Quantum Computing Using Quantum Dots 33
MikeM writes "Apparently a research group
has demonstrated extremely fine control of quantum dots (artificial atoms created by creating quantum wells in semiconductors and then inserting electrons one by one). Since they are at the quantum level, are controlled by optical lasers, and are built up from silicon using existing semiconductor fabrication techniques, they provide perfect quantum logic gates for optical computers. "
Very trippy stuff... (Score:1)
Seems like not long ago these concepts as found in Tao of Physics and Dancing Wu Li Masters were borderline sci-fi. Reality is far out...
very weird... (Score:1)
i hope this means better hardware...
Other uses (Score:1)
To be certain, quantum computing could Eventually get a big boost from this.
Perhaps long before that, this could become a super-dense dynamic ram. Imagine stuffing 12 or more bits into one logic unit.
BTW, don't look for this next year. Of course, semiconductors started out as impractical curiosities, and look where that went.
Einstein?? (Score:1)
I think you missed the point mr. Fishing-For-A-Flame. Einstein revolutionized the way mundanes think about physics/science because he was a high profile scientist (and he had that hair!).
Here's a simply test you can perform at home:
I think you'll find every time that more people know who Einstein is. Forget about who your favorite is when dealing with the masses (Einstein ain't my fav either, he was damn cool, but there were other people on the verge of discovering what he discovered... must have been the hair.)
Einstein is a public figure even though he's been dead for some time. That's why his picture is used.
--Michael Esveldt
Einstein Tesla (Score:1)
Tesla also had the problem in that he was going up against Edison, who was a much better self-promoter than a scientist. Self-promotion tends to win out over technical competance in the public eye.
Einstein articulated a theory that changed the way the world thinks about matter, about time, about space, about motion. It was a relatively simple shift that was due to happen, and Einstein was the first to rigorously "do the math." Nonetheless, this quite legitimately earned for him the status as celebrity scientist.
Well... not entirely. It's true that most of what Einstein wrote on was already moderately well known; some people, like Mach, had already come very close to the basic theory of Relativity. Einstine wasn't the first person to do the math, though, so much as he was the first person to not just throw out all the math the moment he realized that this all meant time wasn't constant. The few others before him that had worked on the concept had decided it was obviously wrong that time ran at different rates, and thus threw out the whole theory. Einstein's main contribution was to persevere beyond that point and see that everything made sense despite that...
-- Bryan Feir
Tesla?? (Score:1)
contributions to science, arguably the greatest
in the 20th centuary.
Moore's Law (Score:1)
Yes, I do think current chip fabrication techniques are reaching their limits, but this goes to show that new processes can be discovered and exploited.
OTOH, I don't think I want to discuss philosophy with my toaster anytime soon.
Talkie Toaster (Score:1)
related paper on web (Score:1)
Prediction: Chaotic Computers (Score:1)
Here at the Un-named East Coast School, a model of a chaotic computer has been shown to reproduce the effects of a NOR gate; we're working on showing that it can reproduce the effects of most two-bit sequential components.
Cthulhu Computers (Score:1)
I am now pleased to announce that we at Un-Named University have gone one step beyond Chaotic Evil computing and have built computers dedicated solely to the purpose of bringing forth the rise of Our Master Who Sleeps Under The Sea, Cthulhu The Dreamer. You have only a few days left to live. Thank you.
Einstein - blind spots (Score:1)
Something like that, yes... for that matter, Einstein's paper on the photoelectric effect (the one he won the Nobel prize for) was the first paper to ascribe a physical reality to the 'quanta' that Planck had assumed were just an artifact of the math. So in a very real sense, Einstein helped found Quantum Theory... a theory he spent much of his later life fighting tooth and nail against.
-- Bryan Feir
He-he.. (Score:1)
Hope one my friend is not reading this. He is finishing his Ph.D. on quantum dots. Doing, like, top of the line stuff.
I had to install Win 95 for him since he is too relaxed to be able to do it himself.
He use it, when not playing Duke Nukem, to count the number of quantum dots he managed to grow on some super-duper sample, by counting them by hand on a picture from super-duper microsoft loaded into Microsoft Paint.
You say hi-tech...
The algebra? (Score:1)
I have not spent any time there. I found it as a link from here. [qubit.org]
SteveM
Einstein?? (Score:1)
Einstein?? (Score:1)
Why do we have a picture of einstein for the science stories? Einstein was a moron. Someone should find and use a picture of Nikola Tesla--the One True Physicist.
:)
Einstein Tesla (Score:1)
Einstein articulated a theory that changed the way the world thinks about matter, about time, about space, about motion. It was a relatively simple shift that was due to happen, and Einstein was the first to rigorously "do the math." Nonetheless, this quite legitimately earned for him the status as celebrity scientist.
In our pop-culture media-driven world, this celebrity status also made his image universally known, and a graphic representation of "Advanced Science."
So rave about Tesla all you want, pretty boy, but Tesla didn't change the world, and quantum logic will.
A little more about Tesla. (Score:1)
What particular discoveries are you talking about? Alternating Current? Transmission of information by radio waves? These are fundamental building blocks of modern technology, but they did not change the very ground rules of science itself. I did not mean to belittle your hero; I am a great fan of Tesla myself! Tesla had some astonishing discoveries, among them being the cordless transmission of electricity, that we have not successfully reinvented since he refused to use the US Patent office, and did not otherwise communicate his understanding.
But those discoveries that we have been able to use, while important, are just several among countless crucial steps on the road of technological advancement.
No mo(o)re Turing... (Score:1)
Quantum computers are different, but that doesn't mean they can compute 1+1 faster (read the last paragraph of the article where they claimed to need _longer_ dephasing times?)
Chip manufacturers still have normal optical chips to go, which are significantly faster than conventional chips.
Why do you combine computational quantum power with intelligence? It's intriguing to take that into our own heads, where so many quantum states are available (exceeding the chemical states and processes by far).