Posted on 08/21/2006 7:17:02 PM PDT by annie laurie
A new silicon chip capable of manipulating the spin of a single electron could ultimately allow futuristic quantum computers to be built using conventional electronic technology, researchers say.
A quantum bit, or "qubit", is analogous the bits used in conventional computers. But, instead of simply switching between two states, representing "0" and "1", quantum physics permits a qubit to exist in more than one state simultaneously, until its state is measured.
This means quantum computers can essentially perform multiple calculations at once, giving them the potential to be exponentially more powerful than conventional computers ...
'Breakthrough experiment'
Researchers have also created qubits from the "up" or "down" spin-states of electrons on quantum dots. But they lacked the ability to control the state of a single electron well enough to perform calculations using them. A team led by Lieven Vandersypen at Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands has now created a device that can manipulate a single electron using conventional microchip fabrication technology.
"This is a breakthrough experiment," says Guido Burkard, a physicist at the University of Basel in Switzerland, who was not involved in the research. "A major benefit of making a qubit using this method is that they are built upon existing semiconductor technology." This should make the qubits easier to scale up into larger systems, he adds ...
(Excerpt) Read more at newscientisttech.com ...
Amazing. What will the next 50 years bring us? (assuming tomorrow isn't the end of the world)
What if we accelerate to the speed of light but don't otherwise change when we were going to measure it? (I really don't even understand what I'm asking....)
ping
With this kind of computing speed, perhaps pcs will soon acquire 'artificial intelligence' and then determine that humanity is the enemy....
Day of Teminator???
Only if computers devolop liberal tendencies.
Imagine a computer as intelligent as a genius-level human (150+ IQ) but able to process information a million times faster than a human. Now imagine a network of a million of these computers all working together. Wow. Let's be sure to install a way to turn the whole thing off, just in case.
They better hurry and get this down to the marketing folks!
Not to worry. They're running Windows XP.
If the spin is 'manipulated' it's an unnatural quantum electrodynamic action.
Schroedinger's Cat anyone?
So, would quantum computers be faster, hold more data?
More intelligent computers won't be sentient computers.
Problem is : qubits are still the olde morse code of dit-dah-dit : 01101110 : rapidly flipping a switch on and off is all digital is. It comes from turing(who committed suicide)and the early ENIAC days when they used thermally noisy vacuum tubes, the best signal-to-noise ratio was on-off-on-on-off... With photonics there is a vastly better way to compute : light wavelengths : a million+ vs the 2 of dit-dah-dit digital. Storage? Slow light(down to 37 mph). Prisms, lenses, mirrors, fiber optics and source? A 25 watt incandescent light bulb should do. Then there's intensities, polarization angles....your own color TV screen could list a number so HUGE, and thus information, that you could never read it in arabic numerals...every .1 second. The tools are all there, why hasn't anybody made a photonics computer, and left qubits in the dust?
Yes, artificial cognition would be a real breakthrough.
But although they could be smart, they should not have the same rights as humans. If the smartest chimpanzee is smarter than the dumbest human (a very long stretch, even including infants), the chimpanzee is still an animal and the human is still a human. For example, the chimpanzee could be eaten, but the human shouldn't be.
IBM Research
Silicon nanophotonics
http://domino.research.ibm.com/comm/research_projects.nsf/pages/photonics.index.html
IMO, defense will get it for a little while first.
Yes, we know about electron/photon hybrids and slow light but what I'm thinking of is a pure photon computer, not electronic computing and photon communicating, a pure photon computer where wavelengths and pixels replace binary bits. I sense a "perception limit" in human thinking about what a computer should be. Example : what is 5^7^9^21^31 x 4^3^87^5 / 6^7^3^19 ? Those are such incredibly large numbers that you could NEVER list them in arabic numerals and yet they could possibly be listed photonically with million wavelength pixels at microsecond intervals in an ENIAC type building. Hey, look around at your surroundings with your eyes, do you see in dit-dah-dit binary code, or with photons? You see, we're talking information theory here beyond shannon/von neuman and binary-limited thinking. Sooner or later someone will copy the eye-brain pattern parallel computer as a photonic computer, then improve upon it for AI, it won't be science fiction anymore.
But the eyes see, and the brain computes, in a way, without light. A material or device that can react to light by changing states or change the light waves is still needed for computing, AFAIK. We might be looking again for anything that can quickly assume more than two states--or even something that can receive, change and output virtual analog light results. Maybe properties of some materials change quickly enough when lit, to change incoming light before sending it on.
Yes, there are materials that change the index of refraction in nanoseconds, thus switching-paths; but I'm thinking that there is someone out there in the photonics-computer field that will make pixels, not bits or qubits, as your basic info carrier. One pixel can contain millions of different values vs just the 2 of binary. Consider your own system : 5 senses input into a CPU that weighes some 3 pounds and uses minimal energy, mostly oxygen. Obviously digital dit-dah-dit is not how it operates. Be as it may, I'll communicate privately w/you later about the "5 senses" as you seem to be a very knowledgeable fellow, not one of these dufusses that infest this website.
cool
Now how is it that Kasperov can almost beat Deep Blue(computer chess program)with just his brain? Let's look at our 5, maybe 6, senses : sight : photon particle stops at the retina but the OVER RUNNING EM wave kicks an electron out of orbit, up the optical nerve to our brain where we actually SEE. Thus a mix of bosons(photons)and fermions(electrons). Sound : the gas molecule particle stops at the eardrum but the OVER RUNNING compression wave goes thru the bones, thu the cochlear nerve and to our brian, where we HEAR. Taste : specific shapes "plug into" receptors in the tongue and chemical message is sent via nerves to the brain, where we say yummmm, or yuck! Odor : again plug in molecules(gas)on a short trip to the brain, where we smell.........Touch : we, as a collection of fermions, are half particle(electrons, protons, neutrons)and half wave, called matter waves. Thus there is no such thing as "time" in and of itself : t=dKE=m=(W less than P, or W greater than P). Can you think of a time event that is NOT a Kinetic energy event, at some delta rate? KE is mass, either inertial or gravitational. When you accelerate something(throw a baseball, say)you have increased the Pv but not the corresponding Ws(matter wavelength)that ALSO has to be there, to balance out the wave-particle duality of complementarity. So the resistance you feel(back push on your hand)is its deceleration of over running matter wave energy, in newtons of wave FORCE; ie, your hand's Pv is slowing down but the greater Ws is what you feel as TIME! Thus the declerations you constantly feel with your body's neural output to your brain is your "time-eye". Does that make sense to you?
Yes, it does make sense. I'll Freepmail you now.
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