We as spiritual beings or souls come to earth in order to experience the human condition. This includes the good and the bad scenarios of this world. Our world is a duality planet and no amount of love or grace will eliminate evil or nastiness. We will return again and again until we have pierced the illusions of this density. The purpose of human life is to awaken to universal truth. This also means that we must awaken to the lies and deceit mankind is subjected to. To pierce the third density illusion is a must in order to remove ourselves from the wheel of human existences. Love is important but knowledge is the key! |
Quantum Computing Update Wed, 26 Dec 2001 Quantum computing passes a key early test http://www.siliconvalley.com/docs/news/svfront/quant122501.htm On the surface it doesn't look like much: One of the world's strangest, most cutting-edge computers has calculated that 15 can be divided by three or five. But this was a quantum computer -- a billion billion molecules in a slosh of liquid at the bottom of a test tube. It's a primitive example of a machine that could, in theory, zip through calculations that would take millions of years on today's fastest models. And the calculation, performed by scientists at IBM's Almaden Research Center in San Jose, was a milestone. It showed that a quantum computer, which just a few years ago seemed the stuff of science fiction, can solve a type of problem that is central to cracking computer codes that keep electronic data safe. --------- IBM quantum computer solves code cracking problem http://www.eetimes.com/story/technology/OEG20000822S0007 SAN JOSE, Calif. — IBM's Almaden Research Center unveiled the world's largest quantum computer to date — a 5-bit computer squeezed onto a single molecule — at the Hot Chips conference last week. The five fluorine atoms in the molecule each represent a quantum bit, or "qubit," which made the computer the first ever capable of solving a problem related to code cracking, called the order-finding problem, in a single step. "Every other computer in the world takes several steps to solve the order-finding problem, but our quantum computer solved it in a single step," said Stanford University researcher Lieven Vandersypen. The quantum computer was invented by IBM Almaden Research Center researcher Isaac Chuang, who led a team of scientists that included fellow researchers Gregory Breyta and Costantino Yannoni of IBM Almaden, professor Richard Cleve of the University of Calgary, and researchers Matthias Steffen and Lieven Vandersypen from Stanford University. ---------------- IBM Advances Tiny Computer Power Computers Made of Molecules Could Crack Toughest Codes http://abcnews.go.com/sections/scitech/TechTV/techtv_quantumcompute011221.html A quantum computer is a new kind of computer that uses individual atoms to represent information," said Bill Risk, manager for the quantum information group at IBM's Almaden Research Center, where the research took place. "Because of the way it represents information and because it operates according to principles of quantum physics, it can do certain kinds of calculations much faster than conventional computers." Conventional supercomputers can take an excruciatingly long time — sometimes billions of years — to factor large numbers, even though the answer is relatively simple to verify. Most of today's data-security schemes rely on this factoring conundrum. By comparison, quantum computers could tackle those problems with lightning speed. "Someone's made the calculation that, for a 400-digit number, it would take something like a billion or 10 billion years for a supercomputer using conventional algorithms to factor that number. A quantum computer could do that in a few months," Risk said. Just as conventional computers store information in bits, which are the zeroes and ones of binary code, quantum computers store data in qubits, which reside in the nuclear spins of atoms. But qubits are much more powerful: While electronic bits can only be ones or zeros, qubits can be both ones and zeroes at the same time. "Conventional bits are like a coin, they are either heads or tails," Risk said. "Qubits can be, say, 90 percent heads and 10 percent tails." This property makes quantum computers theoretically much faster at crunching certain labor-intensive calculations, such as factoring large numbers or searching large, unordered databases. ---------------- Quantum Computing with Molecules http://www.sciam.com/1998/0698issue/0698gershenfeld.html Factoring a number with 400 digits--a numerical feat needed to break some security codes--would take even the fastest supercomputer in existence billions of years. But a newly conceived type of computer, one that exploits quantum-mechanical interactions, might complete the task in a year or so, thereby defeating many of the most sophisticated encryption schemes in use. Sensitive databanks are safe for the time being, because no one has been able to build a practical quantum computer. But researchers have now demonstrated the feasibility of this approach. Such a computer would look nothing like the machine that sits on your desk; surprisingly, it might resemble the cup of coffee at its side. We and several other research groups believe quantum computers based on the molecules in a liquid might one day overcome many of the limits facing conventional computers. Roadblocks to improving conventional computers will ultimately arise from the fundamental physical bounds to miniaturization (for example, because transistors and electrical wiring cannot be made slimmer than the width of an atom). Or they may come about for practical reasons--most likely because the facilities for fabricating still more powerful