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Making Cesium Atoms Do a Quantum Walk
An anonymous reader recommends an Ars Technica account of a breakthrough in efforts toward quantum computing. German scientists have managed to get cesium atoms in a state called a "quantum walk": basically a superposition of all the possible states of a particle. "Quantum walks were first proposed by physicist Richard Feynman and are, in terms of probability, the opposite of a random walk. A random walk might be modeled by a person flipping a coin, and for each flip he steps left for heads and right for tails. In this case, his most probable location is the center, with the probability distribution tapering off in either direction. A quantum walk involves the use of internal states and superpositions, and results in the hypothetical person 'exploring' every possible position simultaneously." In the abstract of the paper from Science (subscription needed for full-text access), the researchers say: "Our system allows the observation of the quantum-to-classical transition and paves the way for applications, such as quantum cellular automata."
"And that geodesic is not shtraight either. Sho's I'll just superimpose my states back in da car and be on my way ..."
Do we have a plan for when one day, our current methods of encryption all become breakable at once?
What a wasted opportunity, your first post is supposed to say "First post, or is it?"; well I suppose you can always wait for the next quantum computing breakthrough.
It could just be a lot of quantum talk.
To your first question: Yes. There would be a new instruction set called "Eigen". It would contain all possible values simultaneously. The interesting thing about such a value is that it could be used to determine the correct value of any problem simply by casting it to the appropriate data type. Since the other instruction sets can only contain a single value at any time, the correct value (for our universe) is automatically saved in the other data type.
For your other question: Yes and no.
Do we have a plan for when one day, our current methods of encryption all become breakable at once?
What a wasted opportunity, your first post is supposed to say "First post, or is it?"; well I suppose you can always wait for the next quantum computing breakthrough.
"3very p0st" would have been an acceptable alternative, in my opinion.
A massive cash advance drawn against every credit card in the world, and a castle made of pure unicorns in a country with flimsy extradition treaties?
That's my plan, anyway.
Reading /. stories that include the phrase "...first proposed by physicist Richard Feynman..." make my head explode.
ROT13
AT&ROFLMAO
No, you say every possible permutation of your sentences simultaneously and then when the other person hears this they instantly forget what they have heard.
AT&ROFLMAO