Slashdot Mirror
Quantum Computer Possible From Silicon Fab
Cash Mitchell writes: "This article from the EE Times says 'Researchers at the University of Wisconsin in Madison claim to have created the world's first successful simulation of a quantum-computer architecture that uses existing silicon fabrication techniques.... With existing fabrication techniques, the team estimates that a million-quantum-dot computer (1,024 x 1,024 array) could be built today and operated in the megahertz range.'"
"player 4 hit player 1 with 0 stroms"
So where's the linux kernel hacks? (First Post?)
Robert Anton Wilson
...unless of course you try to look at the results.
Will this significantly improve my porn viewing experience?
Faster pr0n!
More importantly than the advancement of mankind, how will DRM be implemented? Must protect the treasure that is a copyright.
Did I mention the thing about speed and pr0n?
the athlon or pentium computers that operate at gigahertz speeds with 20-30x the 'transistors'?
Intel's lawyers could not be reached for comment.
However, within minutes the domain name "million-quantum.com" was registered by some greedy slashdotter hoping to cash in.
No Zen is good zen
So when can I get a quantum processor from Intel/AMD running with holographic solid state memory with instant data access (read and write) using spooky particles, and a total 3d holographic and tactile monitor?
And if these first prototypes get off the ground... can Intel still say their ghz procs are faster than these mhz procs?
How many cats will be sacrificed to test a 1024x1024 quantum array I wonder?
say goodbye to computer security as you know it. what else is our there that can replace our current systems that are based on hard factorizations of large numbers?
----
i do not use drugs, i AM drugs -- Dali
"Of course it runs NetBSD."
Man, just imagine a Beowulf cluster of quantum computers! ...used by the NSA to track your library-borrowing habits.
Opinions on the Twiddler2 hand-held keyboard?
What are practical, everyday use? (besides breaking incredibly big and long keys to steal identities) These things operate at room temperature and are small and cheap enough for everyone to have.
A personal weather forecaster, fluid dynamic calculating, realtime, 3d cellphone with a cute ring tone? Or a wash machine that can predict el nino's?
Help me here...
Well, so does my old 286!
I admit to knowing next to nothing about quantum computers or quantum computing. Well, actually I guess it is nothing.
However something seems wrong about using the term "megahertz" in regards to a quantum computer. I didn't think quantum computing had anything in common with a typical synchronous design. Can anyone clarify this for me?
"Our precise modeling elucidates the specific requirements for scalable quantum computing. for the first time we have translated the requirements for fault-tolerant quantum computing into the specific requirements for gate voltage control electronics in quantum dots, said professor Mark Eriksson."
Is there a dilbert-esque techspeak generator they used for this article or what? The previous paragraph makes my head hurt...
One of the prime motivations behind implementing quantum computers is Shor's algorithm, which factors big numbers into primes quickly.
:)
Factoring primes is primarily important for circumventing encryption (a "content protection" system).
So, would possession of a quantum computer violate the DMCA?
All 4 researchers unloaded their holdings of PayPal and Verisign.
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What happens when you try to factor too big a prime number? (If you've read the book, you'll know. ;) )
i am a soviet space shuttle
There maybe a BIG problem with quantum computers in that they may not be adequately shielded from mental intent. What I mean by this is those mind over matter psychokinetic phenomena found in ESP experiments on random event generators that run on atomic processes. This stuff is real, (don't listen to the wacko "skeptics" about this, they're either uninformed or just plain lie), and systems could be crashed by concentrating for a larger amount of 1s or 0s to occur.
Man, just imagine a Beowulf cluster of quantum computers! ...used by the NSA to track your library-borrowing habits.
Not your entire borrowing habits... just when you borrow Catcher in the Rye...
--
It's not paranoia when they really are after you...
I hate it when a good joke gets modded "Off-topic" because one person doesn't get it.
Physics: Making the universe open source.
OK, let me see if I've got this straight:
Quantum computing is just around the corner. Blind people can get optical implants directly into their brains, allowing them to recover sight. (Not perfect today, but just wait 'til Moore's law gets hold of this hardware.) It may be possible to build a space elevator within the next 15-20 years. And so on, and so on.
The singularity is suddenly looking a lot less theoretical.
Mostly be corrected? Am I the only one for whom this does not sound particularly reassuring...or usefull?
Most experts would bet a lot of money on the *exact opposite* of what you just wrote.
Quantum computers almost certainly cannot solve NP-complete problems in polynomial time. Despite years of research, factoring couldn't be shown to be NP-complete, which is probably not a coincidence.
I truly take pride in this discovery... mostly because I attend UW. But I suppose a love of physics helps in that area, too.
