Hey, and here I thought quantum mechanics was all about killing cats

15 not 150...

Schrodinger's cat (insert dots above appropriate letters), is the concept of something existing in two states at once... using the handy example of a cat in a sealed box with a poison inside.

Using a complicated system of radioactive materials and a hammer, we can accurately guess that the cat is both dead and alive, while simoultaneously pissing off animal rights peoples.

I actually attended a lecture on this at UQ (the uni where this happened in Aus), and they put great effort into emphasising that these things work nothing like a normal computer.

When one of the first successful eqautions was made (3 X 5 = 150), there was a headline reading "Queensland boffins crack the code of 3 X 5", impressing absolutely no-one.

(At least until they read the article...)

I personally look forward to this kind of research, although I do like aNewbie's idea...

I deed! I deed!

- Tweety Pie.

Nick F - nice one!

Err... that is quite small potatoes whenever Quantum Communication Systems are into the Creation of Reality, Virtually, although I suppose that will give the computers something to map and chronicle, so are they somewhat naturally positively complementary.

...will it play Crysis?

To just get somebody to intake the molecule and see what happen?

20 cats in the same room are just...nightmare. Even 1/2 of them are might not be actually there... :)

And since we are all made up of molecules... we will be able to predict EVERYTHING... but I already knew that ;)

i'm pretty sure some people are quantum compters, since we don't see everything in black and white, or more accurately binary. so we make mistakes ourselves, and when more of us work together, we correct eachother. so having more quantum computers would necessitate less cycles because there would be a lower margin of error. i believe every redo was because they were beyond a reasonable margin of error. then again, i could be incorrect. like some quantum computers tend to be on occasion.

God save us all!

What if they use bigger cats?

that exposes cats' true agenda very well then-- that reveals their inner wickedness, when cats turn bad the furry fiends are sich cudgeling moggy pussies!

Actually, the cat is both there and not there at the same time.

You're all missing the Cat joke there.. sheesh

No, I think Tom is right, in the given case: it's an iterative process feeding back in previous results, so doesn't matter how many calculations are done in parallel, but that has to be repeated to attain a specified accuracy.

Now, if 20 runs of *two* qubits somehow takes significant time and effort, then obviously 20 qubits *must* take *more*.

My question is if they know that the "answer" is right, then why do they need the quantum computer? Okay, development in progress, but soon going to be beyond any possible verification, so is actual knowledge increased?

It's not actually like that. A machine with 20 qbits can compute things with 2^20 states at the same time. Thus, effectively achieving the speed up.

Running an experiment 10 or 20 times, is a common practice when random variables are involved. It is not due to using a quantum computer :)

They have to run a 2 qubit machine 20 times to get a statistically valid result?
So presumably a 20 qubit machine will have to be run at least as many times again as the increase in power offered by the machine giving a speed increase of 0.