Slashdot Mirror
Molecular Photography
med dev writes "An article at New Scientist discusses the latest in quantum computing - 1000 bits stored in the electron spins of a single polymer molecule. Add in a recent release of the how-to for the complete quantum computer, qubits that work, and it may not be much longer before Google is running on a server the size of a sugar cube."
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A picture is worth a thousand wor^H^H^Hbits.
We Are Familiar With Elephants By Virtue Of Their Size.
it may not be much longer before Google is running on a server the size of a sugar cube
"Hey Johnny, where did the new $100,000 server go?"
"I don't know... I had it right here on the table!"
"Oh shit! I put it in my coffee! That's why it tasted kind of funny."
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Hello, Slashdot user. My name is Dr. Sbaitso. I am here to help you.
But these molecular photos are so tiny. I can barely see them without my glasses.
...is it clean in other dimensions?
"The lesson to be learned is not to take the comments on slashdot too literally." --Vinnie Falco, BearShare
Does anyone know if Synchrotrons, like the one in Saskatoon, SK, Canada play a part in researching molecular computers? The article mentions a magnetic imaging device. Is that like a synchrotron?
Saskboy's blog is good. 9 out of 10 dentists agree.
So the scientists have succeeded in encoding a tiny black and white picture on a polymer molecule. Hooray! Another tiny step for science, but a giant leap for mankind. However, realitically, I don't think Google will be running on a sugar-cube sized memory bank any day now. The money to move that kind of infrastructure onto a quantum computer is unthinkable.
So, a wonderful step forward....but there are still many many steps left.
Sincerely, your local cynic
"To make apple pie from scratch, you must first create the universe." -Carl Sagan
So what happens if someone takes a picture of those atoms? Could they encode the atom's pictures on those atoms?
Sex - Find It
doesn't hitting it with the second radio burst kill the conformation you've made with the first?
...
...
and isn't the first conformation likely to change spontaneously anyway (we're only talking about spin here, not orbitals). maybe they sit in the middle conformation or something, like benzene double bonds
i can feel the organic chem rusting in my brain weekly; it's almost gone now
nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) instrument.
I've done NMR, it takes ages. Preparing the sample takes about 30 minutes. Running the NMR takes between 1 and 20 minutes depending on what you're measuring. Analysing the results depends on how good you are.
I can't see google using this any time soon.
I love that. Quantum computers will mean everyone is typing off a box the size of a sugar cube!
First of all, quantum computing is useless for many of the things we now use computers for. Google for some info, eh?
Second, use some common sense. Interface cables, removable media, et cetera. Is quantum computing suddenly going to make those things shrink as well? Hell no.
Maybe I'm being a pedantic asshole, but the terms server and computer are taken to mean everything therein, not just the central processing unit.
We're past due for the major revolution in computing that happens about every 20 years... a lot of the stuff recently seems to be leaning toward quantum computing, not (room-temperature) superconductors, which is what I thought it would be.
I'm trying to imagine what kind of systems we'll be using in 15 or 20 years when this kind of technology matures... it'll be a lot further ahead of what we have now than what we have now is ahead of the ENIAC.
If they could just fit 24 more on there, it would be a much easier number to work with...
That's not a soda... it's a caffeine delivery device!
... that be one lump or two?
Imagine what you could store in a 17" LCD
In one of the episodes The Sherlock Holmes hologram was stored in a block the size of a sugar cube. This nanotechnology would help make some really cool spy and surveillance technology.
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Go canucks, habs, and sens!
It would kinda help?
Slashdotter are stupid and biased.
I have to wonder what type of redundancy and error correction will have to be built into quantum computing. With all sorts of EM disturbances that are recoverable in atomic-level computing like we have today, what will happen when we go that small? I'm not necessarily asserting that it will happen, but that we need to understand the phenomena in all sorts of usage, including high-altitude applications and cosmic rays. The one thing we take for granted in modern electronics, particularly storage devices, is their hard resiliency to soft errors (i.e. soft errors don't necessarily translate to hard errors).
You think that's impossible don't you? hahahahaha.
Hang on, they tried that, didn't they?
And the l33t shall inherit the 34r7h.