Anyways, here's a somewhat technical article regarding the research (PDF).
Oh, and "On Wisconsin!"
IWARS.
People, in general, disappoint me. Politicians even more so.
You could run a Beowulf cluster on one machine.
cool
palindrome crunching in quantum time.
No Beouwulf remarks?
...." :P
Ok... "Imagine a beouwulf cluster
despite the fact that most of us who read this post have at best a vague understanding of what the prospect of quantum computing offers, why do the ones who seem to know the most about the subject already have an opinion whether it works or why it won't and how it will affect current technology. the only thing i know for sure is when quantum gear hits the street, most people using them are still thinking like a C64
I just saw a Flash 6 ad for Xerox...I thought /. didn't want Flash ads?
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Quantum computers could render assymetric crypto next-to-useless, and as-such may permenantly set electronic privacy back decades for all but the super-powerful.
Those that claim quantum cryptography will redress this problem don't understand that quantum crypto will likely be even more expensive than secure symmetric cryptography.
In essence, the advent of quantum computers may be the turning point, the point where advances in computer communication are no-longer tools of freedom, but become, once more, tools of the powerful.
ATM I'm porting Apache to this architecture. This suits well with my port of Apache for the TV remote 'n the port for my watch.
Up for "1" and down for "0".
Any technology distinguishable from magic, is insufficiently advanced.
...to break RSA. Specifically, I believe that Shor's Algorithm requires 3n qubits, where n is the number of bits of the number you're trying to factor. Multiply by a factor of five to allow some error correction, and you need about 15k qubits to crack 1024-bit RSA.
I work in the field (still an undergrad, but I'm doing some research), and I had the opportunity to meet Michael Nielsen a little while ago when he visited the Perimeter Institute and the University of Waterloo. Nielsen is one of the two authors of the book you mentioned. Out of curiousity, what university do you go to, Misanthropic?
http://www.princeton.edu/~pear/index.html/ www.fourmilab.ch/rpkp/
http:/
Have a long hard look at that first link before you ignorantly dismiss this person's opinion.
There is a lot of research into this - the ability for thought to influence the outcome of random calculations and events. It's been years since I looked into any of this, the most common experiment is a depiction of a random number generator that you can make devitate from a true random distribution over time by willing it to do so.
Maybe there's something there, maybe there isn't, but you don't just dismiss or accept it out of hand without looking at experimental evidence yay or nay.
..don't panic
so will this let me invent the HAL 9000? Is this a good thing?
Well, I read the article. I am no expert in quantum dots, but I can tell you this. If it is in fact possible to create this 1024x1024 array, then this is huge.
For starters you can factor any number in the order of 100,000 (binary) digits (not a million, since you have to account for error correction).
Currently, the largest quantum processor is implemenetd using liquid-state NMR. This can go up to 8 qubits. Researchers are proyecting that solid-state could go up to 40. In comparison, this is completely of the charts.
I am inclined to believe that this is reminicent of the cold-fusion fiasco. I could be wrong, they could be right; but their claims are so extraordinary that I would wait to see extraordinary evidence to believe them.
I submitted this story the day after it came out, but I have got a running list of over 20 rejected submissions, at least 15 of them later became /. stories.
It's easier to fight for one's principles than to live up to them.
IIRC, there have been some ideas that quantum computers could be used to more effectively model protein folding than we can now. Perhaps even allow the reverse problem of protein engineering (given a desired protein active site structure, to either find a structure that will fold to it or show that none will) to be tackled.
If course, just like everything else that would be revolutionary, the best things are those we can't think of yet.
I'm dubious of this though. I'll start believing it when I see a 10 by 10 demonstrator array running at a few kilohertz. Until then, it's just a nice idea.
I submitted that link days ago. I must be doing something wrong? Does this thing even work?
...let's not get ahead of ourselves here. What about my flying car? I distinctly remember being promised a flying car, and not a thing about these newfangled "quantum computers" or whatnot. Where are our priorities?
Sometimes I think my sig should be a disclaimer about how my post is probably off-topic or otherwise a waste of valuable energy that must now be converted back into a usable form. It would save me time. You are now 30 seconds closer to your death, and so am I. Sorry bout that.
I laughed until my insides hurt. That was hilarious! Thank you.
~Philly
This computer is definately the TacoSnot 3000
This seems to be a pretty extraordinary claim!
Like Sagan says, people laughed at the Wright brothers; but they also laughed at the Marx brothers. Extraordinary claims require extraodinary proof, and nothing in those links does it for me.
All opinions expressed herein are not my own; I haven't had free will since last year when aliens ate my brain.
