"Windows sucks": about 50 results "Linux sucks": about 50 results "Macs suck": about 20 results (some of these may be "emacs sucks" however) "bloody microsoft" 4 results "bloody Linux" 2 results "emacs sucks": 18 results "vi sucks" - did not match any documents
Clearly Google Code Search is a highly objective source of information for winning (or losing) a variety of arguments.
"If it is how you say, then What is the Polerisation of the photon, if it leaves Alice with Polerisation of 0 Degrees. Is it 0 Degrees (ie, 100% certain it is 0 Degrees) or, does it become a qbit with a varying percentage probablility it could be polerized to anything other than 90%?....If the latter, what made the photon go from a 'certain' state, to a quantum state?"
A photon is always in a quantum state (i.e. can always be thought of as a qubit), since it's a quantum particle by definition.
When manipulating a photon, it is possible to polarize it any way you choose...from 0 to 359.999 degrees and everything in between. But when it comes to measuring photons, you have to make a choice...you can only measure with respect to a certain basis, (A basis can be thought of as a pair of mutually exclusive polarizations)
When Alice polarizes a photon at 0 degrees, for example, Bob could choose any basis he wants to measure the photon. With respect to the 0/90 basis, that photon would indeed be 0, 100% of the time. But if he chose the 1/91 basis, then he will measure 0 98.9% of the time. If he uses the 10/100 basis, he will measure a 0 88.8% of the time. If he use the 45/135 basis, he will get 0 50% of the time...in other words, complete ignorance of the original polarization, as intended by Alice.
In quantum key exchange, it ends there...the photon will be destroyed by Bob's measurement. But it doesn't have to be, the photon could in principle live on. And after Bob uses the 45/135 basis to measure it, the photon will now be in one state of the new basis, i.e. it will acquire a polarization of 45 or 135. If someone measures it again but in the 0/90 basis, they will get 0 (or 1) 50% of the time...measuring always resets the photon with regard to the new basis (unless it destroys it).
Where things really start to get weird is with superposition...something explored in Bell's Inequality.
"I Have read up on it....[...] The point I'm trying to say, it is impossible to determine the polarization of a photon to be one of 0,45,90 or 135 degrees in one go"
Yep, that all seems pretty accurate to me. The thing I was trying to get across was that Bob always gets some answer (1 or 0) after his measurement, although it could be wrong answer if he chose the wrong basis, as you just pointed out.
Check your Quantum Physics!... If bob could successfully read the polerizations of all photons, then So could 'Eve', and therfore create an identicle photon stream to bob, and bob would know none the wiser
Again, not true. You're missing a huge point: it's a bit difficult to grasp for those new to the subject, but it's central to this whole scheme. And that is, what matters here is basis states. Bob can read every qubit, and come up with a 1 or 0 each time, but to do so, he must choose some basis for measurement. He might choose a different basis than Alice, but that's okay because they can compare basis states, and keep the measurements where their basis agrees. When Eve performed her measurements, she would have chosen a different basis much of the time, and would therefore corrupt the results for Bob. When Alice and Bob compare random bits for which their basis is the same, they would discover disagreements, which would expose the presence of Eve.
Instead of blindly disagreeing with this again, read up on it first.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_cryptograph y
"And this study was for his Ph.D. thesis. I really hope he fails."
I didn't see it mentioned anywhere that he this particular analysis of IRC traffic was part of his thesis. The application used for gathering the data is part of his thesis, and it does look like the app is a legit project.
"We don't need Ph.D's that come to wild conclusions based off of the poor analysis of data."
"Unfortunately, Due to Quantum Mechanics, Bob only has a 50% chance of actually reading the state of the photon. 50% of the time he gets '0' or '1', and 50% of the time he gets 'Unknown', and the photon is destroyed.."
Not true. While there may be limitations in his measuring apparatus, there is no theoretical reason why he could not successfully read 100% of the photons.
