Hey, I have an idea for you. Take all the guns away from your armed forces.
You know, if you did that, you guys might have a bit more cash left over for, I dunno, education, healthcare...
That kind of escalation (a) kept the Soviets from ever attacking us and (b) won the cold war and destroyed them without firing a shot.
To attribute the collapse of the Soviet Union, as you seems to be doing, to just the external pressure due to the arms race is a gross over-simplification of history.
Why? Why is ignorance of the law not a defence? The laws in many places of the western world (Australia, where I am, and from what I hear, the USA too, among other places I'm sure) are such a convoluted mess of (the legal equivalent of) spaghetti code that I would think that being unaware of the meanings, implications, interpretations even, of some of the more non-obvious parts of it would be something a court ought to take into consideration when determining a case.
Sure, there are instances where it really is obvious to any sane person that a crime is committed. (For example, murder.) But in some cases how could you justifiably expect an average punter to know what he was doing was wrong? (For example, copying a legally obtained copyrighted video file to a portable device. Here in Australia, even after recent copyright reform, this is illegal, even though you're allowed to do it for music files.)
It's not even like the legislators are doing their darndest to educate the public about the laws they enact. Even worse, some laws I'm sure they'd rather keep damned quiet.
Nevertheless, in order to avoid confusion for anyone else: The spin of an electron is defined relative to an external magnetic field, always. A spin up electron is only spin up within the field in which it was set. Change the external field and you will no longer have spin up. Remove the field and you won't have any spin (because you can't measure it without that field).
So, those of us in the southern hemisphere will define our spins according to whereever our external field points, and the rest of you guys can do whatever the hell you like.:)
(In reality, the field itself will probably be defined with respect to the orientation of the product's enclosure.)
Last I checked, only politicians could change orientation without physically moving. ..
"Electron spin" is a misnomer. The electron is not really spinning. This is just a name for the particular quantum mechanical property that causes the electron to deflect one way or another when travelling through a magnetic field.
So, besides being wrong or misleading in other areas, the article is actually right about the electron not physically moving in order to change it's spin orientation. As has been pointed out, it does require energy, however. Supposedly this is less than the typically required voltage change.
Not really. This is just a different representation of the same information, like voltage in electronics, lans and pits on CDs, punched holes in paper (which I'm too young to know much about). These guys are just using an electron's spin: +z to represent 1 and -z to represent 0 (or something along those lines, the actual definition is irrelevant).
Quantum computing, on the other hand, uses all values in between. Including complex ones. Quantum computing is not binary, but (for certain protocols) can only be measured in binary states. So you're quantum computer can process these complex values (which could well be encoded in electron spin - it is a quantum mechanical property after all) in really tricky ways, just so long as you don't measure intermediate results (that would destroy the coherence - think of it a bit like a quantum computer's Oops). This is what affords quantum computers such massive advantages at certain problems, like searching and factorising.
What is completely ignored in TFA is the effect of thermal relaxation. After a while the effect of heat "leaks" into the spin causing it to revert back to a random (mixed) state. To avoid the effect altogether would require 0 K temperature, i.e. it's impossible.
There are possibly ways to mitigate the effect, though. I'd like to know what the company pushing this memory tech has come up with to this end (and whether or not it actually works). Anyone know?
Wouldn't evaporating or boiling some of the water via nuclear reactors or orbiting mirrors increase the humidity and heat retention of the atmosphere, and eventually create a climate in which many earth organisms could thrive?
You overestimate. I'm in Brisbane. I have an aerial with rabbit ears and a loop. Analog TV is adequate (pretty good most of the time). Digital is just barely over the digital cliff on all channels simultaneously *only if* I orient the aerial just perfectly. If I don't, then some channels will work and others won't. Even with perfect antenna orientation, changes in the weather, and even planes flying overhead will damage the signal. Analog is not nearly this picky, but then that's the digital cliff for you.
Not where I'm studying. Common use labs here are all Windows XP Dells (or at least they were, I think they're Compaqs now), ICT labs are the same. We've had to jump through extra hoops in our lab to get Apple hardware.
He is to science of the next generation, what jesus was to everyone else.
What ridiculous hyperbole. The man is inspirational, sure, and clever. He is good at the field of physics in which he works. But to paint him as some sort of scientific messiah is just silly.
You seem to have confused "distribution" and "operating system" as synonymous. A distribution consists of the operating system plus applications. Why is it not then up to the distribution to take care of the interoperability of both?
If that were the case then we wouldn't have had many of the developments we have had today, such as evolution, which is still today a subject of debate.
I might prefer to use the term "controversy" when referring to this about evolution, rather than "debate". There is no debate - the science is solid. But then there are a lot of (or a few very loud) people who are upset by this, nevertheless, and would prefer the whole of humanity conform to their own delusions.
