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Quantum computers aim to map reality
BOFFINS CLAIM they are close to making accurate simulations of reality on the molecular scale using quantum computers.
James Whitfield, a quantum information chemist at Harvard University has a cunning plan to simulate molecules on computers to better understand how they might react. This might, for example, give researchers a good idea about how a drug might behave in the human body.
So far simulating complex molecules using modern supercomputers falls short because increasing the number of atoms they have to analyze takes too long. If you try to look at more than four or five atoms in a chemical reaction, or even a moderately complex molecule, it quickly becomes a computational headache.
Whitfield said that at best a regular computer only can get a rough idea of how these systems work. A quantum computer, which apparently is powered by a cat which is either there or not there, enables scientists to carry out two calculations simultaneously.
This is because it uses the computing power of both potential cats using slide rules and pooling their results. At least that was the way we recall it all having been explained at school.
Alán Aspuru-Guzik, another Harvard quantum chemist, said that if you wanted to simulate quantum systems it is probably a much cleverer idea to use another quantum system to do it.
While Aspuru-Guzik, Whitfield and their colleagues provided the software and performed key calculations, their collaborators in Australia assembled the hardware and ran the experiments.
Using a two-qubit computer, they simulated the smallest molecular system, the hydrogen molecule, and calculated its energy in terms of how it might react with other molecules.
After running the simulation 20 times in a row, with each cycle working off the data from the last one, apparently the slide rules wielding cats managed to come up with a pretty precise value.
The next thing to do is develop a more powerful quantum computers with shedloads more qubits, and more cats, we guess.
They think that using a 2,000 qubit quantum computer would give them roughly enough computation power to simulate cholesterol binding with a protein.
That sounds to us like it's going to take a lot of cats, even if half of them would not actually be there. Unless we have got it wrong, which we suppose we might have. µ
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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.