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New Idea Could Lead to Quantum RAM

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on from the cat-not-included dept.

KentuckyFC writes to tell us that scientists in Italy and the US have designed a new method of retrieving information from quantum memory that could allow them to create "Quantum RAM". "Giovannetti's idea is to send the address down the branching tree of connections in such a way that it only affects one switch at a time. The first address qubit sets a switch at the first branching point to go one way or the other; the second qubit is sent that way and sets the switch at the next branching point, and so on. The total number of entangled quantum systems is smaller, and they are not so susceptible to interference, allowing information to be retrieved from memory intact."

9 of 109 comments (clear)

  1. talk about density by downix · · Score: 4, Interesting

    atomic-scale memory would create huge waves.

    It also could help out on the heat issues as well.

    I mean, think about how many atoms are in a normal piece of memory.... yeouch that's a lot of RAM!

    --
    Karma Whoring for Fun and Profit.
    1. Re:talk about density by unfunk · · Score: 5, Funny

      atomic-scale memory would create huge waves.
      Yes, but they'd collapse into particles as soon as you look at 'em...
  2. Quantum porn by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    [Guy 1] Hey, I had porn loaded into memory

    [Guy 2] You changed it by looking at it!

  3. I don't see it on NewEgg by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    How else will be I be able to add it to my gaming rig. Do you think this memory has lights on it? I hope so, and that'd look great through my case's side-windows.

  4. Re:binary trees by Reverend528 · · Score: 5, Funny

    could this be used to implement extremely efficient binary trees?
    Yes and no.
    --
    Badass Resumes
  5. In other news... by Angst+Badger · · Score: 4, Funny

    ...3D Realms has announced that Duke Nukem Forever will require installation of quantum RAM.

    --
    Proud member of the Weirdo-American community.
  6. Re:binary trees by Amouth · · Score: 4, Funny

    i wish i had mod points.. although i don't know what i should put.. cause you can onlymod once..

    would it be up or down?????

    --
    '...if only "Jumping to a Conclusion" was an event in the Olympics.'
  7. Oh that's just GREAT!!!... by StressGuy · · Score: 4, Funny

    now, everytime you try to measure the release date, it will change!

    --
    A goal is a dream with a deadline
  8. Re:YAUQA: Yet another uninformed Quantum Article by kebes · · Score: 4, Interesting

    a quantum gate or quantum computer is only capable of probabilistic answers
    I don't think that's true. Yes, many quantum processes are fundamentally probabilistic, but that just means we need to avoid those processes when building quantum computers. The intended design for a quantum computer is to use unitary (invertible, deterministic, etc.) operations for the quantum gates.

    The main roadblock to keeping the gates unitary (i.e. keep the error rate low) is to have the switching occur faster than the decoherence time (the timescale over which the delicate superposition decoheres into a random probabilistic mixture). This is certainly a difficult issue to solve, but in principle it is possible. The small-scale quantum computers that have been built to date were able to solve small problems deterministically.

    As a practical point, it may turn out to be very difficult to build a quantum computer... but as far as I know the intended designs of quantum computers are not to yield probabilistic answers and then to average them, but to maintain coherence long enough that the final answer is deterministic, with an acceptably small error rate.