Posted on 02/23/2006 3:58:12 AM PST by S0122017
Quantum computer works best switched off
Even for the crazy world of quantum mechanics, this one is twisted. A quantum computer program has produced an answer without actually running.
The idea behind the feat, first proposed in 1998, is to put a quantum computer into a “superposition”, a state in which it is both running and not running. It is as if you asked Schrödinger's cat to hit "Run".
With the right set-up, the theory suggested, the computer would sometimes get an answer out of the computer even though the program did not run. And now researchers from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign have improved on the original design and built a non-running quantum computer that really works.
They send a photon into a system of mirrors and other optical devices, which included a set of components that run a simple database search by changing the properties of the photon.
The new design includes a quantum trick called the Zeno effect. Repeated measurements stop the photon from entering the actual program, but allow its quantum nature to flirt with the program's components - so it can become gradually altered even though it never actually passes through.
"It is very bizarre that you know your computer has not run but you also know what the answer is," says team member Onur Hosten.
This scheme could have an advantage over straightforward quantum computing. "A non-running computer produces fewer errors," says Hosten. That sentiment should have technophobes nodding enthusiastically.
Journal reference: Nature (vol 439, p 949)
From issue 2540 of New Scientist magazine, 22 February 2006, page 21
"OK, brain hurts, need coffee......."
Try just smelling it.
Yep, I think Dem's are using the non-working quantum politics. They're believed to work better than traditional politics. Of course, occasionally, that theory meets the hard non-quantum world.
(Wild tangent alert!)
From that Wikipedia article:
The quantum Zeno effect takes its name from Zeno's arrow paradox, which is the argument that since an arrow in flight does not move during any single instant, it couldn't possibly be moving overall.I have always thought that this is a surprisingly silly paradox. Motion is inexorably related to time, and clearly so. The fact that the paradox depends upon the restraint of "any single instant" exposes it as just a ridiculous play on words. By definition, nothing moves "during any single instant"!
In fact, the use of the word "during" in that phrase is contradictory in and of itself. If no time passes, there is no "during".
The shadow would the quantum nature of the particle allowing it to exist in multiple states at the same time
and the shadow, not being an actual shadow, allows feedback back to the particle altering it. >>>>>>>>>
I knew that 8 0 )
Somewhere between The Onion and modern physics.
I present you the Bistromatic...
Or to something entangled with the article. But you knew I was going to say that...
Not really. This is something that could actually happen...
That's the problem with quantum physics, none of it really makes any sense, but somehow it works.
"Anyone who is not shocked by quantum theory has not understood it." -- Niels Bohr
The cat thing is more of a mental exercise to help people understand quantum mechanics, since so much of it is counter-intuitive.
;-)
Perhaps you don't understand the question? This requires Deep Thought...
Now that's the right attitude to take. Know from the beginning that you will be confused -- very, very confused. I was when I started looking into this (I had a Ph.D. math friend who was trying to explain it to me, WHOOSH right over my head). I still am quite often.
OK Baby Duckling, Turn off the ignition switch and make get like your you're getting making out.
It worked for Edgar Cayce...
LOL, mine neither... You think it'll happen if I keep waiting ? Actually there might be another 'quantum' effect... that of my wife banishing me to the couch without actually doing it.
Or was that all cats were harmed. I can never keep it straight..
Any attempt to turn it on will turn it off.
(Proving it's female...)
*ducking* and running for cover...
Good one...
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