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Tiny Holes Advance Quantum Computing

Nick writes "Worldwide, scientists are racing to develop computers that exploit the quantum mechanical properties of atoms - quantum computers. One strategy for making them involves packaging individual atoms on a chip so that laser beams can read quantum data. Scientists at Ohio State University have taken a step toward the development of quantum computers by making tiny holes that contain nothing at all. The holes - dark spots in an egg carton-shaped surface of laser light - could one day cradle atoms for quantum computing."

11 of 255 comments (clear)

  1. Great principle by treff89 · · Score: 5, Funny

    Quantum computing is quite simply where we turn after existing silicon is exhausted. Once the basics about the random nature of quantum particles, which is extremely interesting, the meaning of computer and mechanics thereof can be redefined.

    1. Re:Great principle by the31337z3r0 · · Score: 3, Funny

      Heh. Leap to Quantum. Don't EVER reference that show again.

    2. Re:Great principle by zwilliams07 · · Score: 3, Funny
      the random nature of quantum particles
      *enters 1 + 1 into the built-in calculator*
      *gets 2,124,972, 421 as an answer*
      *enters 1 + 1 again*
      *gets 0.0012 as an answer*
  2. Definitions? by Rinzai · · Score: 5, Funny
    "...making tiny holes that contain nothing at all."

    Well, yes, that rather is the definition of "hole," isn't it? Having nothing in them is what distinguishes them from the rest of the surroundings.

  3. Mind Boggling by CleverNickedName · · Score: 5, Funny

    Scientists ... making tiny holes that contain nothing at all.

    So these boffins have developed "nothing", but one day, in the far future, this nothing could be filled with something important.
    Wow. What an age we live in.

    --


    Unfortunately, I am not Wil Wheaton
  4. obligatory Simpsons quote: by TheAxeMaster · · Score: 5, Funny


    They're speed holes, they make the computer go faster....

  5. Re:Just in time for Lonhorn!!! by ZeroExistenZ · · Score: 4, Funny

    If you get a quantum 3D-accelerated graphicscard.

    --
    I think we can keep recursing like this until someone returns 1
  6. Magic Red Smoke by Analogy+Man · · Score: 3, Funny
    Everyone knows current computers and consumer electronics work using magic blue smoke. If the smoke escapes your device no longer works. Overclockers are very clumsy about letting out the blue smoke and sell their processors (depleted of magic) on e-bay under dubious accounts.

    Quantum computers will use red smoke (the Rubium cloud). Will we call the hobbiests that push the limits of these machines Quark shakers?

    --
    When the people fear their government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty.
  7. Re:How many were there? by meringuoid · · Score: 3, Funny
    And how many would it take to fill the Albert Hall?

    Four thousand.

    I was never quite clear on how the holes from Blackburn, Lancs. could possibly fill the Albert Hall. I mean, they're holes - defined as being something not there. How can they fill anything?

    Then I discovered marijuana, and understood :-)

    --
    Real Daleks don't climb stairs - they level the building.
  8. Re:Just in time for Lonhorn!!! by NinjaFarmer · · Score: 3, Funny

    So it will run Duke Nukem Forever then?

  9. Re:Wow by Strange+Ranger · · Score: 4, Funny

    I, for one, can't quite imagine how are they going to stop neutrinos from entering that space...

    Simple. They'll just repolarize the quantum invariance field and then bombard it with a tachyon pulse. This creates a standing wave of Heisenberg Flux, which is the only way to be certain the hole is empty.

    --

    Operator, give me the number for 911!