1997-01-20 - Quantum computers/Java of a different sort
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From: Mike McNally <m5@vail.tivoli.com>
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Message Hash: cce5375e085c1824efe3dab33ef1bc24d5b9979f1c851143add53258bcdebceb
Message ID: <32E3C19A.C48@vail.tivoli.com>
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UTC Datetime: 1997-01-20 19:06:21 UTC
Raw Date: Mon, 20 Jan 1997 11:06:21 -0800 (PST)
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From: Mike McNally <m5@vail.tivoli.com>
Date: Mon, 20 Jan 1997 11:06:21 -0800 (PST)
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: Quantum computers/Java of a different sort
Message-ID: <32E3C19A.C48@vail.tivoli.com>
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For all you quantum computer fans, see
http://sciencenow.sciencemag.org/html/970117c.htm
--
^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^
Mike McNally -- Egregiously Pointy -- Tivoli Systems, "IBM" -- Austin
mailto:m5@tivoli.com mailto:m101@io.com http://www.io.com/~m101
^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^
To: java@tivoli.com
Subject: ScienceNOW www.sciencenow.org
From: jchou@tivoli.com
Date: Mon, 20 Jan 1997 12:49:39 -0500
jchou@tivoli.com
01/20/97 12:49 PM
An advance in Java computing...
http://sciencenow.sciencemag.org/html/970117c.htm
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Friday, 17 January 1997, 7:00 p.m.
</FONT></P><P ALIGN="Center"><FONT SIZE="+1"><STRONG>
Quantum Computer in a Cup of Joe?<p>
</STRONG></FONT></P>
<p>
Researchers have come up with a way to turn coffee and other mundane
liquids into primitive quantum computers. The findings, reported in today's
<i>Science</i> and in an upcoming issue of the <i>Proceedings of the
National Academy of Sciences</i>, suggest a new approach toward conquering
the Mount Everest of computing: a quantum computer that in a few seconds
could perform calculations that would take billions of years on an ordinary
supercomputer.<p>
<A NAME="image1"><!--null--></A><P><HR>
<IMG ALT="Illustration" BORDER=1 ALIGN=LEFT HSPACE=20 VSPACE=10
SRC="970117-2.gif">
<BR CLEAR=ALL>
<STRONG>Fresh-brewed. </STRONG>A prototype tabletop NMR quantum computer,
showing the circuitry and the radio-frequency coil.<P>
<FONT SIZE=-2>JOSHUA SMITH</FONT><BR>
<HR><P>The key is nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR), a technique for
manipulating and measuring the spins of atomic nuclei that is already a
mainstay of medical imaging and chemical analysis. The up-or-down spin of
nuclei offers the two-bit logic system that a computer needs. What makes a
quantum computer special, however, is quantum parallelism. In the strange
world of quantum mechanics, the spin of a nucleus can be in both states,
representing both bits, at the same time. That property should permit a
quantum computer to perform calculations on incredibly large numbers of
bits at once. And Neil Gershenfeld of the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology and Isaac Chuang of the University of California, Santa Barbara,
and a second team, Tim Havel and Amr Fahmy of Harvard Medical School and
David Cory of MIT, have found that it's easier to achieve this parallelism
by using NMR in an ordinary liquid than in the exotic systems researchers
have tried so far.<p>
Cory, Fahmy, and Havel have actually built quantum circuits using a
standard NMR spectrometer, while Gershenfeld and Chuang are gearing up
experiments and hope to demonstrate quantum circuits and maybe even a
simple computation by next summer. What can be done now can be done with
easily available and affordable equipment--"off-the-shelf coffee cups,
off-the
-shelf liquids, off-the-shelf magnets, etc.," says MIT computer
scientist Seth Lloyd.<p> "This NMR scheme is pretty slick stuff, but
in the long run, they're going to have to find a particularly special
molecule or state that allows them to extend it to large numbers,"
says Chris Monroe of the National Institute of Standards and Technology.<p>
Indeed, the researchers note that fundamental obstacles may prevent the
scheme from ever producing a practical computer. But "from the point
of view of verifying the basic ideas and doing interesting physics,"
says Lloyd, a pioneer theorist in quantum computing, "it's
fantastic." For more details, <i>Science</i> Online subscribers can
link to the <a
href="http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/275/5298/307">News
story</a> in today's <i>Science</i>.<p>
<p>
<P ALIGN="CENTER"><A
HREF="http://www.sciencemag.org/science/home/copyright.shtml"><FONT
SIZE="-1">© 1997 by the American Association for the Advancement of
Science</FONT></A></P>
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