microchips will become prohibitively expensive. Yet the magic of quantum mechanics might solve both these problems. The advantage of quantum computers arises from the way they encode a bit, the fundamental unit of information. The state of a bit in a classical digital computer is specified by one number, 0 or 1. An n-bit binary word in a typical computer is accordingly described by a string of n zeros and ones. A quantum bit, called a qubit, might be represented by an atom in one of two different states, which can also be denoted as 0 or 1. Two qubits, like two classical bits, can attain four different well-defined states ( 0 & 0, 0 & 1, 1 & 0, or 1 & 1). But unlike classical bits, qubits can exist simultaneously as 0 & 1, with the probability for each state given by a numerical coefficient. Describing a two-qubit quantum computer thus requires four coefficients. In general, n qubits demand 2n numbers, which rapidly becomes a sizable set for larger values of n. For example, if n equals 50, about 1015 numbers are required to describe all the probabilities for all the possible states of the quantum machine--a number that exceeds the capacity of the largest conventional computer. A quantum computer promises to be immensely powerful because it can be in multiple states at once--a phenomenon called superposition--and because it can act on all its possible states simultaneously. Thus, a quantum computer could naturally perform myriad operations in parallel, using only a single processing unit. --------------- A Quantum Leap for Computing http://domino.research.ibm.com/comm/wwwr_thinkresearch.nsf/pages/quantum498.html In Brief: Systems in which information obeys the laws of quantum mechanics could far exceed the performance of any conventional computer. Now that the principles of quantum computing have been demonstrated in the lab, IBM scientists are tackling the formidable task of building machines. Although quantum computing is based on physical ideas elaborated in the 1920s, the recognition that quantum mechanics might be useful for computing only dawned on scientists in the 1980s. One reason is that the computers of the 1940s and '50s were built from vacuum tubes and other devices that were clearly in the macroscopic realm, suggests IBM Fellow Charles Bennett, one of the creators of the broader field of quantum information theory. Quantum concepts simply didn't appear relevant. Nevertheless, as physicists began to consider the physical limits of computing, they were gradually led toward the quantum arena. First, IBM Fellow Rolf Landauer discovered, in 1961, that energy is used up only during irreversible operations, ones in which information is discarded. Based on that work, Bennett showed in 1973 that fully reversible computation, which did not consume any energy, was theoretically possible. Since quantum computations also are reversible, experience gained in reversible programming in the 1970s and '80s proved useful for designing quantum algorithms. The path toward quantum computing began in 1980, when Paul Benioff of Argonne National Laboratory published a quantum mechanical model for computation. Two years later, Richard Feynman introduced the idea that any physical system could be simulated with a quantum computer. It was David Deutsch at Oxford University who, in 1985, first produced a mathematical description of a universal quantum computer -- a machine that could be constructed out of quantum elements and would in some ways be superior to a conventional computer. But a flood of interest in the field did not emerge till 10 years later. --------------- Harnessing the power of atoms, molecules http://www.usatoday.com/news/science/stuffworks/2001-01-27-quantumcomputer.htm Will we ever have the amount of computing power we need, or want? If, as Moore's Law states, the number of transistors on a microprocessor continues to double every 18 months, the year 2020 or 2030 will find the circuits on a microprocessor measured on an atomic scale. And the logical next step will be to create quantum computers, which will harness the power of atoms and molecules to perform memory and processing tasks. Quantum computers have the potential to perform certain calculations billions of times faster than any silicon-based computer. Scientists have already built basic quantum computers that can perform certain calculations; but a practical quantum computer is still years away. If you can't wait 20 or 30 years to delve into the details of the first computer with a quantum processor, read this edition of How Stuff Will Work. You'll learn what a quantum computer is and just what it'll be used for in the next era of computing. --------------------- The Hitchhiker's Guide To Quantum Computing http://www.doc.ic.ac.uk/~nd/surprise_97/journal/vol1/spb3/ Although the future of quantum computing looks promising, we have only just taken our first steps to actually realising a quantum computer. There are many hurdles which need to be overcome before we can begin to appreciate the benefits they may deliver. Researchers around the world are racing to be the first to achieve a practical system, a task which some scientists think is futile. David Deutsch - one of the ground breaking scientists in the world of quantum computing - said himself that perhaps 'their most profound effect may prove to be theoretical'. In comparison the progress in quantum communications has been somewhat more fruitful. Companies like BT have actually achieved working systems that are able to use quantum effects to detect eavesdropping on a channel. Whether or not such systems will prove practical remains to be seen. Can we really build a useful quantum computer? Who knows; in a quantum world, anything is possible!