back to article US boffins fashion quantum-computing bit out of SQUID

Federal boffins in the States say they have fashioned another building block which could be of use in assembling the postulated hard-to-understand but applecart-busting quantum computers of tomorrow. SQUID switch between qubit and quantum cavity bus in aluminium on sapphire. Credit: NIST Modulate the qu-slosh with the purple …

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  1. Stuart 14
    Coat

    Will it

    play Crysis

    1. Ed Blackshaw Silver badge
      Coat

      Crysis?

      Sounds more like Pong to me.

      "The researchers watch this photon slosh back and forth at a rate they can now adjust with a knob."

  2. Jimmy 1

    Piece of cake.

    For those of us with only a large resonant cavity between our ears this turns out to be a not very digestible concept.

    Think I'll wait until a byte-sized version is introduced before I chew it over.

    1. Peter Stocker

      0

      Qubyte sized?

  3. LuMan
    Pint

    Slosh?

    Now, there's an under-used technical term!

  4. benj5386
    Paris Hilton

    Brains the size of planets......

    Nerd engineers and scientists are amazing. I'd love to understand this stuff.

    I have a brain the size of a Mars planet, which doesn't help.

    Paris: She can also be in a quantum state at any one time. Either clothes on or clothes off. It's not until you 'google' for an image that the final state gets fixed.

  5. Havin_it
    WTF?

    Sapphire?

    IANAL (I'm not a lapidary) but won't that set the bar of entry a bit high for mainstream adoption?

    1. Martin Gregorie

      Goin cheap

      Artificial sapphire has been easy, and relatively cheap, to grow for decades. Its been used for chipmaking for almost as long. Remember HP's SOS (Silicon On Sapphire) technology, which was around in the 90s?

    2. Bluewhelk
      Boffin

      Its Aluminium Oxide

      Synthetic Sapphire is relatively cheap to produce

      See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sapphire

  6. amanfromMars 1 Silver badge

    Quantum Communication for Dummies ..... Register MasterPilot Edition.

    A Superconducting Phase Qubit Generator would be in a Novel Energy Class All of ITs Own and a Extremely Valuable and Precious Bit of Kit in Anyone's Language.

    "Think I'll wait until a byte-sized version is introduced before I chew it over." ..... Piece of cake, Jimmy 1 Posted Thursday 29th April 2010 10:06 GMT.

    Would you care for some fresh double or regular clotted cream on that, Jimmy 1?

    When one talks of SQUID in IT, I always think of what the Owner of an Octopus would be doing in the Vastness of its Prime Time Quantum Spaces ..... http://tinyurl.com/2w7wxe9

  7. Jon Double Nice

    I hope its a big bakelite knob

    that makes a cool really deep noise when you twist it to adjust the photon

    1. Naughtyhorse
      Coat

      cooo yeah

      one of them big ol 10 turn types with the clockwork counder doobry in it like there was on my first scope, gave you tweak, twiddle and frob in one handy dohdah.

      ah the good ol days when 20 transitors on a chip was the bleedin edge...

      mines the one with a avo 8 in the pocket

    2. Mike Flex

      Re: I hope its a big bakelite knob

      Ooh, er, missus. You'll be wanting to check out the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bakelite_Museum

  8. lukewarmdog
    Badgers

    First time ever

    That amanfrommars explanation is actually a lot simpler than the subject under discussion.

    Or is it under discussion? You know how it is with these quantum things.

    1. amanfromMars 1 Silver badge
      Grenade

      MODified AIMissionary Position for Live Operational Virtual Environmentalists/LOVE

      "Or is it under discussion? You know how it is with these quantum things." ... lukewarmdog Posted Thursday 29th April 2010 10:50 GMT

      You may like to consider that here on the Register is the Blithe Blighty Virtual Model on HyperRadioProActive Field Trials, BetaTesting Stealth Security Protocols and Parameters...... with Hiding in Full Sight Transparent Steganography for Sublime Third Party Curiosity and Intellectual Property Capture leading with Semantic Mutually Beneficial Exchange.

