Molecular Photography 226
med dev writes "An article at New Scientist discusses the latest in quantum computing - 1000 bits stored in the electron spins of a single polymer molecule. Add in a recent release of the how-to for the complete quantum computer, qubits that work, and it may not be much longer before Google is running on a server the size of a sugar cube."
Not necessarily a good thing... (Score:5, Funny)
"Hey Johnny, where did the new $100,000 server go?"
"I don't know... I had it right here on the table!"
"Oh shit! I put it in my coffee! That's why it tasted kind of funny."
Re:Not necessarily a good thing... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Not necessarily a good thing... (Score:2)
"We lost Google0781"
"It crashed?"
"Nope, it's functioning and still serving, but..."
"But what?"
"We just couldn't find it"
Re:Not necessarily a good thing... (Score:2)
Somebody set up us the bomb, Bobby.
Re:NO, NO, that isn't funny, please don't mod it u (Score:2)
It's a bit nutty.
Great (Score:2, Funny)
Regarding this "Quantum Computer"... (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Regarding this "Quantum Computer"... (Score:5, Funny)
Molecular computers may benefit from this... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Molecular computers may benefit from this... (Score:2)
Re:Molecular computers may benefit from this... (Score:5, Informative)
The X-rays will not tell you anything about the nuclei of the molecules you are looking at, as the photons go through the electrons in the crystalised protein they will make an interference pattern, and from that you can calculate the shape of the electron cloud around the molecule.
Note that this gives you no infomation on the quantum state of the nuclei, which is what this quantum computer needs to know.
Nuclear Magnetic Resonance [rit.edu] molecular analyisis works in a similar way to Magnetic Resonance Imaging, just on a smaller scale.
for more information click here [rcsb.org]
Easy answers. (Score:3, Informative)
No, not at all.
The article mentions a magnetic imaging device.
Is that like a synchrotron?
No, not at all.
Syncrotrons produce gamma/X-rays. Expose a polymer to some of those, and it won't stay a polymer for long..
NMR instruments (and MRI devices) use radio waves. Much longer wavelength, much lower energy.
The only similarity I can think of is that both use big magnetic fields, but for different reasons.
(syncrotrons use them to accelerate particles, NMR machines use them to split the spin energy levels)
Nice, Cool, Wow, but...... (Score:4, Insightful)
So, a wonderful step forward....but there are still many many steps left.
Sincerely, your local cynic
Re:Nice, Cool, Wow, but...... (Score:5, Insightful)
It all depends on your perspective. Give it a while and we'll see what the true ramifications are.
-Mark
Re:Nice, Cool, Wow, but...... (Score:5, Interesting)
For instance, it mentions that they used photons to carry information between ions. That's all well and good, but remember, working with single photons isn't all that easy to begin with, and that pesky Heisenberg guy keps getting in the way. Stray particles remain a problem. (Silicon computing has copper to carry electrons -- what do you to with individual photons?) Furthermore, it does not address the larger problem of decoherence, wherein the state of a quantum computation is lost after a short and unpredictable amount of time.
Really, what would be better is some great leap in quantum error correction or some quantum computer that does not rely on nuclear magnetic resonance. (NMR can only scale to seven or eight qubits before becoming unusable, at which point quantum computers are rather pointless...)
hmm... (Score:2, Interesting)
and isn't the first conformation likely to change spontaneously anyway (we're only talking about spin here, not orbitals). maybe they sit in the middle conformation or something, like benzene double bonds
i can feel the organic chem rusting in my brain weekly; it's almost gone now
Re:hmm... (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:hmm... (Score:2)
Access Speed. (Score:5, Informative)
nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) instrument.
I've done NMR, it takes ages. Preparing the sample takes about 30 minutes. Running the NMR takes between 1 and 20 minutes depending on what you're measuring. Analysing the results depends on how good you are.
I can't see google using this any time soon.
Re:Access Speed. (Score:2, Interesting)
I posted elsewhere in this article about NMR... if you want some details on how it's done, read my other post.
