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Posted on 11/25/2009 12:46:51 AM PST by neverdem
Ultracold beryllium ions tackle 160 randomly chosen programs
Using a few ultracold ions, intense lasers and some electrodes, researchers have built the first programmable quantum computer. The new system, described in a paper to be published in Nature Physics, flexed its versatility by performing 160 randomly chosen processing routines.
Earlier versions of quantum computers have been largely restricted to a narrow window of specific tasks. To be more generally useful, a quantum computer should be programmable, in the same way that a classical computer must be able to run many different programs on a single piece of machinery.
The new study is “a powerful demonstration of the technological advances towards producing a real-world quantum computer,” says quantum physicist Winfried Hensinger of the University of Sussex in Brighton, England.
Researchers led by David Hanneke of the National Institute of Standards and Technology in Boulder, Colo., based their quantum computer on two beryllium ions chilled to just above absolute zero. These ions, trapped by a magnetic field on a gold-plated aluminum chip, formed the quantum bits, or qubits, analogous to the bits in regular computers represented by 0s and 1s. Short laser bursts manipulated the beryllium ions to perform the processing operations, while nearby magnesium ions kept the beryllium ions cool and still.
Hanneke and colleagues programmed the computer to do operations on a single beryllium ion and on both of the beryllium ions together. In the quantum world, a single qubit can represent a mixture of 0 and 1 simultaneously, a state called a superposition. A laser pulse operation could change the composition of the mixture within the qubit, tipping the scales to make the qubit more likely to become a 1 when measured.
Both of the qubits together could be entangled, a situation where the two...
(Excerpt) Read more at sciencenews.org ...
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FReepmail me if you want on or off my health and science ping list.
With so much of electric shock into his heart, it must hurt daily.:-)
Hmm. At least that's better than 79%.
Quantum computers have a serious failing: after a crash it is so very difficult to read the message on the blue screen of death.
My computer is quantum already...It sometimes works in an alternate universe different from this one.
So what kind of games can you run off this thing?
bflr
The Purpose of Computing is Insight, Not Numbers.
Of course, the magic word "xyzzy" still pertains.
(not one of the paragraphs above makes a bit of sense to me. I feel like I never progressed past Lincoln logs)
What is really needed to advance quantum computing, however, is an implementation solution that doesn't take a Mack truck to haul around. They need the same advancement that we saw with the invention of the Light Emitting Diode with laser-like capabilities. Quantum Computing needs a step like this that will allow Dell and HP to build these widgets and sell them on Amazon for $500. Then we can all go out and try to crack those 128 bit encryptions. What fun that will be. We might even be able to hack the CRU servers. If that gets boring we can start factoring world record sized integers. Yummy.
Then, they’ll add Windows and slow it down to the speed of a Commodore 64.
I was thinking more like an Atari 2600.
TI 99-4A?
bump thanks
TRaSh-80...
TRaSh-80...
Not sure what amount of credibility to give to this....Don’t see Al Gore’s name anywhere in the references...
LOL! Happy Thanksgiving.
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