Quantum computing IN OUR LIFETIME - IBM breakthrough

Quantum computing IN OUR LIFETIME - IBM breakthrough

www.theregister.co.uk

“In the past, people have said, maybe it’s 50 years away, it’s a dream, maybe it’ll happen sometime,” Mark Ketchen, manager of the physics of information group at IBM’s Watson Research Centre, told the New York Times. “I used to think it was 50. Now I’m thinking like it’s 15 or a little more. It’s within reach. It’s within our lifetime. It’s going to happen.”

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Related News Links:
www.wired.com
www.sci-tech-today.com

And you thought you had a fast computer now...wait until these bad boys come out. Now, I’m not a computer whiz by any means, however, I remember reading about quantum computers and their potential in one of Dr. Michio Kaku books, and thought it’d be amazing to see these in action, in my life time.

For those who may be unfamiliar with a Quantum computer, here brief explanation from the wired.com link:

Whereas the computer on your desk obeys the laws of classical physics — the physics of the everyday world — a quantum computer taps the mind bending properties of quantum mechanics. In a classic computer, a transistor stores a single “bit” of information. If the transistor is “on,” for instance, it holds a “1.” If it’s “off,” it holds a “0.” But with quantum computer, information is represented by a system that can an exist in two states at the same time, thanks to the superposition principle of quantum mechanics. Such a qubit can store a “0″ and “1″ simultaneously.

So, people smarter than me, is this as exciting to you as it is to me?




www.theregister.co.uk
(visit the link for the full news article)

So...these new "supercomputers" (whenever they arrive) will be able to handle all 500 gigs of my computing power and remain stoically capable of running 50 more gigs?

This is awesome sauce.

Originally posted by Juston

So, people smarter than me, is this as exciting to you as it is to me?

Yes! but it will take someone smarter than me to fully explain it!

I cant even begin to imagine where technology will be in 5 years, let alone in 15 years if we have progressed to quantum computing!

I don't think it's a stretch at all to think that sometime soon quantum computing at home will become the norm. Just look at how far we've progressed in the last 50 years and how fast personal computing evolves every year, not to mention the capabilities of the super computer the NSA has under their headquarters in Ft. Mead. For all we know quantum computing all ready exists.

skynet....

Now we have smart phones, soon we will have super smart phones with quantum processors. It is great for the world of computing. Not so great for one's freedom. When are smart phones are replaced with the super smart phones we will be making ourselves that much more vulnerable to being tracked and monitored by "big brother." But who cares about that when we will be able to have a super computer in the palm of our hands, just think of all the American Idol re-runs we'll be able to download in a split second.

Here is a quote from Dr. Kaku on The Future of Quantum Computing:

Link

It could be a game changer. It could change the entire landscape of artificial intelligence. Let me explain. At the present time, our most advanced robots, some of which are built in Japan and also at MIT have the collective intelligence and wisdom of a cockroach; a mentally challenged cockroach; a lobotomized, mentally challenged cockroach. These cockroaches take about six hours to walk across the room. They enter a room. They see lines, circles, squares, triangles, but they don’t know the fact that they’re looking at chairs, desks, tables, people, lamps. They see better than us. They don’t know what they are seeing. Also they hear better than us, but they don’t understand what they are hearing. So we need a new architecture and then, in 10 years, silicon power may run its course and the silicon revolution may actually collapse. We’re used to the fact that computers double in power every 18 months. That can’t go on forever. Moore’s Law, which is the foundation of modern society, may eventually collapse in 10, 15 years, so we physicists are looking for a replacement. A replacement, molecular computers, atomic computers, optical computers and quantum computers.