Anyway, they aren't using a commercial NMR device that you'd see in a biology/chemistry lab. I don't understand how it works myself, because I don't see determinism embedded in qubits, which have a random element.
The point is, they aren't measuring chemical shift, which is what it sounds like your NMR experience involved.
I get the impression they don't look at relaxation times at all. They are more interested in the bulk spin-state of the material, not in the interaction between the atoms in the material.
Down with Saudi Arabia!!!
You are an idiot. (Score:3, Funny)
Um... the other posts by username "Anonymous Coward" all involve a website called goatse [goatse.cx], whatever that is.
Re:Access Speed. (Score:2, Informative)
Analysing the results depends on how good you are.
That's a bit silly. The actual pulse sequence doesn't take anywhere near 1 to 20 minutes, more like microseconds.
You repeat the thing to get better resolution, which may not be necessary with better equipment in the future.
Not to mention that analysis can be automated as well. (It already is when it comes to protein-NMR)
1000 bits... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:1000 bits... (Score:3, Informative)
Blockquoth the article:
They did record at least 1024 bits. But I guess they aren't being used, because otherwise,
Redundancy of information stored? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Redundancy of information stored? (Score:4, Informative)
Lots and lots. In 1995 Peter Shor (the factoring guy) and Robert Calderbank devised that possible [lanl.gov]the first error correcting code for quantum computers. Many others have been designed, including proposals for some that operate as a natural consequence of the system being used. Here [lanl.gov] is a good survey of the field.
It has been shown that if the error rate is below a certain threshold (currently estimated to be one error per 103 operations for optimists, and one per 106 per pessimists) then efficient error corrected quantum computation is possible. The pessimistic estimate is well above what is currently possible experimentally in quantum systems but the problem seems to be an engineering one, not a fundamental one. It should eventually be possible with clever implementations of qubits, shielding and cooling to near absolute zero.
Re:Redundancy of information stored? (Score:2)
Wtf is with not allowing the <sup> tag?
Re:Redundancy of information stored? (Score:3, Informative)
Such variances are common and expected in quantum computing; hence the field of Quantum Error Correction [qubit.org]. (Google for more [google.com]...)
Popular science (Score:5, Informative)
Moreover, the peculiarities that make quantum computing interesting (e.g. the ability to factorize in polynomial time) also make it completely inappropriate for mundane tasks. So please stop the "google in a cube" shit.
Re:Popular science (Score:4, Informative)
What the hell are you talking about. Although it will undoubtably more practical to use a classical computer to run one of the current envisions of a quantum one, that doesn't mean the classical one is required. Quantum computers include classical computers as a subset.
You are wrong - Re:Popular science (Score:5, Informative)
You are incorrect. Classical computers can search an indexed database in log(n) time. Grover's algorithm allows quantum searches to be much faster, perhaps even in constant time. Search engines could benefit immensely from quantum computing.
Lots of information can be found on Lov Grover's quantum search algorithm. Do a search for it on Google. Dr. Dobb's even analyzed the quantum source code [ddj.com] for the algorithm. Pretty cool stuff.
Re:You are wrong - Re:Popular science (Score:2, Interesting)
The original Grover's algorithm is for searching in unsorted database. Grover has shown that this takes only O(sqrt(n)) steps as opposed to O(n) on classical computer.
Grover's algorithm does not deal with sorted or indexed databases and I don't think it can be adapted to make advantage of the order of database elements. What it does is simply taking advantage that you can quickly enhance the probability of choosing element matching your search criteria from all possible elements.
To summarize: as far as I know noone has shown deterministic nor quantum search in ordered set to be below O(log n) in worst case.
Re:You are wrong - Re:Popular science (Score:2)
Re:You are wrong - Re:Popular science (Score:2)
You can turn any irreversible gate into a reversible one by adding outputs. For example, 2-input XOR becomes reversible if you add a 2nd output which is a copy of one of the inputs. There are many tricks like this which are studied under the topic of reversible computation.
