
IBM was presenting the results at a meeting of the American Physical Society in Boston today
And simultaneously, through the magic of quantum entanglement, at the North Polar Jupiter Rularian Institute for Extreme Cleverness.
IBM boffins reckon their research has catapulted quantum computing forward a few decades, making it possible within our lifetime. The scientists say that they've come up with a way to extend the amount of time that qubits retain their quantum state, thereby reducing errors in computations. “In the past, people have said, …
A decent route into space is another.
Artificial intelligence.
Cure for cancer.
Civilised international relations. (Does that fall foul of (a)?)
You quibble with "working on", but just because they were barking up the wrong tree shouldn't disqualify their efforts, otherwise you have a tautology. I think "precious few" is overdoing it.
Actually, cure for cancer isn't a real thing. Cancers are very different from one another, and it's impossible to find a silver bullet that will kill them all.*
I'd say we've made some damn good progress on this front, though.
* I really hope I'm wrong about this.
well its not a silver bullet but its certainly not impossible to cure especially if as Ken Hagan said we dont find A decent route into space.
you/your descendants might not like the cure OC as it means the sun incinerating the planet or a rouge planetoid,asteroid, black hole, lethal gamma burst, etc etc is a mathematical certainty at some point but any one of these or countless others will cure the cancers and ills we suffer today and the universe can get on with its entropy business as usual.
"...found a way to extend the quantum coherence of the qubits by up to 100 microseconds, two to four times greater than previous records"
Which means that they managed to have the qubit not leak information about its current state of superposition (aka. its current wavefunction) into the surrounding system (the "observer") for > 100 μs (i.e. avoid it getting "measured"). Apparently at that point you can do quantum error correction (I suppose, something that keeps the quantum state of interest in its superposition. like a sacrificial anode keeping a ship's hull from rusting)
[Mr. Holmes comes nearest to the pipe-smoking, tweed-jacket-with-leather-elbow-patch-wearing professor, so there...]
Once we (as the species, not implying I am in any way involved in the process) have quantum computers working perfectly and processing data at speeds we can barely imagine... what will we actually do with them?
Weather pattern projections maybe. What applications are there for this sort of thing. I feel like I'm being really dim, but i cant think of anything much at all that would make it worth the effort of inventing it lol
>processing data at speeds we can barely imagine
Unfortunately, the space of NP-hard problems *will* stay out of reach. You will have P plus a few extra tendrils that become practical (as far as we know).
But you will be able to at least build efficient simulators of quantum system.
This should open a lot of doors in material science, possibly in experimental mathematics.
>lack of knowledge
Don't be bashful. It just means "to all evidence, problems that are hard to solve for a classical computer will STAY hard to solve on a quantum computer (more generally, mother nature won't hand you over the keys to the car no matter what) except for some niche stuff like factorization - and simulation of physics"
In theory they can be used for simulating quantum systems such as molecules, which would bring great advances in chemistry and medicine. Unfortunately the research into this application is only preliminary since the vast majority of funding has been focused on breaking public key cryptography. The ethical implications are one of the reasons I got out of the field.
Assuming a working quantum computer could be built today and that something similar to Moore's law will drive increases in speed and complexity, it would still be a few decades before any existing systems (e.g. 4096 bit RSA) are threatened - and by then, we'll doubtless be using new, improved cryptographic methods.
Much more at:
http://emergentchaos.com/archives/2008/03/quantum-progress.html
But I don't trust software! The human factor in software, soon with so much computing horsepower, will enable coders to get real sloppy and get away with it -- for a while.
Imagine running the Star Trek Enterprise, with the entire control systems crashing, rebooting, needing new drivers and anti-virus software. Mal-ware and ad-ware popping up everywhere, with very little consequence to your system resources. Heck, a glitch in the holideck may get you killed!
Imagine how quickly the banks could destroy the world as we know it if they could calculate things at these speeds.
And google, the restraints upon their evil would just fall away.
Facebook would be able to update my status without my input too, so thats good. I wouldnt need to put any effort into letting my family know how i'm doing. Qubits = psychic, right?
>Imagine running the Star Trek Enterprise, with the entire control systems crashing, rebooting, needing new drivers and anti-virus software. Mal-ware and ad-ware popping up everywhere, with very little consequence to your system resources. Heck, a glitch in the holideck may get you killed!<
It does that every week, as soon as someone makes the camera wobble propulsion lights life support power and the captains personal replicator always go offline, sometimes it does it without anyone doing a thing, however the difference is, they always fix it in the last 5 minutes ( well 15 with commercials) if only real life problems were like that.
Possibly, just possibly, when the quantum computer finally gets released and stable it will be found that interstellar communication through quantum entanglement will be a side effect of all those Qubits vibrating, causing other quantum computers in nearby stellar systems to take notice.
Since we are all being very funny here perhaps you can humor my conjecture. Since I can't think of anything funny right now.
If you consider the observations that quantum theory is based upon and if you look at the principles involved, I think you have to conclude that what is occurring at the quantum level is outside of time. Furthermore we interface with what is going on through our observations which have not so much led thus far to an understanding of the multidimensional aspects of our universe but rather some ways to model some of what is going on at that level and make some mechanical predictions.
What I'm saying is that quantum computing will not be done as we see it now. It will develop. I would like to think that in the least, however, once a problem was properly set up the answer would be instantaneous. Also if we can use the properties/anomalies of quantum level physics that arise from observation, that is, consciousness, this will lead to some very interesting capabilities, even a new kind of A.I.
I would like to see a quantum computing module, much like an HPC card, which can be used in a conventional computer for experimentation or advanced computing.
That last paragraph's an interesting thought, and if Quantum Computing really becomes ubiquitous, it may reach the level you state. However, since QC is in its infancy and doesn't really involve a lot of existing existing tech, things are moving slowly. I don't think it'll reach consumer level for a while. I give it about 20 years or so to reach that level barring government intervention.