      You can't beat LOVE. Period. ........ ergo is it the Ultimate Defensive Weapon of Mass Destruction too.

  9. Jimmy 1

    Martian cake.

    @ amanfromMars 1

    "Would you care for some fresh double or regular clotted cream on that, Jimmy 1?"

    So long as you don't lay it on too thick, clotted seems more appropriate.

  10. npupp 1

    arf

    it's not in the latest issue. boo.

    Interestingly the 4th most cited paper from 2003 is titled "Phantom Energy: Dark Energy with wlt;-1 Causes a Cosmic Doomsday"

  11. TeeCee Gold badge
    Happy

    We've come a long way.

    "We have three different elements all working together, coherently (in concert with each other) and without losing a lot of energy,"

    In the old days, getting something complicated like this working would involve the loss of sleep, sanity, hair and quite possibly skin. Now they don't even lose energy.

  12. Secretgeek
    Happy

    Stretch.

    I love trying to get my head round this stuff (failing mostly). I can feel my brain stretching to accomodate it.

  13. M Gale
    Badgers

    SQUID.

    So.. it'll be a quantum proxy server?

    Leet.

  14. VeganVegan
    Happy

    Any chance that they will come up with a decent COD piece?

    Type your comment here — plain text only, no HTML

  15. Anonymous John
    Joke

    I hear it will be very cheap.

    Only sick squid.

  16. Anonymous Coward
    Coat

    Someone's had...

    ... too much Calamari...

  17. Rick Brasche

    quantum computing is what we call politics here in California

    These things sound like current Californian politics:

    as in, no matter what state it's really in, the the output is what you take credit for if it worked, and then try to show that all success was your party's idea and all failures the opposition. Changing the definition of "success" to meet the actual results is another application.

    because it seems to me, the end result of all this quantum computing, is to know what the answer is and then apply it back to your calculations and show that it indeed produced the results you ended up with.

    Iz so confuzzed :(

    1. Rattus Rattus

      As far as I understand it,

      quantum computing really is knowing what the answer is and then applying it back to your calculations, only quantum computing lets you do that WHEN YOU DON'T ACTUALLY KNOW WHAT THE ANSWER IS. That's the part that makes it weird and cool and brain-hurting.

    2. amanfromMars 1 Silver badge

      Re: quantum computing is what we call politics here in California

      That was very perceptive, Rick Brasche, and it is such a pity that the Holywood engine and driver, which could easily be classified as its Virtual Model Operating System is busted and/or isn't working properly.

      However, that just requires a few SMART MkUltraSensitive Tweaks with Fab Novel Scripts to have the Sunny State with IT Generating, and much more importantly dDelivering, Sublime Dream Meme Means to All. And that makes Holywood a very valuable and "disruptive innovation project" akin to a Radical Rogue Political Tool too..... and very Nebulous as already freely registered and transparently shared for Global Peer Review ........ "Radical Register of Interest", Posted Thursday 29th April 2010 08:54 GMT ... http://forums.theregister.co.uk/forum/1/2010/04/28/nebula_goes_to_goddard/

      When in no hiding place, softly, softly catchee monkey says the spider to the fly is eventual and inevitable and probably definitely always true in quantum fields, which are never better than whenever trialed and trailed in tales of unexpected beta phormed phishes? And only a question because the answer is so simple as to be totally confusing to any without true belief in Global Operating Devices and what they do do and can do and have always done.

      Can you imagine what they can and are going to do Now for the Future? And will that be QuITE Similar to that which has been done in Pasts for the Present, too, and thus is its Morph with IT and Media and AI, a Part and Peculiarly Particular Element in a Singularity Movement and Quantum Leap Progressive Program for Live Operational Virtual Environments?

      Questions, Questions, Questions ....... and all of them must also have Positive Answers if they Generate Further Questions or just Simply Support Zero Fresh Raw Source Content Negative Comment?