Re:You are wrong - Re:Popular science (Score:2)
http://www.znaturforsch.com/57a/s57a0701.pdf
Re:Popular science (Score:5, Insightful)
This article is about storage, not processing. And quantum bits of this type are pretty damn dense. Guess what--Google needs to store a lot of data. Yes, the experiment described isn't much more than an interesting proof-of-concept, but there is tremendous promise. "Google in a cube" is a bit of journalistic license, but I'll still be impressed when we're putting just the Google cache into a sugar cube.
Re:Popular science (Score:2)
Re:Popular science (Score:3, Informative)
A memory element (latch) needs a loop. A Meally/Moore automaton - 2 loops. A circuit that emulates a Turing Machine - 3 loops. Something that's also programmable - 4 loops.
To the future. (Score:5, Interesting)
My mother was born in 1947. The transistor was also invented in 1947, by Shockley. 55 years later, I got her a new computer for Christmas.
What will I see when I turn 55? I can't wait to find out.
Re:To the future. (Score:2, Insightful)
I'm confused - were you born this year?
Re:To the future. (Score:2)
Database indexes (Score:3, Interesting)
Will quantum computing make using database table indexes obsolete? ie. will the time saved by using an index be small enough that it's not worth the effort to create/maintain one (for most uses)?
Sounds like "what-if" analysis will be taken to a new extreme, big time.
Re:Database indexes (Score:2)
I am still waiting for quantum computing to defeat all currently existing encryption mechanisms by easily solving all infeasibly difficult problems.
I guess there are some practical hurdles which I don't understand.
Re:Database indexes (Score:3, Interesting)
It's actually pretty ingenious - it takes advantage of entanglement to generate a superposition of all discrete logs of x, and then performs a Fourier transform on it. If the most likely discrete log is odd and non-zero, then you can factor using basic number theory. (If not, rinse and repeat; Shor's algorithm does have a work factor, although its scope isn't as large as with Grover's search algorithm.)
Re:Database indexes (Score:2)
No. Grover's quantum search algorithm searches an unindexed database with N entries in O(sqrt(N)) time. It says nothing about indexed databases which can be accessed in O(log(N)) time using classical computers.
Re:Database indexes (Score:2)
ok... (Score:4, Insightful)
Sure, we could store information on molecules, but the speed and the size of the machines involved would put us back to working with punch cards...
What needs to be done simultaneously is to improve the method in which we induce and read the spin in molecules, or those sugar cube sized computers will just be expensive and slow RAM inside a computer the size of a room...
Re:ok... What about ROMs, though? (Score:2)
True, it probably takes a massive machine to make the itty-bitty data storage. Until they can miniaturize that equipment, though, I'm sure there will still be a good market for massive ROMs. Lots of read-only storage in a little container. Of course, the access device has to be small enough, but I can see a middle-ground.
Industrial CD-pressing machines are pretty huge, but the read-only data they create is incredibly mobile.
Re:ok... (Score:2)
does this mean what i think it means (Score:2, Funny)
Imagine a beowulf cluster of these
"ducks"
I wish my computer were the size of a suger cube, lan parties would be easy, just stick my computer in my pocket and go though a suger cube monitor might not be as nice.......
"hey stop shooting at my I droped my magnifying glass"
Re:does this mean what i think it means (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Wow.. (Score:2, Funny)
Library of congress (Score:2)
It has to be said: (Score:2)
This is what I believe. (Score:2)
Translation (Score:5, Informative)
First off, this is NOT a quantum computer. It does not use qubits. The current experiment is about encoding plain old binary bits onto a molecule. Molecules are made of atoms, and each atom has a nucleus (surrounded by electrons), and each nucleus has a "magnetic moment", which means it acts like a little bar magnet. The "spin" of the nucleus tells you which direction that magnet is oriented. (Okay, spins are more complicated than this, but this is the important bit in this experiment.)
Now, electromagnetic radiation (light, radio waves, X-rays) comes in a continuous array of forms, but all of them can be described (to some approximation) as being made up of alternating electric and magnetic fields. These alternating magnetic fields can pull on the magnetic moments of nuclei and reorient them (i.e. change the spin). Now for a complicated molecule, all the little nuclear magnetic spins from all the different atoms will interact in determining the final state when some electromagnetic radiation is applied. (Imagine that the different magnets pull on each other even while the radiation pulls on them.)
