This future thought of quantum transister is nice and exciting--if you want to spend a million dollars on a personal computer. Let's get real, this idea is not practical in the real world.

Ah yes, the age old "quantum computing" discussion.

Could you emagine how fast the possibility of a transistor could be!

Before one starts to question the "practicality" of a new technology, one should realize most technology we're using now were deemed "unreasonable" just decades ago. When you're limiting your imagination, you're not going to get anywhere. The greatest technology of all time were developed by scientists who dared to dream of anything, without worrying about their "practicality". Price will come down sooner and later... Just like how every one can own a computer now... Let's just hope it will work =)

Uh....not everything is made to go into your gaming rig.

Computers like these, once developed, will be used for research. They will be the supercomputers of tomorrow. Not a machine for you to play Counter Strike on.

Eventually they might make their way down to the consumer space but really there would be no need for it. I highly doubt the government would want computers capable of breaking security codes in seconds in the hands of the public.

omakeit,

I'd agree with you except for this part: "Price will come down sooner
and later."

Prices came down so far so fast because at the time microcomputers
were being developed, patent laws for reasons I've never quite understood
weren't being enforced with respect to integrated circuits and computer
programs in the United States.

On top of that and probably connected with the practical reality of the
above assertion large organizations such as IBM or the U.S. government or
the many universities played only minor supporting roles in that
development.

As a consequence the rapid advance of microcomputing was instantiated
in the form of a vast number of very small companies that copied freely
from one another and innovated very quickly. This only lasted for
about seven or eight years at most, but in that time these microcomputer
changed from being expensive impractical toys to being cheap enough for
the average person to buy, not to mention relevant.

I don't think that people that were not involved realize the scale and
pace at which things occurred. The popular media never really caught
on till the process was well along and then they consistently misattributed
who was doing things.

If the quantum computer at some critical point does not pass through such
an economic state then I doubt it will ever achieve relevance to the average
person in any reasonable time frame.

Breakthroughs in the understanding of cellular metabolism and microcomputers
occurred at the same time and neither was more profound than the other,
yet today you'll note that the disparitity of the practical impacts of these two
breakthroughs on human lives could hardly be more different.

From the very little that I understand in Quantum Physics, particles from a source split into multiple data paths when collided with another particle. So, from one computer you could have multiple data paths computing from the same information. but then, why don't they just make a hub-like bus to share data with multiple CPU's? And if you have multiple CPU's working from the same data, what does that really get you? It's redundant, isn't it?

but will it fold?

just wait 50 years and things that seemed impossible or improbable will turn into fact.

think about it this way... If you can perform 100 ops simultaneously on 100 processors, or on 1 processor, which is more efficient?

That is the promise held in q-comp.

except that the benefits, once q-comp is mature, are infinitely greater than that. Which is why David mentioned the gov't not wanting widespread use of these types of systems. They could literally break message encryption in seconds.

I like you know very little, but from what I gather its all about the ability of the particles to be both a 1 and a 0, or one or the other at the same frequency / time laying the ground for speedy computations. If a data thief / hacker were to even make an attempt to intercept the transmission of data it would corrupt it in such a way that the sender / receiver would know immediately.

I come from the algorithmic/ computer science theory side of quantum computing and a lot of the benefit comes in the form of algorithms that have smaller runtimes than their classical counterparts. To give a simple example, suppose I gave you an unsorted list of 1 million items, and asked you to find a specific one. On a classical computer such as the one you're reading this from, you'd have to go through all of the items, one by one, till you found what you were looking for. In this case, your best algorithm necessitates O(N) time, where N is the number of items in the list.
On the other hand, with a quantum computer, you would represent all of the items at once, each starting out with an equal probability (1/N) of being returned when our algorithm finishes. Because of the way a quantum computer works, you can actually check all 1 million items in a single query and mark the desirable item. At this point, you know where your answer is, it's only a matter of boosting the likelyhood that it's the answer returned once the algorithm completes. It turns out that it only takes O(sqrt(N)) or approximately only 1000 queries before you're done. That's a lot faster! (This is known as Grover's search algorithm btw).
In the example I gave we only got a quadratic speedup with a quantum computer. There are, however, algorithms that give an exponential speedup, such as number factoring (check Shor's algorithm). Since these algorithms are used in both, research and daily tasks, quantum computers would really help out (as a more complicated example, a few years ago I published an algorithm for integration/ averaging with a quantum computer that was quadratically faster).

Firstly, people need to realise that quantum encrypton and quantum computing are different. Quantum encrypton, as already mentioned, utilizes entanglement to secure data transmittion. Experiments have already successfuly achieved this!

The other point I wanted to make is that although the theory behind quantum computing is advancing, it is extremely difficult to construct a large quantum system. Currently, the number of quantum dots that scientist have manage to make in to a single quantum system is around six. It is exponential more difficult to add each new quantum dot and a quantum computer would require thousands.

