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Quantum computers

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air-bag

TRIBE Member
Strangely enough, I only heard about the possibility of quantum computers a few days ago in one of my classes. Imagine a processor that could be as fast as ~10^150 classical processors running in parallel.

Quantum computation model relies on the unique properties of particles on the atomic level. Instead of classical bits that can represent either 0 or 1, q-bits in quantum computers can represent either 0, 1, or a superposition of them, or in other words both 0 and 1.

I'm totally fascinated by it.
Is anyone here taking quantum physics?
Please give us more insight.

Meanwhile here is something to read ...
Introduction to quantum computers
 
Alex D. from TRIBE on Utility Room
A

~atp~

TRIBE Member
Meh. I did a project on quantum computing a couple years ago...it's been a while since I took a quantum physics course; it's related to entanglement theory, and the decidability of information--a light wave can be split in two different directions, knowing that the first wave is oriented along the x-axis we may deduce that the other is oriented along the y-axis. Applying similar such theoretical notions to the "1"/"0" processing of a computer is the idea behind quantum computing.

But there are a lot of other, better ideas IMO...quantum computing assumes that we want to use a 2-state representation for information. Why not have 3 states? (ie. bits in the form of a "0", "1", and "2").
This in combination with work on neural hardware componentry (similar to FPGAs) would yield some SERIOUS gaming fun!
wink.gif


-k
 
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S

Sporty Dan

TRIBE Member
Quantum Computers are mighty.
.......but while they do posess the ability to evaluate a superposition of wavestates simultaneously to look for solutions to equations, they can only tell you if a solution was found or not. They can not tell which was the actual correct solution.

.......someone should probably address that little detail before these things get made.

YAY!


dan.
 
A

air-bag

TRIBE Member
<font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">Originally posted by ~atp~:
But there are a lot of other, better ideas IMO...quantum computing assumes that we want to use a 2-state representation for information. Why not have 3 states? (ie. bits in the form of a "0", "1", and "2").
This in combination with work on neural hardware componentry (similar to FPGAs) would yield some SERIOUS gaming fun! </font>
Click to expand...

How can you have 3 states?
 
G

Gunark

TRIBE Member
Alex, I think there may be a quantum computer course in fourth year at u of t. I'm pretty sure I saw it. Or maybe that was a one-time seminar thing. Anyway check your course calendar.
 
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Gunark

TRIBE Member
And here are two possible implementations of quantum computing. The first one is very doable, the second is only theoretical at this point.

1. Snoop-proof encryption: you can use the heizenberg uncertainty principle to do completely snoop-proof encryption. Since anyone intercepting data has to somehow affect it (at an atomic or subatomic level), if you use those atomic or subatomic properties to encode your message, it will be impossible to read it without destroying it. It's kind of like the quantum version of the self-destructing message.

This is very doable, and I believe they are already doing work on it.

2. The other implementation which I think atp mentioned uses the quantum entaglement effect. Basically it's possible to completely synchronize the motion of two particles in such a way that when you separate them in space, their motion is still synchronized (they become "entangled"). The cool thing is that once you separate them, and then move one of the particles, the other one will move the same way -- even if it's millions of kilometers away. This means that theoretically you could communicate using two entangled particles at a speed faster than light (the communication would be instantanous). I believe physicists are already able to reproduce this effect in the lab (or particle accelerators, or whatever) but I'm not sure on this one. Anyway if this is doable, the possibilities are endless.


Sporty Dan -- I remember reading somewhere that one of the big short-term using of quantum computing could be in search-engine type applications. Does that sound right, given what you said?


Where's Jeffus when you need him, I'm sure he'd have something to say about this.
 
A

air-bag

TRIBE Member
interesting.. i didnt know about the entanglement theory. Please, more details!!

one of the applications of quantum computing model is factorising numbers. It's very difficult to do using current models and therefore the best encrypting systems are based on it.
 
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