A Pair Of Quantum Computing Articles

Will G writes: "3DRage has posted an article entitled "Quantum Computers: How they work and How they will effect us" by Alan Cline. Not only can quantum computers run one billion times faster than typical silicon-based computers, but also theoretically, they can run and consume no energy. That being true, quantum computers could obsolete the silicon chip much as the transistor did the vacuum tube. This paper is intended for the general reader, and explains basic quantum computer features, and the paradoxical effects quantum theory produces in a practical world. This paper discusses how quantum computers originated, the inevitability of their use, and how they differ from classical computers." An interesting nugget to add to this comes from leelaw2000, who writes: "New Scientist have published this little news story about the development of a kind of quantum shielding that might help the development of real quantum computers. Now if they can just get Quake on it ..."

Comments

Re:Use of quantum computing in non cpu environment

[Fjord]

The simple answer is "possibly"

For example, it is possible that quantum computing can greatly increase 3D rendering. Basically, the main problem in ray tracing is finding the correct number of solutions that will lead a light ray to the point the eye is looking at. There are stochastic methods, like Metropolis, that greatly speed up the process of determining these solutions, but like most stocastic methods when compared to quantum methods, they are unreliable and slow (although when compared to deterministic methods, they are unreliable and fast). In a quantum 3D chip, you can theoretically easily find all of the solutions in a very short time, and thus determine the light levels for the point. This would in effect give you a perfect ray trace in a few cycles/point.

And even then, given enough qbits, you could be running those raytracing calculations on all of the points, oversampled by 256 to give a nice antialias.

But this is all in theory, because there are severe limitations on the logic that one can do with a quantum computers today. While the above could be modeled, I don't think we'll know for a while if it can be.