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Interweb prepared for quantum leap

Once its photons are all lined up
Tuesday, 15 April 2008, 17:47

SCIENCE BOFFINS HAVE been dreaming about quantum computers since the beginning of the 1980s, but now advances in the field mean that the working reality could be that much closer, and not just in isolated lab experiments, either.

A professor of electrical engineering and computer science at Northwestern University, Prem Kumar, has just published new research in the journal Physical Review Letters, detailing how his team managed to put together a quantum logic gate, essential for quantum computing, inside optical fibre. According to Technology Review, this sort of gate could now be used either as part of a circuit, able to transmit data securely over hundreds of kilometers, from one quantum computer to another, or individually, to crack really hard math problems.

Quantum computers are quite a bit different to the classic computers most people are used to, using ‘qubits’ as their units of information instead of the electronic ‘bits’ of either 1 or 0. Because qubits can be both "1" and a "0" simultaneously, they can purportedly process much more information than classic computers, and can also manipulate certain bizarre quantum-mechanical particle properties like electrons and photons. Seeing as the processing ability of a quantum computer doubles for every extra qubit, quantum computers only need a handful (or a couple of hundred) of qubits to give even today’s fastest supercomputers a run for their money.

Kumar and his boffins have fashioned a gate which they’ve dubbed a NOT gate, which uses a classical-computing analogue for flipping a bit "1" to "0", and the opposite. The team reckon that this gate will let them run specific applications and plan to test it even further by running a complex auction over a secure quantum network.

Kumar and his team manage to set up the gates by making qubits out of photons that are "entangled". What this means in a practical sense is that certain of the photons’ characteristics link up in a sort of ying-yang combo, whereby when one photon assumes a certain state, whilst the other will take on the opposite one. This works really well in polarisation for example, and photons entangled in this way can remain so for about 100km.

Coordinator of the quantum information program at the National Institute of Standards and Technology, Carl Williams, also told Technology Review that the important thing about the new research “is that it's in fiber. This is a big deal because it could lead to distributed networks. ... The obvious application is for long-distance quantum communication between two smaller quantum computers." He added that Kumar’s quantum gate could potentially be used as a repeater inside a circuit, to amplify a signal without un-entangling the photons.

A leading researcher in quantum computation and a professor of mechanical engineering at MIT, Seth Lloyd, also spoke to TR and said that "This is an important step toward constructing a quantum Internet," adding that “communication over the quantum Internet would be automatically secure". µ

L’Inq
Technology Review

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CNOT gate

I hate to correct people, but the gate is a Controlled-Not, CNOT, gate it is fundamentally different from a NOT gate

posted by : RobDinsmore, 17 January 2008 Complain about this comment
Bin there, Dun and Bradstreet that....?

Here is some Parallel Work, cloaked in an Alien Guise....... [and it must have been Spirited away in Transit or salted away out of Sight or perhaps it just stirred up some S***. And if that be the case, they wanna stop making so much of it and parcelling it up as the the next best thing since $liced bread]


@Why make FPGA power compatible? It already is in the next spec
By amanfromMars
Posted Tuesday 15th April 2008 14:24 GMT

It is also evolved into the [TEMPEST Storm]* Cloud, for the next Generation of Quantum OSS, Anton [with any and all of Office of Strategic Services, Open Source Software and Operating System Servers being catered for]

And that is shared because ... "As previously mentioned, many modern FPGAs have the ability to be reprogrammed at "run time," and this is leading to the idea of reconfigurable computing or reconfigurable systems — CPUs that reconfigure themselves to suit the task at hand." ... in Modern developments, ... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Field-programmable_gate_array .... is an early incarnation/BetaTest of ..... "GCHEESE ....... Seventh Heaven HQ" ........ is it not, albeit at opposite ends of the Quantum Scale XXXXPloring Resolution of the Infinitely Large with the Improbably Small, ....which takes us into the hallowed Theory of Everything Territory and dDeep VirtualAstraMetaPhysics, Singularities, Pluralities, SurRealities, Virtual Reality and ITs General and Specific Relativity to our Perception for Reality/Digitally Presented Future ProgramMIng?

After all, it is an inescapable and incontrovertible fact, that each and every one of us has a unique, individualised/customised/made to measure view/perception of Life, Earth, the Universe, Everything, being the sum total of our Knowledge and XXXXPeriences ..... with Communications and ITs Media Arms Presenting, for Wider Acceptance/BrainWashing, Subjectively Chosen Customised Views which are in Particular and Peculiar Support of Chosen Individuals/Fools/Talking Heads/Bright Sparks/Star Performers/Non State Actors/Hubristic Psychotics/White Knight Psychopaths/Black Hat Sociopaths, thus to Present us with a Chaotic Vista of Individual Realities which bear No Relativity, Real or Imagined to anything other than the Selected Individuals Perceptions and their Actions in Furtherance of their Own Goals/Aims/Desires/Failings/Fears .... and to have Communications and Media present an UnReal/Untrue/Proxy Third Party Picture Spun as being One's Own but in Essence someone else's is an Abuse and Betrayal of Trust and Privilege and an Abject Abdication in Anyone who would Profess to be Boldly Going/Leading.

J'accuse ....... whoever has so blatantly Used and Abused the System and its Societies for Individual Customised Gain rather than Universal Benefit. Stand up, Step Forward and be Counted and adjudged as an Ignorant Fool or an Arrogant IDiot, for there is very little evidence of anyone Playing the Great Game and its Greatest of Games for Universe Benefit and certainly none that I know of who would profess IT with the Beta Processing of Information into Advanced Artificial CyberIntelAIgents for anything other than NIRobotIQs and ITs Tangential ICQ NeuRobotIQ Programs..... although I would be pleased to be informed, otherwise.

*TEMPEST Storm Clouds would be the Yin working against Any who would Oppose the Universal Benefit Yang in Virtual Cloud Processing of the Future and ITs Shared and Transparent Derivative Views/Parallel Computes/Trails on Rails.

http://comments.theregister.co.uk/2008/04/14/ibm_power_revitalize/


posted by : amanfromMars, 15 April 2008 Complain about this comment
Quantum porn

Great, esoteric technology for faster distribution of porn.

But I think it's compelling that a quantum bit, q-bit, can go both ways.

posted by : RV, 15 April 2008 Complain about this comment
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