or its an outright lie designed to get funding.

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