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Discovery of a "Flat" Atom Hailed as Quantum Computing Breakthrough
msw writes to tell us that nanoelectronics researchers have discovered a new molecule that could act as a state-manipulable atom due to its unique shape and properties. "Imagine a tiny arsenic atom embedded in a tiny strip of silicon atoms. An electric current is applied. Something strange arises on the surface -- an exotic molecule. On one end is the spherical submerged arsenic atom; on the other end is an 'artificial' flat atom, seemingly 2D, created as an artifact. The pair form an exotic molecule, which has a shared electron, which can be manipulated to be at either end, or in an intermediate quantum state."
qubits have 3 possible states 1 0 and indeterminate.
Not true! Qubits have an infinite number of possible states. Imagine that your classical bit is represented as either an arrow pointing up for 1 and an arrow pointing down as -1. A quantum bit is like an arrow that can be pointed in the up direction, the down direction, or any other direction (it basically constrained to the surface of a sphere).