What the researchers did was choose 1024 distinct frequencies of electromagnetic radiation that were in the right range to affect the spins, and then showed that the final magnetic state for the molecule depends (presumably uniquely) on the which subset of radiation they applied. For instance, if you wanted to encode 01110101000...0, then you would bombard the molecule with the 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 6th and 8th frequency.
In order to measure the resulting state, they applied an NMR (nuclear magnetic resonance) measurement, apparently to measure the difference in magnetic fields from the recorded state and the way it reacts to a particular applied field (the article is a little vague on these details).
So to make a long story short, they rearrange the nuclear spins of a particular molecule using an applied electromagnetic field and then invented some way to measure the resulting configuration, and showed (or more likely inferred from testing some subset) that they can make at least 2^1024 distinct configurations by varying the field you apply, hence showing that it is possible to encode a 1024-bit number.
Before some spits out the blatantly obvious. (Score:3, Interesting)
It's not likely that a quantum computer will be of any use as a desktop computer (not anytime soon). They just don't work that way.
A quantum computer works by exploiting a phonomenon explained by QM - the superposition of states. Basically, a particle takes on every possible state it can be, as long as it isn't measured. (google Schroedingers cat if you want a good analogy). So basically, if you have an 32-qubit register, you can represent 2^32 states. What makes the qubit different than the classical bit is that all these states exist at the same time. Therefore, your system is exponentially parallel.
This massive parallelism makes them extremely useful in problems that requires massively parallel processing, such as searching algorithms, factoring, and any other NP problem. Their first applications may very well be in a system such as google's, but it'll most likely be in the form of a co-processor. It's pretty safe to say that all quantum information processing systems will only be used to solve such problems. Once they mature and we figure out ways to stop decoherence, then maybe they'll become a consumer item. Until then, they're researcher's dream.
NSA likes this stuff (Score:5, Interesting)
It's no surprise that his idea was implented by a group in Australia, since he was originally a researcher there. However the University of Maryland and more importantly the NSA [nsa.gov] convinced him to come over here. The Labratory of Physical Scientists [umd.edu] (LPS) was set up only a few years ago to pursue cutting edge work in quantum computing and related fields, with a rich endowment from the NSA.
More precisely, the group says they can effectively buy any piece of equipment they want with the money the NSA is willing to dole out to ensure that the US has the lead in this technology. This includes having one of the most advanced clean rooms and chip fabs outside of industry.
I know of no direct evidence to support my claims that the NSA is bankrolling LPS but the site is only a 15 mins from the NSA headquarters in Fort Meade, MD, and there is a reason that LPS chose a KEY for their logo. After all wouldn't it be fun to unlock all the secret codes.
Re:NSA likes this stuff (Score:2, Insightful)
You might find www.perimeter.ca interesting. This is Canada's hub for quantum computing research. It's mostly theoretical and they pump out a huge amount of information theory papers. Just go to http://arxiv.org and look up "Raymond LaFlamme".
Re:NSA likes this stuff (Score:2)
Re:NSA likes this stuff (Score:3, Interesting)
I have worked in Quantum Computing research before. I assure you that it is not 1-2 years from producing systems capable of useful application of known QC algorithms. More like 20-30 years. NMRQC does not scale, and I haven't seen anybody coming up with ways to make it scale (i.e. to make the problem of extending NMRQC to greater numbers of qubits a problem linearly increasing in effort rather than exponentially increasing in effort). And yes, those are vague terms, but compensating for noise and measuring QC results is much more than "just a bit" (linearly) harder going from say, 7 qubits, to say, 8 or 9 qubits. Good luck doubling the number of qubits.
As for other public key cryptosystems - what about
The McEliece cryptosystem based on algebraic coding theory? And the Chor-Rivest knapsack algorithm is still secure, except for certain parameter values that have been attacked.