The theory that predicts the existence of "spooky action at a distance" is the same theory that predicts you can't use it to communicate - in the sense that there is no instantaneous transmission of usable information.
Entanglement (this "spooky action at a distance") can, however, be used to increase (double, in fact) the bandwidth of classical communication. See superdense coding. It can be argued that since we can communicate classical information at the speed of light without entanglement, superdense coding allows us to communicate the same information at (effectively) twice lightspeed. This seems to violate relativity but, of course, there must be an entanglement established first.
Perhaps, only if they somehow managed to leave the one that was activated and not any of the others stolen, be that by good judgement or, more likely, luck.
Slashdot Mirror
Personal responsibility exists. So does everyone else's responsibility.
Sure, that's true, but my question remains unanswered: Why?
Sure, there are instances where it really is obvious to any sane person that a crime is committed. (For example, murder.) But in some cases how could you justifiably expect an average punter to know what he was doing was wrong? (For example, copying a legally obtained copyrighted video file to a portable device. Here in Australia, even after recent copyright reform, this is illegal, even though you're allowed to do it for music files.)
It's not even like the legislators are doing their darndest to educate the public about the laws they enact. Even worse, some laws I'm sure they'd rather keep damned quiet.
So, you're going to be ignored by default, then?
I believe you to be speaking tongue in cheek. :P
:)
Nevertheless, in order to avoid confusion for anyone else: The spin of an electron is defined relative to an external magnetic field, always. A spin up electron is only spin up within the field in which it was set. Change the external field and you will no longer have spin up. Remove the field and you won't have any spin (because you can't measure it without that field).
So, those of us in the southern hemisphere will define our spins according to whereever our external field points, and the rest of you guys can do whatever the hell you like.
(In reality, the field itself will probably be defined with respect to the orientation of the product's enclosure.)
So, besides being wrong or misleading in other areas, the article is actually right about the electron not physically moving in order to change it's spin orientation. As has been pointed out, it does require energy, however. Supposedly this is less than the typically required voltage change.
Not really. This is just a different representation of the same information, like voltage in electronics, lans and pits on CDs, punched holes in paper (which I'm too young to know much about). These guys are just using an electron's spin: +z to represent 1 and -z to represent 0 (or something along those lines, the actual definition is irrelevant).
Quantum computing, on the other hand, uses all values in between. Including complex ones. Quantum computing is not binary, but (for certain protocols) can only be measured in binary states. So you're quantum computer can process these complex values (which could well be encoded in electron spin - it is a quantum mechanical property after all) in really tricky ways, just so long as you don't measure intermediate results (that would destroy the coherence - think of it a bit like a quantum computer's Oops). This is what affords quantum computers such massive advantages at certain problems, like searching and factorising.
What is completely ignored in TFA is the effect of thermal relaxation. After a while the effect of heat "leaks" into the spin causing it to revert back to a random (mixed) state. To avoid the effect altogether would require 0 K temperature, i.e. it's impossible.
There are possibly ways to mitigate the effect, though. I'd like to know what the company pushing this memory tech has come up with to this end (and whether or not it actually works). Anyone know?
Yeah, didn't you get that memo?
Modded funny? I don't get it. Perhaps it's part of the new US culture, you know, assumption of guilt until proven innocence...
Or did I miss something else?
Ear and eyeball pie... Mmmmm....
You overestimate. I'm in Brisbane. I have an aerial with rabbit ears and a loop. Analog TV is adequate (pretty good most of the time). Digital is just barely over the digital cliff on all channels simultaneously *only if* I orient the aerial just perfectly. If I don't, then some channels will work and others won't. Even with perfect antenna orientation, changes in the weather, and even planes flying overhead will damage the signal. Analog is not nearly this picky, but then that's the digital cliff for you.
Not where I'm studying. Common use labs here are all Windows XP Dells (or at least they were, I think they're Compaqs now), ICT labs are the same. We've had to jump through extra hoops in our lab to get Apple hardware.
Got any stats on Apple branding in colleges?
...Cause they're hypocritical fucks?
What ridiculous hyperbole. The man is inspirational, sure, and clever. He is good at the field of physics in which he works. But to paint him as some sort of scientific messiah is just silly.
You seem to have confused "distribution" and "operating system" as synonymous. A distribution consists of the operating system plus applications. Why is it not then up to the distribution to take care of the interoperability of both?
Asperger's != ADHD.
I can only guess at what a "qutit" might be.
This decade? You mean the naughties?
Perhaps, only if they somehow managed to leave the one that was activated and not any of the others stolen, be that by good judgement or, more likely, luck.
This is stupid! It's the biggest load of crap I've ever seen! I wonder who paid them to write this?
What? Generally favourable?
Well, it's about time someone did a proper study! I'm glad to see there are some people who aren't complete corporate shills!