First commercial QUANTUM COMPUTER demonstrated!!!
Here's an article about this first quantum computer: DailyTech Article
And here's some videos from the demonstration on Youtube: VIDEOS
Here's an article about this first quantum computer: DailyTech Article
And here's some videos from the demonstration on Youtube: VIDEOS
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A view of a 16-qubit processor mounted in its sample holder I'm a big fan of science fiction and I always get excited when I see it becoming actual science! This time it seems quantum computers are becoming reality! To start, let me say that the computes of today are doomed. In about 15-20 years, something called "Moore's Law" is going to collapse. Moore's law says that the doubling time for computer power is about 18 months. But that can't go on forever. The smaller computer chips we can make, the faster the computer. The thinnest layers of today's chips are about 20 atoms across. But in 15-20 years we will be able to make them only 5 atoms across. And here comes the problem - now you don't know where the electron is anymore. It could be inside the wire, outside the wire... - you have the quantum uncertainty principle. In other words, you get a short circuit. Now, what's a Quantum computer? A quantum computer is a device that computes on atoms themselves. It makes direct use of distinctively quantum mechanical phenomena, such as superposition and entanglement, to perform operations on data. A quantum computer consists totally of atoms and their spins are arragned in a sequence. You can shoot laser, radio beams at them, and by looking at the reflection of laser light and radio beams of these atoms, you've done a quantum calculation - FASTER THAN ANY KNOWN COMPUTER. In a classical computer, the amount of data is measured by bits; in a quantum computer, the data is measured by qubits. The basic principle of quantum computation is that the quantum properties of particles can be used to represent and structure data, and that quantum mechanisms can be devised and built to perform operations with these data. Bits vs Qubits: - We know that our computers work in binary language - with bits... A bit is the base of computer information. Regardless of its physical representation, it is always read as either a 0 or a 1. An analogy to this is a light switch - the down position can represent 0 (normally equated to off) and the up position can represent 1 (normally equated to on). - A qubit has some similarities to a classical bit, but is overall very different. Like a bit, a qubit can have only two possible values - normally a 0 or a 1. The difference is that whereas a bit must be either 0 or 1, a qubit can be 0, 1, or both at the same time! Sometime in 2001/2002, physicists did maybe the first important quantum calculation: they proved that 3x5=15. Well, any kid knows that, you may say... but they calculated it on 7 atoms! Once we're able to compute on a few million atoms, we will be able to break any code that CIA can manufacture. In 20-30 years, computers will have reached the speed of human thought. In 50-100 years robots might actually be smarter than us! By then we will probably be able to give them "common sense", which is now the most difficult part of AI. Anyway, if you're interested in science, science fiction and quantum computers, and are new to the subjecet, I'd like to suggest you to read a book called "Timeline" by Michael Crichton - it deals with quantum computers, teleportation, time travel, parallel universes, and the middle ages. Very interesting, even though it has a few flaws. They also made a film based on this book. Sources: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_computing http://www.dailytech.com/Worlds+First+Commercial+Quantum+Computer+Demonstrated/article6102.htm http://www.mkaku.org/videos.htm |