Re:NSA likes this stuff (Score:2)
The popular assumption is that current cryptographical algorithms could be weakened or compromised by having a working quantum computer and the right algorithm that does something fancy with producing prime numbers.
Now, my question is, why can't the same quantum compuger and another clever algorithm be used to "up the ante" to the "next order of mangnitude" with a form of encryption which can only be encoded/decoded with a quantum computer?
And if such a thing could occur, would a "meta-quantum" computer be capable of easily compromising the quantum-only encryption codec?
Not in one molecule (Score:2, Insightful)
Second, it doesn't work, at least not the way they say it does. You can't store 1024 bits in the nuclear magnetic spins of a 19 atom molecule!
Or more precisely, you can't retrieve that many bits. The spin state of a nucleus can be described by a complex number, but when you do a measurement you only get one bit out. With 19 nuclei you can read out only about 19 bits.
So how do they make it work? They've got a huge number of molecules there. Each one is loaded with the same data value. Using the redundancy in those molecules, the researchers can read out the 1024 bits. But if they had only a single molecule holding the value in its nuclear spins, as the paper implies, there's no way they could read out 1024 bits. So the density is not as high as they make it sound.
Re:Not in one molecule (Score:3, Informative)
Think about a photon, which has a linear polarization: up-down, left-right, slantwise, or at whatever angle you want. You can in principle put in an arbitrary amount of information in setting the polarization angle of a photon. You could divide a circle into as many parts as you want, and set the polarization to an angle corresponding to the value you want to send. This is like how they pack 1024 bits into a 19 nuclei molecule.
Now, the problem is reading the data back out. If you have only one photon in a particular polarization state, you can't determine that state with any accuracy. You can in fact only get one bit of data out of that photon. You can pass it through a polarizer and either it makes it, or it does not. This gives you information about the polarization state but it destroys that state in the process. You can put lots of information into a single photon, but you can't read it back out.
Now let's imagine that we have lots of photons, in a laser beam for example. We can set them all to the same polarization state. Now we can read the polarization quite exactly, by using large numbers of photons and turning our polarizing detector until we get a peak in the output.
Even though all the photons are in the same state (like in the NMR molecule experiment), it is because there are large numbers of them that we can read the state back out accurately. We would NOT be able to read back the data from a single photon, and in the same way we would NOT be able to read back the data from a single molecule.
Hopefully that explains my comment above. A qubit, whether photon polarization or nuclear spin, holds only a limited amount of information, and you can't read more out than it holds. There's no way you can get 1024 bits into 19 nuclei, and no one should try to "spin" the results of this experiment that way.
Comment removed (Score:3, Insightful)
Box it up, then... (Score:2)
6 words... (Score:2)
The Possibilities! (Score:2)
Is taking a picture of several of them with a scanning electron microscope, in effect, compression? =)
Uses (Score:2)
--Blind people "see" data encoded on their surroundings.
--Bullets are encoded with their manufacturer, who sold it, and who bought it. Even if it's in fragments.
--Sentient coatings (sort of). Smart liquids.
--Something else for Microsoft to claim they invented.
Re:Uses (Score:2)
Did anybody else... (Score:2)
...picture a sugar cube the size of a server? No? OK, I'll go to sleep now.
Did that article teach anyone anything? (Score:4, Interesting)
The quantum states of phosphorus atoms are particularly long-lived,
The article tells us basically nothing real, except the names of a few people and that they're working on something called "quantum" computing.
So here's how it should work (off the top of my head):
An atom or molecule (a collection of particles) has a set of wave-equation solutions. Each of solutions corresponds to a single point in a lattice, whose coordinates are the quantum numbers; or a single value of an n-tuple whose indices are the quantum numbers; or a single member of a set of n-tuples each of which is identified by a unique combination of quantum numbers...however you want to express it. These quantum numbers are inserted into the wave equation and out pops a solution--a wave-function--that does not diverge or otherwise go kaput.