Moreover, the peculiarities that make quantum computing interesting (e.g. the ability to factorize in polynomial time) also make it completely inappropriate for mundane tasks. So please stop the "google in a cube" shit.
The Raven
What's the matter, someone shit in your coffee? Maybe you need more sugar...
To everyone who has so far commented: so what?
My mother was born in 1947. The transistor was also invented in 1947, by Shockley. 55 years later, I got her a new computer for Christmas.
What will I see when I turn 55? I can't wait to find out.
Will quantum computing make using database table indexes obsolete? ie. will the time saved by using an index be small enough that it's not worth the effort to create/maintain one (for most uses)?
Sounds like "what-if" analysis will be taken to a new extreme, big time.
Quantum Computing is quite the sigmoid function. It seems to be in its infancy, but breakthroughs are of a serious magnitude. It won't be long before Dennis C. amazes the world with his research in quantum computing (just wait a few years). Hi five!
i wonder if i can get a cup of coffee with that sugar cube.
"What's the matter, someone shit in your coffee? Maybe you need more sugar..."
/BritshAccent
It's a bit nutty.
...for quantum stuff!!!
Of course, and I highly suspect it, I may be talking out of my ass. -oqti
There's been tremendously rapid progress in the last year. I was hugely impressed at how things have developed
Even better for people, like me, who aren't quantum physicists but who have an interest in progress in the field would be : how much did this progress exceed expectations? As in, does he mean "I thought an advance like this would have taken at least 6 years" or does he mean "wow, this is twice as fast as I would have expected" ..
I want to know how excited I should be by this :P
You can store 1 bit on 1000 molecules!
so we can store information on a molecule, but how big was the machine that created the spins? And how long did it take to process the 1's and 0's on the molecule?
Sure, we could store information on molecules, but the speed and the size of the machines involved would put us back to working with punch cards...
What needs to be done simultaneously is to improve the method in which we induce and read the spin in molecules, or those sugar cube sized computers will just be expensive and slow RAM inside a computer the size of a room...
pocket sized google?
Imagine a beowulf cluster of these
"ducks"
I wish my computer were the size of a suger cube, lan parties would be easy, just stick my computer in my pocket and go though a suger cube monitor might not be as nice.......
"hey stop shooting at my I droped my magnifying glass"
...now we can use the pinnacle of scientific knowledge, quantum mechanics, to store more pr0n. I'm just so proud to be a human these days...
Alcohol and Calculus don't mix. Don't drink and derive.
It's a *really small* punchcard.
Homer: "Hmmmmmm sugar"
Imagine a RAID array of sugar cubes. That'd be sweet!
Are any of those tasks particularly interesting for you? Unless you're a physicist or the NSA, I doubt it.
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo
--Andy Finkel (J. Klass?)
actually, no, i've never heard them say that in my entire life untill now
but when would something like this be implemented? /end rhetorical question.. I've been a pc user using the same ol x86 forever now. Its like I'm stuck in the early 80s still. All this new technology is right here.. yet what most of us are really using is a highly clocked 386 with simd/3dnow/mmx/etc still. I dont mean to be a troll at all.. I just hope something will get rid of ye olde x86.. I've got stay positive
crank!
~~~
So much for my attempt at humour. As they say, fuck'em if they can't take a joke.
I think the Japanese did that or something similar...4 years ago. But the American's have the market when it comes to quantum haiku
So how many library of congresses will fit into one sugar cube?
A server the size of a sugar cube would be pretty sweet.
True, it probably takes a massive machine to make the itty-bitty data storage. Until they can miniaturize that equipment, though, I'm sure there will still be a good market for massive ROMs. Lots of read-only storage in a little container. Of course, the access device has to be small enough, but I can see a middle-ground.
Industrial CD-pressing machines are pretty huge, but the read-only data they create is incredibly mobile.
It all goes downhill from first post
You are incorrect. Classical computers can search an indexed database in log(n) time. Grover's algorithm allows quantum searches to be much faster, perhaps even in constant time. Search engines could benefit immensely from quantum computing.
Lots of information can be found on Lov Grover's quantum search algorithm. Do a search for it on Google. Dr. Dobb's even analyzed the quantum source code for the algorithm. Pretty cool stuff.