I'm pleased as anyone to hear that the folks at U-W have developed an experimental implementation of quantum dot QC. Innovation, at any stage, is great.
That said, have the technology to construct something doesn't mean that the thing will work. A quantum device is much different than a traditional electrical device - quantum devices suffer from "decoherence" or a loss of information from the "qubits" to their surrounding environment. This process is EXTREMELY sensitive, and a huge limitation upon QC at the present time. A look at Ike Chuang's book on QC, and you'll see that nearly every implementation of QC is decoherence-limited in some way (quantum dots included).
The Dot people are also not alone - Prof.'s Monroe and Kielpinski at U-Michigan and NIST, respectively, have published a similar paper for ION TRAP-based QC. The ion trap they suggest (a Quantum CCD) is feasible to construct but immensely difficult to operate in practice. Prof. Chuang has produced a WORKING QC on a small scale in NMR. Simply suggesting a means to produced a trap is not enough to suggest working, large-scale QCs are around the corner.
Port Apache + SSL to this architecture while you're at it?
You know that people won't be happy if you take away their ability to transmit webpages securely
The Princeton links states:
" to pursue rigorous scientific study of the interaction of human consciousness with sensitive physical devices, systems, and processes common to contemporary engineering practice."
Why does the study assume that "sensitive" physical devices are easier to affect by thought than larger devices? The more sensitive the device, the more chance other external factors (even small unmeasureable ones -- unrelated to the mind) can easily affect the device -- thus giving the illusion that maybe the mind did it because we don't know what really affected it.
Yes, obviously a lot of research has gone into it. But what about the results. Do researchers keep statistics about the times they DON'T find what they're lookin for? The 13-year-old project still sounds very ethereal.
(Maybe the different machine/people effects produced by different people are due to bad breath rather than the mind -- ask them to move further away from the sensitive machines).
Doesn't Windows make your computer a quantum computer?
You never know its stability state until you attempt an operation. Upon doing so you can't tell what it will do next.
(With apologies to Mr. Schrodinger and Mr. Heisenberg)
"They do not preach that their god will rouse them, a little before the Nuts work loose." Kipling, 'The Sons of Martha'
As for the use of quantum computers in AI - at present, nobody has provided an example of a vaguely AI-related problem that quantum computers of the type currently being studied would be useful for. Somebody may do so in the future, of course. In any case, anything that can be done on a quantum computer can be simulated on a normal one (in a theoretical sense, it may take till the end of the universe to do so). They don't give you the ability to compute anything "non-algorithmic".
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo
--Andy Finkel (J. Klass?)
I thought it was very difficult to simulate a quantum computer on a classical computer. Some problems in quantum mechanics can't be properly simulated by a classical system at all.
Once you go past a certain number of qubits, it takes too long to simulate all the possible interactions.
Not that I don't believe we'll see a working quantum co-processor in the next few decades, I'm positive we will.
But I'm just wondering how they came up with the "million qubits" number.
gee, google on "shor's algorithm" gave me many relevent hits. you can read a good explanation and find the relevent paper.
These so called "skeptical" remarks thus far are amature night (i.e. stupid)!
To better educate the parapsychologically illiterate, please have a look at one book that will get you up to speed on this field and give an expose on so called skeptics like Carl Sagan and the organizations he belonged to like CSICOP.
CSICOP and the like, are basically P.R. and propaganda groups that DEBUNK anything that threatens materialist "philosophy." They're not real skeptics but parapsychologist are, and they easily deal with the arguments of these clowns. But you'll have to read the literature to see that. You won't get this by dialing 1-900-psychic.
Here's the book. It's called "The Conscious Universe" by Dean Radin.
Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence my ass. Claims should all require very good evidence whether extraordinary or not.
Extraordinary evidence is just another way of saying an amount of evidence so great that it's beyond human ability to achieve. It sets up an humanly impossible standard of evidence that can't be achieved by anyone. Also, it's double standard, "ordinary" ones don't only "extraordinary" ones do. Nice trick to keep a dogma in place. They learned this one from medieval Christian Church.
The fact of the matter is that parapsychological studies far exceed in quality the research done in virtually all other sciences. Recent investigations show that about 90% of their studies are of high quality while the highest amount the conventional sciences get is around 10%. It's usually just a bit over 5% and physics is the worst of the bunch.
As for alternative explanations, read the studies and try to come up with some. GOOD LUCK!
and you have a small dick, QED
Like, a guy posted something about QC's being helpful in understanding protein folding; I think it could be much more than that. A good way of simulating atomic interactions, without ignoring their quantum aspects, could be revolutionary for any industry that works on the atomic-scale.