If the atom, molecule, collection of particles, etc., is in one state (one combination of quantum numbers; one wavefunction), it's just a matter of applying energy in the right way to push it into another state. The quantum numbers move to a new point in the lattice, you change the n-tuple indices, whatever. You really cause the wavefunction to change, and the spatial arrangement available to the particles moving in the system changes. A spherical shell becomes a dumb-bell shape (not really, but it's a simpler visual than what really happens, so go with it).
Now you have a binary memory system. Most systems have way more than two states, but only a few will be stable (metastable, actually) enough to be useful for computation. But trinary, quaternary, etc. are certainly not out of the question; though the question is a lot easier if you can still use all this software expertise that has binary math running through its veins.
Quantum calculations are a lot harder to grok than quantum memory. Something has to work so that the state of the memory actuates another part of the system to undergo a change on a quantum level from one stable state (n-tuple value/wavefunction) to another.
The Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle would get involved, so the family of states you use would have to be pretty special to keep the particles in knowable states. I think that's what the reporter was really getting at when talking about the phosphorus thing.
Carbs! (Score:2)
Mmmm, sugar...
Hrm... imagine... (Score:2)
Actually, we have a quantum-supercomputer... (Score:2, Funny)
Sugarcube, huh? (Score:2, Interesting)
Isn't this going to make debugging nasty? (Score:2)
Re:That's pretty cool (Score:5, Interesting)
Sure, biochemists might need the massively paralell processing power to do molecular folding analysis, but regular joe bloes will, IMHO, be very comfortable with quad 2GHz HT Pentium 4s... for a decade at least.
I feel there will be a rift like there was in the old days when mainframe systems were few and expensive, and the rest were smaller systems.
Frankly, Quantum doesn't titillate me as much as a nice new nVidida chip at this point.
The other thing is that massively powerfull paralel processing isn't always a Good Thing. It's just A Thing. Take for example early Pentium Pros which had 16 stage pipelines. Nice in concept, but unless you use it properly, it's not really usefull. Many problems aren't massively parallel... The brain for example, is massively parallel, but not in the sense that many mean: all of your brain isn't adding two million 4 bit integers at the same time. It's doing millions of different tasks...
Sunday night... must sleep... must shadap.
Re:That's pretty cool (Score:3, Insightful)
regular joe bloes will, IMHO, be very comfortable with quad 2GHz HT Pentium 4s... for a decade at least
The entire history of consumer electronics belies this statement. People demonstrably don't by a system because it's sufficient for their needs, they buy it because it's the most powerful one available.
If they make it, they'll buy it. Whether or not there's a good reason for them to need that kind of power. All that will be required is for the manufacturers be able to make it affordable enough or sell it well enough to make people see it as affordable enough.
After all, my cell phone (and maybe my calculator) has more raw memory and computing power than the computer used by the men who flew to the Moon.
Re:That's pretty cool (Score:3, Interesting)
I can argue of a future where the emphasis is on the Mobo that can house up to 32 CPUs. and the new AMD Thunderfolts that are so small you can actually fit 32 of them in a mini ATX case... With very low power consumption, and low heat emissions. And big hdd capacity, and loads of RAM, and high bandwidth, and this and that...
People will have many gimicks to market before they run out of ideas and turn back to the speed issue of a CPU.
Once again, IMHO.
Re:That's pretty cool (Score:2)
chip its on die northbridge, with local memory
and let Opterons talk to each other using high-speed but thin (16-bit) Hypertransport links.
Which means even 4 way SMP boards are simple
and have need only 4 layers. Even then 32-way
on one board might still be hard to do.
Re:That's pretty cool (Score:2)
There's a reason why we don't see software that uses these. Because, well, um, I mentioned that it'd take until the end of the universe, right? Same reason you didn't see a lot of realtime 3d games being sold in the 70s.
Re:That's pretty cool (Score:2, Insightful)
Actually, this is not so true in today's economy. Most manufacturers are pretty screwd since less and less people must replace their machines. Fewer applications manage to outrun the hardware innovation (games for the most part, but they need the graphic card more than a processor). For example (though people do not believe me) I run windows 2000 on PII-300/96Ram and if not for the games would not have the slightest need to upgrade.