"This is ok, because after receiving 1 million bits, Bob phones up Alice on an unsecured line and says I managed to read photon numbers 5,6,9,12,13,16....(+ approx 500,000 more), so I will use the state of these photons as a one time pad. Alice looks up the states she sent these photons, and now both parties have a one time pad to encrypt data."
Not quite. Both Alice and Bob, over an unsecured line, tell each other the computational basis they used to measure each photon. They will keep the bit values that occurred when they used the same basis, and throw out all the others.
There are other variations of the scheme, but they all use the idea of changing basis states to evade eavesdroppers. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_cryptography )
"The only way I could possibly think of making google any better would be to get rid of that stupid googlebar advertisment they've been sticking on the front page. Just an input box and search results, thank you so much."
Well that's exactly what you get when you install googlebar: An input box, and nothing else.
"I'll be honest, I'm not too worried about my ISP having my MAC address, or even the make and model of my video card if they are interested."
Authorities now have a sizable fraction of the technology possessed by big brother in the book 1984. Whether or not to fear that power is a matter of trust. _______
For example, when quantum computing becomes practical, it might be possible to use entangled qubits -- you and I could each have a "memory stick" of billions of entangled electron pairs, and when we wanted to exchange a message we'd just use up entangled pairs as needed.
No need for that. You could accomplish the exact same thing with billions of one-time pad bits, through purely classical means. Even in the quantum case you described, you'd need a corresponding classical message to make sense of the message. So it seems needless to employ quantum technology when you could do the exact same thing classically.
But assume this story is true for a second. It would mean not only do insomniacs live for more years, they also get more out of each day. If you sleep 6 hours instead of 8 hours, you're also spending an extra 6.7 years awake, assuming you live until 80. So overall combined with the article findings, this means 6 hour sleepers are awake for 10 years more than 8 hour sleepers during their lifetimes.
This is kinda off-topic, but I remember hearing about a contest to write the shortest self-duplicating C program (i.e. something that would spit out an exact copy of its own code). Someone submitted an empty file once, which is kind clever. But does anyone know of the next shortest?
Slashdot Mirror
At 18.2%, individuals are still the largest single group contributing to Linux. The next is RedHat at 12.3%.
By your analysis, the largest single group contributing to Linux is actually the "people working for a company" group, with 81.8%.
By your analysis, the largest single group contributing to Linux is actually the "people" group, with 100%.
Counts for various search strings:
"Windows sucks": about 50 results
"Linux sucks": about 50 results
"Macs suck": about 20 results (some of these may be "emacs sucks" however)
"bloody microsoft" 4 results
"bloody Linux" 2 results
"emacs sucks": 18 results
"vi sucks" - did not match any documents
Clearly Google Code Search is a highly objective source of information for winning (or losing) a variety of arguments.
"If it is how you say, then What is the Polerisation of the photon, if it leaves Alice with Polerisation of 0 Degrees. Is it 0 Degrees (ie, 100% certain it is 0 Degrees) or, does it become a qbit with a varying percentage probablility it could be polerized to anything other than 90%?....If the latter, what made the photon go from a 'certain' state, to a quantum state?"
A photon is always in a quantum state (i.e. can always be thought of as a qubit), since it's a quantum particle by definition.
When manipulating a photon, it is possible to polarize it any way you choose...from 0 to 359.999 degrees and everything in between. But when it comes to measuring photons, you have to make a choice...you can only measure with respect to a certain basis, (A basis can be thought of as a pair of mutually exclusive polarizations)
When Alice polarizes a photon at 0 degrees, for example, Bob could choose any basis he wants to measure the photon. With respect to the 0/90 basis, that photon would indeed be 0, 100% of the time. But if he chose the 1/91 basis, then he will measure 0 98.9% of the time. If he uses the 10/100 basis, he will measure a 0 88.8% of the time. If he use the 45/135 basis, he will get 0 50% of the time...in other words, complete ignorance of the original polarization, as intended by Alice.
In quantum key exchange, it ends there...the photon will be destroyed by Bob's measurement. But it doesn't have to be, the photon could in principle live on. And after Bob uses the 45/135 basis to measure it, the photon will now be in one state of the new basis, i.e. it will acquire a polarization of 45 or 135. If someone measures it again but in the 0/90 basis, they will get 0 (or 1) 50% of the time...measuring always resets the photon with regard to the new basis (unless it destroys it).