Sortof.
Eventually a spaceship will hit the sugar-cube-sized computer's excess mass, and you can guess at the rest.
You can't judge a book by the way it wears its hair.
No, he has not! And another so-called "joke" is deftly foiled... with facts!
Thanks, and please tune in tomorrow, when our game will be "Intellectual Property Law: Who's most ignorant?"
First, here is the abstract for the article.
Second, it doesn't work, at least not the way they say it does. You can't store 1024 bits in the nuclear magnetic spins of a 19 atom molecule!
Or more precisely, you can't retrieve that many bits. The spin state of a nucleus can be described by a complex number, but when you do a measurement you only get one bit out. With 19 nuclei you can read out only about 19 bits.
So how do they make it work? They've got a huge number of molecules there. Each one is loaded with the same data value. Using the redundancy in those molecules, the researchers can read out the 1024 bits. But if they had only a single molecule holding the value in its nuclear spins, as the paper implies, there's no way they could read out 1024 bits. So the density is not as high as they make it sound.
First we get the sugar
Then we get the power
Then we get the women.....
-- I care not for your foolish signatures.
How much Pr0n could I fit on my button....
Might make the bus ride home a TOO fun.
The researchers fired an electromagnetic pulse containing 1024 different radio frequencies close to 400 megahertz at the molecule
Gee...if it takes that many requencies to read 1024 bits, imagine how many you'd need to access the memory space of the average desktop PC. You'd need the whole damn electromagnetic spectrum! I wonder if the FCC will grant them a license for that?
-ted
Molecular Photography is also the actual photography of a molecule and it's actually quite beautiful.
Cholesterol
DNA
Dyes
That's a fucking big sugar cube.
Free Java games for your phone: Tontie, Sokoban
Hey, I think that's recursive. ;)
If a single molecule can store an image, what happens if you tell it to store a picture of itself in action? Do you get one of those camcorder-pointed-at-monitor recursive brainfarts?
Is taking a picture of several of them with a scanning electron microscope, in effect, compression? =)
My
Limekiller
If heat-dissipation were not an issue, a sugar-cube-sized piece of silicon using today's non-quantum transistor logic could contain an extremely powerful computer.
--A picture of your wife contains video of your wedding.
--Blind people "see" data encoded on their surroundings.
--Bullets are encoded with their manufacturer, who sold it, and who bought it. Even if it's in fragments.
--Sentient coatings (sort of). Smart liquids.
--Something else for Microsoft to claim they invented.
This is my post. There are many others like it. If you don't like what you read here, go try one of the others.
...picture a sugar cube the size of a server? No? OK, I'll go to sleep now.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
Nah! They got bored and they're playing with fractals.
Blah blah blah
...and other neobabble.
The quantum states of phosphorus atoms are particularly long-lived,
The article tells us basically nothing real, except the names of a few people and that they're working on something called "quantum" computing.
So here's how it should work (off the top of my head):
An atom or molecule (a collection of particles) has a set of wave-equation solutions. Each of solutions corresponds to a single point in a lattice, whose coordinates are the quantum numbers; or a single value of an n-tuple whose indices are the quantum numbers; or a single member of a set of n-tuples each of which is identified by a unique combination of quantum numbers...however you want to express it. These quantum numbers are inserted into the wave equation and out pops a solution--a wave-function--that does not diverge or otherwise go kaput.
If the atom, molecule, collection of particles, etc., is in one state (one combination of quantum numbers; one wavefunction), it's just a matter of applying energy in the right way to push it into another state. The quantum numbers move to a new point in the lattice, you change the n-tuple indices, whatever. You really cause the wavefunction to change, and the spatial arrangement available to the particles moving in the system changes. A spherical shell becomes a dumb-bell shape (not really, but it's a simpler visual than what really happens, so go with it).
Now you have a binary memory system. Most systems have way more than two states, but only a few will be stable (metastable, actually) enough to be useful for computation. But trinary, quaternary, etc. are certainly not out of the question; though the question is a lot easier if you can still use all this software expertise that has binary math running through its veins.
Quantum calculations are a lot harder to grok than quantum memory. Something has to work so that the state of the memory actuates another part of the system to undergo a change on a quantum level from one stable state (n-tuple value/wavefunction) to another.
The Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle would get involved, so the family of states you use would have to be pretty special to keep the particles in knowable states. I think that's what the reporter was really getting at when talking about the phosphorus thing.
http://angryflower.com/schrod.gif
Mmmm, sugar...
Money for nothing, pix for free
if you want some details on how it's done, read my other post.
Um... the other posts by username "Anonymous Coward" all involve a website called goatse, whatever that is.
We can neither love nor pity nor forgive. If you make a slip in handling us you die!
... a bowl full of these...
And since the article says the information is stored in 'the protons' magnetic moments', the number of molecules shouldn't really matter.
> The data are stored in the complex interaction
> of the protons' magnetic moments.
There is a masive demand for such computing power and that is the only reasion they may eventually exist. Most of the interesting things you could do with computers are impossiable because they are computationally infesiable(e.g. AI). Quantum computing is intresting because it could allow us to do the impossiable easily. Why bother working out the solution to a problem when you could just try all the possiabilities at the same time, and be 99.999999% sure your result was correct. Why bother calculating an imperfect but computationaly fesiable model with your new nVidia when you could calculate a perfect model to a 99.999999% accuracy easily.
down at the cafeteria... or maybe it was just a box of sugar cubes?
Does anyone know if Synchrotrons, like the one in Saskatoon, SK, Canada play a part in researching molecular computers?
No, not at all.
The article mentions a magnetic imaging device.
Is that like a synchrotron?
No, not at all.
Syncrotrons produce gamma/X-rays. Expose a polymer to some of those, and it won't stay a polymer for long..
NMR instruments (and MRI devices) use radio waves. Much longer wavelength, much lower energy.
The only similarity I can think of is that both use big magnetic fields, but for different reasons.
(syncrotrons use them to accelerate particles, NMR machines use them to split the spin energy levels)
Well the part of this that actually stores data may be the size of a sugarcube, but if you've ever seen the size of a 400MHz NMR I think you might reconsider your statement. (oh, and leave your wallet at home when you go to work to avoid the NMR's huge magnet going through your credit cards.)
If you can't peek at the insides of a quantum computer, what would a debugger look like?
Imagine what could be encoded on Caffeiene molecules!
You could do better today as it is... making this technology quite the overkill.
::shake::. Yo barkeep, another round please)
encrypt you rmessage and post it all over town. Many people will stop to look at copies of it, only the intended recipient can actually read it (assuming you are using a large enough key etc etc etc)...
Or even better, use steganography to hide into in an image on a web page, then all you need its lots of traffic loading the image for whatever reason. Which of those thousands of accesses was the guy who knows how to read the message? Good luck figiuring it out.
Palm it and pass it with a handshake? Sure, its fun, and usefull sometimes.
(Dude you got any trees? Sure man $50 an 8. Deal man.
However, sometimes, its just overkill.
Besides...why sugar cube sized? those buisness card size CDs are plenty small for "Casual contact passing". Or even USB drives... about the size of a lighter, I for one can easily palm something the size of a lighter long enough for the person I am talking to to forget I have it (a fool and his lighter are soon parted) and passing through casual contact with a small token in the palm of you rhand? Easy stuff.
You don't need sugar cube size memory devices... just get it on a USB drive and use a couple of potheads as couriers. Even better... hide a USB drive in a lighter... then its just a matter of knowing the right network of potheads...
give the lighter to the right person and without even any extra knowledge you can easily have a 90% chance it will be in a specific other persons pocket within the next 48 hours.
Sure its not perfect but man... you could easily use lighters to move information through a network of people without them knowing.
In summary... you COULD use a mature version of this tech to solve the problem of moving data surreptitously, however, equally good eays exist now, this would just increase the amount you could move easily and quickly.
-Steve
"I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"
First you get the sugar. Then you get the power. Then you get the women...
Don't mod me down without following the link, please.
Whoever stated that signature sizes should be limited to one hundred and twenty characters can just go ahead and kiss my
Here's our take on it: Molecule stores picture
Eric Smalley
I don't know... people weren't too happy about the virtually meaningless math inaccuracy in the original Pentium. Also, you desperately need a spell-checker.