Quantum computers compute on atoms, not silicon. They are as small as you can get in terms of information storage—you can’t get smaller than an individual electron—and they work by looking at the spin, at the orientation of electrons. If I put an electron in a magnetic field, it can spin up or it can spin down. That would be a one and that would be a zero. But in quantum mechanics it could also be in between zero and one, so a bit one, a bit zero could become a Q bit, anything between zero and one. Now, to be fair, the world’s record for a quantum computer calculation is: three times five is fifteen. Now you probably already knew that: three times five is fifteen. But remember that calculation was done on five atoms, so here is a homework assignment for you. Take five atoms and make a computation three times five is fifteen and then you begin to realize how difficult it is to make quantum computers. The problem is interference. Cosmic rays, a rumbling truck outside your door, small tremors in the earth, they create vibrations sufficient to destroy the spin of the electron. And that is the problem. That is the reason why we don’t have quantum computers. And remember if you can solve this problem, if you can create a quantum computer that computes on individual atoms and electrons you would be heralded as the next Thomas Edison.

IF and when quantum computing at home becomes a norm, I believe people will start to figure out how to tap into things like entanglement and Bose-Einstein condensates for traveling through space and time, or any other number of ideas that seem far out now, but once the world of quantum mechanics becomes integrated into our society, our technology capabilities will start to increase even more exponentially than it is now. I just watched the documentary What the Bleep Do We Know, and its really informative on the magical world of quantum mechanics, and the power of thought. Eventually at some point, I KNOW we will have computers that can be controlled by our thoughts, and that would unlock some serious unlimited potential. Probably not in our lifetimes, but the question is, will we be mature enough as a human race to be able to handle these advanced technologies with responsibility? As we can see today, our spiritual evolution is far behind our technological evolution.

They may be finally bringing this out, how special. They need to clean up this world, bring all of it out and equalize everyone and redistribute and step down.

reply to post by heavychevy13


Hahahahha that was also my first though, wait till you see these badboys...... beating down their human slaves. XD

This means that we might be able to use our own atoms and electrons in the same manner and for the same purpose.
We probably are capable of that, but all the effort was made to prevent us from learning this.
This could open our eyes once and for all.

To be frank, I believe that implementing emotions and ideas is with the purpose to slow us down trillion times down and imprison us in this hell of basic instinct.

reply to post by Juston


Gee think of all the ways the Government will use this technology?

From the way I get it, it will double (or more?) the speed of computer processors. There are already insanely fast processors out there, obviously not in a $300 pc from Best Buy, but they exist in the corporate/government World. Assuming these Quantum Computers are invented it would probably be a very long time before they are inside a PC.

Welcome to Caprica

blog.ted.com...

reply to post by Rockpuck


quantum computers would do alot more then double processing power. as it is now it doubles about every 18 months. once were able to use these badboys it would eventually have more processing power then all of the computers that are currently on the planet and the "processor" would be small enough to fit into a cellphone.

imagine everybody on the planet being able to afford a super computer such as

www.youtube.com...

it would also be tiny as opposed to taking up an entire warehouse

Originally posted by DangerDeath
Welcome to Caprica

"All this has happened before, and all of it will happen again"

Just sayin'

Just to put it into prospective of how far computing has come, the cray-1 super computer had a peak preformence of 80 mflops and it cost about 10 million dollars in 1977. my iphone 4s is benchmarked at 138.22 mflops and it costs like 200$ and its pretty much obsolete compared to the new phones being released this year, the iphone 4 was at 33.65mflops.

reply to post by MastaShake


Good perspective to ponder.....but, I decided to look it up (focusing on "supercomputers", and Cray):

The 80 MFLOPS Cray-1 was succeeded in 1982 by the 800 MFLOPS Cray X-MP....

(From Wiki)

I also had to refresh my understanding of "mega-flops" (link is inside the original Wiki source, above).....

reply to post by ProudBird


Those numbers can get pretty crazy once you get past petaflops and such. funny to think that todays 6billion dollar super computers will fit in our pockets in the next 30-40 years (probably less since this is based on silicon processors and not graphene processors that are being researched)

Coincidentally I'm currently very hooked on McKenna's timewave not because I necessarily agree with it but because it's very interesting to me. This sort of event certainly fits right into it.