These industries include biotech and medicine, chip design, MEMS, all kinds of materials science, nanotech, superconductivity research, how-to-wind-nanotubes-into-space-elevator-cable research, and, yes, how-to-build-better-quantum-computers research.
I thought hidden variables was considered to have been disproven...?
Export controls.
You think any government is gonna let anyone but governmental agencies and maybe academic institutions get their hands on a QC for the foreseeable future?
There is no gravity...the earth just sucks.
Well the greatest computer can "compose a sonnett","cook an egg,"calculate PI to a very large place","say I love you","run a mile","come up with E=mc^2","Ask 'who am I?'". With one of it's design specs being "mostly". Sounds "useful" if not always "reassuring".
...will quantum-computer only have a virus if anti-virus programs look?
The race isn't always to the swift... but that's the way to bet!
think again: What he's saying is that factoring is NOT NP complete. Since the original post claimed quantum computers can solve NP complete problems in polynomial time, a paper about factoring has nothing to do with this.
Be wary of any facts that confirm your opinion.
Aside from Shor's factoring algorithm, there is also Grover's searching algorithm that lets you do linear search in slightly less than linear time, and apparently an algorithm for doing quantum physics simulations (surprise surprise). That's it. Three algorithms which work better on a quantum computer. None of them seem much use for Cyc at first glance.
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo
--Andy Finkel (J. Klass?)
So we use a quantum computer as a signal processor.
But be willing to accept errors in the data transmission.
Bit errors would be data from other universes.
devise a communications protocal.
Have conversations with the infinite number of your alternates that are also working on their quantum computers to acheive the same effects.
If voting were effective, it would be illegal by now.
I wonder whether they used perl...
Favorite quote: "The Quantum::Entanglement module attempts to port some of the functionality of the universe into Perl."
I doubt, therefore I may be.
does this mean if i know thow to build one of these i can get a job as a quantum mechanic?
a million-quantum-dot computer (1,024 x 1,024 array) should be enough for anybody!
Of course, only about 2% of these recent investigations are of any mentionable quality, according to some recent findings, 38% of which were of questionable quality.
Homer - "Facts smacts. You can use facts to prove anything."
assymetric (adj). Of or pertaining to the measuring of asses.(n) A measurement (in standard units J-Lo) of butt size.
danged spull chickers.
oh brave new world, that has such people in it!
what are the possibilities in AI ??
:( )
can we create "super" neural networks that evolves at lightning speed?
-borgdows (I can't login
Wouldn't quantum computers help to solve the minefield problem, or prohaps the traveling sales man problem.
minefield can be represented as a sudo logic statement like so
if you had
0 2 b
0 3 c
A 2 d
as a sample the logic would be
(B & C) & ( ( C & D ) | (A & D) | (C & A)) &
((B & C & D ) | ( A & C & B ) | (C & D & A ) | ( D & A & B )
)
you can run this and produce a truth table for the pattern. which you can use to work out where the mines are, where they arn't and where they might be.
traveling sales man is helpfull in efficiently routing circuit boards (and CPU's?) and the drive to the beach.
thank God the internet isn't a human right.
Of course, if that's the case, an interesting question comes to light: how acurate and predictive are these simulations, that they would be able to predict quantum effects? Does anyone know anything about this sort of "simulated research?"
credo quia absurdum
I have heard suggestions that alternative designs for quantum computers would theoretically be able to tackle the TSP (or indeed any NP-complete problems) but from what little I know about the area I don't believe anybody's come up with a vaguely plausible way such a computer might be constructed.
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo
--Andy Finkel (J. Klass?)
Why is it also a high-noise experiment such as influencing a random number generator or die rolls? Why not just demonstrate moving a fleck of dust 1 micrometer by mental force alone? Why not? Because it can't be done.
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Sorry, I'm only a 1336 h4x0r.
had this story like a week ago.
HAL 9000 all over again.
QC cooked books.
Keep it a secret, but act naturally.
I taught I saw a puddy cat.
Haiku programmers still paid by the line.
QC doesn't stand for "Quality Control".
Well, nearly there. It seems we're getting to the point where computers will at least have megaquads soon (quad == quantum dot). Will it take another 3 centuries to reach gigaquads?
Now your just making up fake stats.
It's always fun to see the length that these so called skeptics go to when threatened. Hey, lets face it, materialism is dead without psi, the inexplainability of consciousness (subjective experience, etc.) discredits this view already and psi amoung other things is just another nail in an already closed coffin. The only reason for the anger is FEAR. Some maybe from loss of power in society others from loss of face.