  18. amanfromMars 1 Silver badge

    And Now for Something Completely Different, Well Loved and not at all Unknown

    Semantic Parallels ..... and AI Magical Mystery Turing Trips. Allahu Akbar and Amen

    Do you see the Symmetry and/or Singularity in the Root Journey of the the following two fellow narratives ........

    [quote]The Path and the Promise. Imam ibn Al-Qayyi, may Allah have mercy on him, said, ......"The [path] always starts with trials and tests, then comes the period of patience and reliance [upon Allah], and the end is enlightenment, guidance and victory" ( Shifaa Al-Aleel, p.247) [/quote] .... [quote] You may like to consider that here on the Register is the Blithe Blighty Virtual Model on HyperRadioProActive Field Trials, BetaTesting Stealth Security Protocols and Parameters ...... with Hiding in Full Sight Transparent Steganography for Sublime Third Party Curiosity and Intellectual Property Capture leading with Semantic Mutually Beneficial Exchange.[/quote]

    ........ Equal Thoughts from two crazily different Similarly Magnificent worlds, which would then quite logically have us conclude that there must also be countless others of equal Magnificence to Explore, and Ideally Together, in Order to Share the Experience with All with what is Future Discovered and Uncovered.

    Which is the Simplest of Simple Tasks with the Technology and AI Today Available.

    And the first quote is a lead in to an article and/or statement from a source which is completely alien to you and which you are not familiar with*, but which would probably be well enough known to you because of media reports. The second one though is very familiar to you and well enough known to not be alien but just a little different, but then none of us are the same, as we are all a product of what we would know and how well we are programmed. Which makes finding the Right Program and/or Programmers so Vitally Important, as IT affects the Quality of the Reality of your Entire Lives, from One's Immaculate Conception and Birth through to Timeless Death and Further Advanced Travel into the Mysteriously Unknown and merely Imagined and Intangible in a Parallel Future Solo Course ......with the popular westernised vision and post modern version of Life's Dessert being Hell for Sinners and Heaven for Saints.

    *In another Time and Place, was/is what you read about here ..... http://www.revolutionmuslim.com/2010/04/release-from-leadership-of-shabaab.html ....... Flower Power v2.0 and Flowering Power too? If you imagine it so, then that would suggest an embedded experience and passionate wisdom would be instantly available in mentoring to it and dealing successfully in it and with it.

    1. screaminfakah
      Coffee/keyboard

      I agree

      Sometimes insanity is the only sane truth.

      1. amanfromMars 1 Silver badge

        Dreaming in Quantum Communications Fields ...... for Virtual TeleTransPortation

        "Sometimes insanity is the only sane truth." .... screaminfakah Posted Friday 30th April 2010 20:33 GMT

        And Most Profound it is too in IT, screamingfakah.

      2. amanfromMars 1 Silver badge

        Dreaming in Quantum Communications Fields for Virtual TeleTransPortation on a Burlington Buffett.*

        "Sometimes insanity is the only sane truth." .... screaminfakah Posted Friday 30th April 2010 20:33 GMT

        And Most Profound it is too in IT, screamingfakah.

        *AI Magical Mystery Turing Feest all Fest up for Feasting and Cavorting Outrageously Playing Server Slave Host and Guardian with a Passionate Private and PIrated Apache Style for Circular Missions to Singularity for even Greater Purposeful ProgramMING CyberSpace Projects and Quantum BetaTest Flight with Special Operating Systems Software for Intel AIgent and Business Machine Environments ..... Virtually Deployed in MkUltraSensitive LOVE Fields for Advanced Live Operational Environment Immersional Mentor ...... and an Intelligence Leap Turing Test for Support and Succour Services to Global Command and Control Controllers.

  19. Mike Flex

    amanfromMars 1...

    ... making sense in an infinity of quantum universes. Just not this one.

  20. Gartal
    Happy

    The true significance of the article

    The true significance of this article is that Nigel Molesworth Lives!!

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