Where things really start to get weird is with superposition...something explored in Bell's Inequality.
"I Have read up on it....[...] The point I'm trying to say, it is impossible to determine the polarization of a photon to be one of 0,45,90 or 135 degrees in one go"
Yep, that all seems pretty accurate to me. The thing I was trying to get across was that Bob always gets some answer (1 or 0) after his measurement, although it could be wrong answer if he chose the wrong basis, as you just pointed out.
Check your Quantum Physics!... If bob could successfully read the polerizations of all photons, then So could 'Eve', and therfore create an identicle photon stream to bob, and bob would know none the wiser
h y
Again, not true. You're missing a huge point: it's a bit difficult to grasp for those new to the subject, but it's central to this whole scheme. And that is, what matters here is basis states. Bob can read every qubit, and come up with a 1 or 0 each time, but to do so, he must choose some basis for measurement. He might choose a different basis than Alice, but that's okay because they can compare basis states, and keep the measurements where their basis agrees. When Eve performed her measurements, she would have chosen a different basis much of the time, and would therefore corrupt the results for Bob. When Alice and Bob compare random bits for which their basis is the same, they would discover disagreements, which would expose the presence of Eve.
Instead of blindly disagreeing with this again, read up on it first.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_cryptograp
"And this study was for his Ph.D. thesis. I really hope he fails."
I didn't see it mentioned anywhere that he this particular analysis of IRC traffic was part of his thesis. The application used for gathering the data is part of his thesis, and it does look like the app is a legit project.
"We don't need Ph.D's that come to wild conclusions based off of the poor analysis of data."
Indeed.
"Unfortunately, Due to Quantum Mechanics, Bob only has a 50% chance of actually reading the state of the photon. 50% of the time he gets '0' or '1', and 50% of the time he gets 'Unknown', and the photon is destroyed.."
y )
Not true. While there may be limitations in his measuring apparatus, there is no theoretical reason why he could not successfully read 100% of the photons.
"This is ok, because after receiving 1 million bits, Bob phones up Alice on an unsecured line and says I managed to read photon numbers 5,6,9,12,13,16....(+ approx 500,000 more), so I will use the state of these photons as a one time pad. Alice looks up the states she sent these photons, and now both parties have a one time pad to encrypt data."
Not quite. Both Alice and Bob, over an unsecured line, tell each other the computational basis they used to measure each photon. They will keep the bit values that occurred when they used the same basis, and throw out all the others.
There are other variations of the scheme, but they all use the idea of changing basis states to evade eavesdroppers. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_cryptograph
"No hanging chad problems... but no pieces of paper at all to count wasn't the solution we were looking for."
According to Robert X. Cringely, these e-voting machines have built-in (yet unused) printers.
"The only way I could possibly think of making google any better would be to get rid of that stupid googlebar advertisment they've been sticking on the front page. Just an input box and search results, thank you so much."
Well that's exactly what you get when you install googlebar: An input box, and nothing else.
Reminds me of the thing from this Southpark episode
____
"I'll be honest, I'm not too worried about my ISP having my MAC address, or even the make and model of my video card if they are interested."
Authorities now have a sizable fraction of the technology possessed by big brother in the book 1984. Whether or not to fear that power is a matter of trust.
_______
Slashdot sure snapped up this story in no time :)
But assume this story is true for a second. It would mean not only do insomniacs live for more years, they also get more out of each day. If you sleep 6 hours instead of 8 hours, you're also spending an extra 6.7 years awake, assuming you live until 80. So overall combined with the article findings, this means 6 hour sleepers are awake for 10 years more than 8 hour sleepers during their lifetimes.
This is kinda off-topic, but I remember hearing about a contest to write the shortest self-duplicating C program (i.e. something that would spit out an exact copy of its own code). Someone submitted an empty file once, which is kind clever. But does anyone know of the next shortest?