My first computer was made out of a process that has acheived Megahertz speeds. The VIC-20
It ran at about 1MHz. Maybe they should start by building a quantum VIC-20 and work their way up the scale again. A quantum 64 with quantum SID, and so on...
So if this is for real, RSA will soon be dead. Does there exist a quantum algorithm for solving the discrete logrithm problem in manageable time?
(A.P. New Your City, 2011 August 19) Early beta testing of Microsoft's Windows QP Pro (quantum) installed on a Intel Octoplex 19 Gigahertz quantum MPU resulted in less than stellar results.
Commander Taco in his test lab grumbled, "I can transport myself to Hong Kong, get measured for a suit, grab a quick hooker, and be back before this think has booted!"
Other anomolies included past life echos, fire, brimstone, and the aparent "voice of God".
Bill Gate's head could not be reached for comments.
-- www.globaltics.net
Political discussion for a new world
Have a long hard look at that first link before you ignorantly dismiss this person's opinion.
Fine. I took a pretty good look at that first link. I hereby informedly dissmiss his oppinion. I had to dig to find http://www.princeton.edu/~pear/publist.html with the actual reports with data. I read two, #10 and #11 (selected at whim after skimming titles).
First of all almost all of the results came up negative. They refer to results below average as "negative results", but any result below statitical signifigance is actually a negative result. Second: in #10 *think* I caught them using 1-tail signifigance test in some places they should have used 2-tail tests. If so, that would switch some "postive" results into "negative" results. Third: in #11 I *think* they improperly included incomplete runs for parts of the analysis while excluding them from other parts. This could potentially distort results. Fourth: they cross-analyized the data umpteen different ways actually working to get positive results. If you check sub-sets of the data 20 different ways then one of them should exceed 95% statistical signifigance purely at random. Fifth: In #11 they actually had the gall to throw away half of the data that they didn't like and recalculate the results. When you change the data set after the fact it is trivial to distort the results into fake "statistical signifigance". Sixth: selection bias, negative results are less likey to be published. Seventh: selection bias again, whos bothers reading or linking to papers with negative results?
If there were genuine psychic phenomena the field would explode with scientists. It would explode with military intrest. And perhaps most of all , it would explode with commercial investment/exploitation (chuckle).
By far the largest experiment in the field is the entire casino industry itself. Even the most miniscule effect would become galaringly obvious when you have a sample size probably in the hundreds of trillions (each spin of a slot machine and each bet on the roulette table is a sample).
-
- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
It'd be great if someone ever succeeds in building a working quantum computer... But don't we need to really understand quantum mechanics first? Nobody -really- understands quantum mechanics.
IMHO, we'll need to learn and understand the unifying theory between classic and quantum physics first. I'm just pessimistic I suppose, but I personally think that quantum computers (as well as cold fusion, Star Trek-esque teleporters, etc.) are never going to venture beyond sci-fi... Not even in a thousand years.
Oh yea... one more thing... I have to apologize for not logging in, I'm just so incredibly lazy.
Either this story has been severely garbled by journalists or its an outright lie designed to get funding.
-- SIGFPE
There you go!
But each spin is an *observation*, not a *sample*.
I'm sure you know the difference, I just
wanted to make it clear for others.
How do I know what I think until I hear what I say?
First of all, get a statistics book or better yet an experimental design book and look at all the data in all of its various catagories. Don't just pick and chose those you like. That's called a biased review. You really do need some help here.
Second, everything you said about casinos and the like you'll eat your words on if you even bother to read the book "Conscious Universe" by Dean Radin. The casino tests have been done and they are in there.
A well known "skeptic" of psi, Ray Hyman (sp?) has said that most responses to psi are very very poor and have been dealt with by parapsychology researchers decades ago. It's really a case of the "poverty of so-called skepticism."
It seems that your looking for powerful effects. The effects at times are but more often at other times are not. But the issue isn't strength like Yoda lifting Lukes space fighter out of the swamp by the power of the "force." It has to do with statistical significance, whether the effect is subtle or not, and also can or can't it be accounted for by other non-psi means. Otherwise, if you dismiss anything subtle as unreal, which can't be justified, you'd have to dismiss electricity when it was first stumbled onto.
After you've had sex several times over just a couple hours, you just get a hardon and stop ejaculating. Especially with hot Russian babes.
Imagine a Beowolf Cluster of THESE!!!
It was a joke.
90% of what are of "high quality?" Experiments investigating unexplainable phenomena?
I'm just calling BS on that statement.(Out of FEAR, of course)
The nice thing about unsubstantiated, extraordinary claims is that you can make them fit anything you want, like horroscopes.