I hate to say it, but the simplicity of the adding machine has produced modern computers. Whatever the next advance happens to be, it has to be in the form of a readily repeatable protocol that can be properly imagined
i have recently come to understand that all life is managed by what i can only call logic machines. Their architecture consists of elements of Dark Matter looking like a weak dipole. They set up to form a natural loose matrix in three dimensions and they are all somewhat bound together with photon strips looping around two such dipoles at least while describing a mobius strip to record number. It is not limited to zero and one and each loop can encode very large numbers.
Now imagine a logic system built around all that. Yet I described a readily repeatable protocol whose volume is only limited by this Galaxy perhaps. Such a device operates each of our individual cells.
Of course, since it already exists, perhaps we need to learn to better access it.
Get Used to It: Quantum Computing Will Bring Immense Processing Possibilities
The one thing everyone knows about quantum mechanics is its
legendary weirdness, in which the basic tenets of the world it describes
seem alien to the world we live in. Superposition, where things can be
in two states simultaneously, a switch both on and off, a cat both dead and alive. Or entanglement, what Einstein called “spooky action-at-distance” in which objects are invisibly linked, even when separated by huge distances.
But weird or not, quantum theory is approaching a century old
and has found many applications in daily life. As John von Neumann once
said: “You don’t understand quantum mechanics, you just get used to
it.” Much of electronics is based on quantum physics, and the
application of quantum theory to computing could open up huge
possibilities for the complex calculations and data processing we see
today.
Imagine a computer processor able to harness super-position, to
calculate the result of an arbitrarily large number of permutations of a
complex problem simultaneously. Imagine how entanglement could be used
to allow systems on different sides of the world to be linked and their
efforts combined, despite their physical separation. Quantum computing
has immense potential, making light work of some of the most difficult
tasks, such as simulating the body’s response to drugs, predicting
weather patterns, or analysing big datasets.
Such processing possibilities are needed. The first transistors could
only just be held in the hand, while today they measure just 14 nm –
500 times smaller than a red blood cell. This relentless shrinking,
predicted by Intel founder Gordon Moore as Moore’s law,
has held true for 50 years, but cannot hold indefinitely. Silicon can
only be shrunk so far, and if we are to continue benefiting from the
performance gains we have become used to, we need a different approach.
Quantum Fabrication
Advances in semiconductor fabrication have made it possible to
mass-produce quantum-scale semiconductors – electronic circuits that
exhibit quantum effects such as super-position and entanglement.
The image, captured at the atomic scale, shows a cross-section
through one potential candidate for the building blocks of a quantum
computer, a semiconductor nano-ring. Electrons trapped in these rings
exhibit the strange properties of quantum mechanics, and semiconductor
fabrication processes are poised to integrate these elements required to
build a quantum computer. While we may be able to construct a quantum
computer using structures like these, there are still major challenges
involved.
In a classical computer processor a huge number of transistors
interact conditionally and predictably with one another. But quantum
behaviour is highly fragile; for example, under quantum physics even
measuring the state of the system such as checking whether the switch is
on or off, actually changes what is being observed. Conducting an
orchestra of quantum systems to produce useful output that couldn’t
easily by handled by a classical computer is extremely difficult.
But there have been huge investments: the UK government announced £270m funding for quantum technologies in 2014 for example, and the likes of Google, NASA and Lockheed Martin
are also working in the field. It’s difficult to predict the pace of
progress, but a useful quantum computer could be ten years away.
The basic element of quantum computing is known as a qubit, the
quantum equivalent to the bits used in traditional computers. To date,
scientists have harnessed quantum systems to represent qubits in many
different ways, ranging from defects in diamonds, to semiconductor
nano-structures or tiny superconducting circuits. Each of these has is
own advantages and disadvantages, but none yet has met all the
requirements for a quantum computer, known as the DiVincenzo Criteria.
The most impressive progress has come from D-Wave Systems, a firm
that has managed to pack hundreds of qubits on to a small chip similar
in appearance to a traditional processor.
Quantum Secrets
The benefits of harnessing quantum technologies aren’t limited to
computing, however. Whether or not quantum computing will extend or
augment digital computing, the same quantum effects can be harnessed for
other means. The most mature example is quantum communications.
Quantum physics has been proposed as a means to prevent forgery of
valuable objects, such as a banknote or diamond, as illustrated in the
image below. Here, the unusual negative rules embedded within quantum
physics prove useful; perfect copies of unknown states cannot be made
and measurements change the systems they are measuring. These two
limitations are combined in this quantum anti-counterfeiting scheme,
making it impossible to copy the identity of the object they are stored
in.
The concept of quantum money
is, unfortunately, highly impractical, but the same idea has been
successfully extended to communications. The idea is straightforward:
the act of measuring quantum super-position states alters what you try
to measure, so it’s possible to detect the presence of an eavesdropper
making such measurements. With the correct protocol, such as BB84, it is possible to communicate privately, with that privacy guaranteed by fundamental laws of physics.
Quantum communication systems are commercially available today from firms such as Toshiba and ID Quantique.
While the implementation is clunky and expensive now it will become
more streamlined and miniaturised, just as transistors have miniaturised
over the last 60 years.
Improvements to nanoscale fabrication techniques will greatly
accelerate the development of quantum-based technologies. And while
useful quantum computing still appears to be some way off, it’s future
is very exciting indeed.
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