After all, my cell phone (and maybe my calculator) has more raw memory and computing power than the computer used by the men who flew to the Moon.
I might be wrong here, but I thought that the moon computer is actually not so powerful. Life critical uses tend to be very conservative and run software that has been tested for decades... thus I am pretty sure their hardware is reliable but not the newest.
Re:That's pretty cool (Score:2)
Quantum computing is ho-hum (Score:2)
Are any of those tasks particularly interesting for you? Unless you're a physicist or the NSA, I doubt it.
Re:Quantum computing is ho-hum (Score:2)
It's application number 2 on your list that could be important. You're talking about Grover's algorithm, but it is good for much more than brute forcing crypto keys!
Grover's algorithm can be used for any kind of searching problem. Take AI for example. Most AI problems can be expressed as searching through some abstract space for a solution. Grover's algorithm will halve the depth of the search trees. Chess computers that can look 6 moves deep today will be able to look 12 moves deep on a quantum computer, and so on.
Many computationally limited computer problems can be expressed in the form of searching for a solution. Let's even look at a problem near and dear to
So if you're like Goonie, bored by improvements in scientific modelling and our understanding of the universe, surely you'll get excited about having better computer games.
Re:Quantum computing is ho-hum (Score:2)
Ummm, maybe. That approach does work with chess, but it hasn't exactly been generlisable to much else.
Anyway, maybe I was exaggerating a bit, but they're not the magic solution to all our computing speed requirements, they're likely to have severe limitations, they'll only ever be an adjunct to conventional computation, and they're not going to give us an attack on NP-completeness which *would* be something to get really excited about.
Unless somebody figures out how to build one with nonlinear operators, which if I understand the gobbeldygook would give us a computer capable of solving NP-complete problems in polynomial time. If we ever got that, I don't think there would be a computer scientist sober for a year :)
Re:That's pretty cool (Score:2)
True, but it sure would be nice to:
1. Get the power consumption way, way down--say, to 1W or less.
2. Along the same lines, get rid of the processor fans and heak sinks and pave the way for a much smaller form factor.
Re:That's pretty cool (Score:2)
You say that now, but you haven't seen the next version of Office yet...
Re:That's pretty cool (Score:2)
Re:Bullshit. (Score:5, Insightful)
"I think there is a world market for maybe five computers." --Thomas Watson, chairman of IBM, 1943
There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home." --Ken Olson, president, chairman and founder of Digital Equipment Corp., 1977
Just because you don't see the possibilities inherent in something does not mean that the thing has no value or is not relevant.
Besides, with the way things are moving, I can imagine the possibility of a computer that needs no clumsy interface cables, no removable media, and such... We're moving closer to being able to make systems that truly have no moving parts.
After all, there was a time when computers were built around the size and heat of vacuum tubes. Someday, probably not all that long, the interface mechanisms, storage devices and display systems we use today will be as quaint as a vacuum-tube driven computer programmed by hard-wiring it seems to us now.
Re:This is cool! Straight out of Star Trek (Score:2)
Just what we need, better forms of privacy invasion! Hooray!
Re:This is cool! Straight out of Star Trek (Score:2)
That's what happens when you have ST:TNG and Voyager merged into one :-)
Re:It's turtles all the way down. (Score:3, Funny)
Re:It's turtles all the way down. (Score:2)
Re:It's turtles all the way down. (Score:2)
Re:It's turtles all the way down. (Score:2)
Re:It's turtles all the way down. (Score:2)
Ok so assuming you could take a picture of an atom it would still not do you any good. The data is stored in the spin of the electrons. Just as you cannot take a picture of voltage (like the computer your using to read this uses to keep track of bits) you cannot take a picture of spin.
So still assuming you can take a picture of these atoms a picture only shows color/location but if you film a spinning ball it wont look different than a still one. You would not be able to tell the differance between a 1 or 0.
Re:One sugar cube still won't be enough (Score:3, Funny)
Don't rinse! It's a _sugar_ cube, remember?