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."

Comments

Re:Quantum State

[morgan_greywolf]

I propose that we rename "indeterminate state" to "undead cat state", just because it sounds cooler and (sorta) makes sense.

The article is exiting gibberish

[bornwaysouth]

Can someone on slashdot please make sense of the article. It claims
1. That quantum computing needs vastly fewer bits to represent data. I thought it dealt with multiple possibilities simultaneously, but that the final reality just needed small number of bits. (Ideal for encryption cracking. Crap for storing a database)
2. That a synthetic atom was created. OK. I used to be a chemist. A new non-peridic table atom is heresy to me. But that extraordinary claim seemed to be nothing more than an odd electrical state, acting as if an unknown atom was present.
3. A molecule was created. Covalent bonds and the like. Except that it seemed to be an arsenic atom buried in a matrix. Not a separate molecule at all.
4. That faster than light communication is possible. I thought that collapsing entanglement does appear to happen faster than light, but that no information transfer happens. Mind you, that's my memory of my take on a New Scientist comment some time back. My brain has its share of garbage. Compost help ideas grow. ;-)

I suspect there is great science here being reported as little more than magic.

Re:The article is exiting gibberish

[kalirion]

Yes, I read The Fabric of Cosmos. And that's what actually gave me the idea before I ever heard of John Cramer's planned experiment. Remember Greene's example of an experimental setup which specifically stated that if you measure the entangled stream, it would cause the interference pattern to disappear in the original stream. It seems obvious that this can be used for communication. As you said, measuring a single photon would not be enough - a pattern needs many "dots". But if you switch the device on long enough to measure 1000 photons, the pattern, or lack thereof, would be clear as day. If it takes you 1 second to analyze the pattern, but the device is on the stream more than 1 light second away: there's your FTL travel. And if the device measures the photons after you have seen their entangled partners hit the screen and analyzed the pattern, that's communication back in time.

More info on that experiment (or at least links to articles about it) can be found here.

Basically, as I see it, this experiment will either prove FTL communication to be possible, or it will disprove the uncertainty principle.

Re:What do they mean by an "atom"?

[snowgirl]

Yeah, the title of this should be "found a flat 'atom'" which should be in quotes, not the "flat" part.

The artifact is definitely flat, but the "atom" is a virtual one. Much like an atom of Positronium, where an electron is circling around a positron (anti-electron). Positronium acts chemically exactly like Hydrogen, because chemistry is based on the electron shell, not the actual atom inside (the different elements are all distinguished by how many electrons they have in orbit, as well how much or little they want to keep electrons.)

So, this "atom" that they're referring to doesn't actually exist as a "physical" object, but rather it's an artifact as you mentioned, and if an electron were to just kind of oddly orbit around an empty space, chemically, it's a hydrogen atom.

and 640k should be enough for everyone

[Wizworm]

Delft's Rogge, the first of the discoverers stated, "Our experiment made us realize that industrial electronic devices have now reached the level where we can study and manipulate the state of a single atom. This is the ultimate limit, you cannot get smaller than that."

Re:Sure

[nospam007]

>There is nothing wrong with using toxic substances...

Yep, it's even in the tapwater you drink, use to cook and wash and brush your teeth.

http://www.organicconsumers.org/corp/arsenic.cfm

Re:Mod grandparent 'troll', not 'insightful'

[treeves]

Half NaCl, half KCl, IIRC.
Too much potassium can be bad for you though, so you shouldn't dump a lot of it on your fries either.

Re:Sure

[zokum]

I use 2 Eizo CRTs, 21" F930. Despite their age, they're great. LCDs only really look nice in one resolution, for everything else it's a blurfest. If one uses a lot of different resolutions and do graphics work, CRT is the way to go. And in general I love the fact that i can run a game at 160Hz refresh rate and 0.1ms response time on ALL colors. LCD still has a lot of catching up to do imo, but for normal one-resolution office work, lcd is the way to go. For my main setup I use 2x1600*1200 @100Hz, and for games demos from 800*600 to 1280*1024, my pc is a few years old :-). Were I to buy new LCDs with comparative resolutions, I'd have to fork out a shitload of cash, and demos and games would in fact look worse. Maybe when OLED goes mainstream or LCD is improved I'll change, but not now, not yet.