As a result, quantum computing really is just pie in the sky research, which may have practical spin offs, but don't expect to see one soon (even a very very expensive one!).

When qcomps became practical for home/office use, gov/military ones will be qcomps with 1024qbits of encryption more or the less, so breaking them will be a pain in the ass ... the old game of the sword and the shield.

The first computers that filled whole rooms like Univac weren't "practical" either. But 60 years later we have small computers capable of doing much much more than simple calculations. Point being you can't call something impractical if it's only in the laboratory stages.

Quantum physics does not return a single answer. It returns a set of answers with different probabilities based on the state of the system. Because of this, if you only have one quantum bit, with a specific algorithm, it may only get the correct answer 75% of the time. Thus, for any one specific calculation, you will never know if you got the right answer (only that you are 75% accurate).

On the other hand, with redundancy, and the knowledge of the probability of the correct answer, it becomes a much easier. With 1000 qubits, if you have 800 of them returning answer A, and only 200 returning answer B, you will know that answer A is the correct one.

"let's get real. this idea is not practical for the real world" - mm

OOO! A challenge! Let's see if we can find anyone with a similar point of view. Ah yes! It appears there is!... Hmmm... all I can say is, dude, I'm *SO* glad no intelligent person that knows their history is going to listen to you. =)

"640k ought to be enough for anybody" - Bill Gates

"I think there is a world market for maybe five computers."
- IBM Chairman Thomas Watson, 1943

“Computers in the future may weigh no more than 1.5 tons.” - Popular Mechanics

"I can assure you that data processing is a fad that won’t last out the year.” editor in charge of business books for Prentice Hall, 1957

“There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home.”
Ken Olson, president, chairman and founder of Digital Equipment Corp., 1977

“This ‘telephone’ has too many shortcomings to be seriously considered as a means of communication. The device is inherently of no value to us.”
Western Union internal memo, 1876.

“The concept is interesting and well-formed, but in order to earn better than a ‘C,’ the idea must be feasible.”
A Yale University management professor in response to Fred Smith’s paper proposing reliable overnight delivery service. Smith went on to found Federal Express Corp.

“Heavier-than-air flying machines are impossible.”
Lord Kelvin, president, Royal Society, 1895.

“Airplanes are interesting toys but of no military value.”
Marechal Ferdinand Foch, Professor of Strategy, Ecole Superieure de Guerre.

I wish I could have been in the lab when one scientist uttered to another, "But who would use it?" when referencing the integrated circuit. Some people even postulated (when the first computer arrived) that there MIGHT be a need for 4 or 5 in the whole world. Right...

If I had a dollar for every time someone underestimated the scope and breadth of a technology, I wouldn't have to work anymore. If history has taught us anything, it should be that technology finds a home, even if it is somewhat weird (electrons traveling of copper strands? Sheer madness, I tell you!).

There seems to be some misconception that quantum computers are going to be for personal use. This is simply not the case. Individuals have absolutely no use for a quantum computer, they hardly have a use for the computing power they have right now. Quantum computing is for science, plain and simple. Maybe maybe maybe some day in hundreds or thousands of years (if we make it that long) you might see quantum computing make it to the personal level but it would probably be more effective to just connect to the quantum computer via then internet anyway.

On another note, most quantum computing require superconductors, which in turn require liquid helium, which, incidentally, we are running out of. So if you see a kid with a helium baloon, make sure to remind him that he is robbing future generations of possibly the most valuable resource we have.

bill gates was quoted as saying, "No one will need more than 637 kb of memory for a personal computer."
Will there be programs and apps for this. you bet your sweet....

Hypeiron2010: While a helium shortage is indeed fast approaching here on Earth, you must not forget that our little planet is not the only resource we have. Actually, it is very likely that the Moon holds vast reserves of helium (among others), and further along the gas giants have loads of it in their atmospheres.

This shortage (combined with other resources dwindling) might just be exactly what we need to finally move our complacent behinds and get on with a REAL space programme. Fill up those baloons, kids!

MM if more people were like you, we would still be in the stone ages!

I don't understand why everyone is all about quantum computing when the quantum latch hasn't yet been implemented in a microprocessor. The quantum latch is a much more feasible successor to the present day transistor.

http://www.hpl.hp.com/news/2005/jan-mar/crossbar.html?jumpid=reg_R1002_USEN
http://www.hp.com/hpinfo/newsroom/feature_stories/2005/05crossbar.html

Yes, but will this help my fps in oblivion outdoor?

I do hope you're joking. q-comp, when implemented, has the potential of making truer-than-life graphics possible, when it becomes practical. But by then, the Wii will be in an abandoned technology museum in New Hampshire. And otters will be completely sentient.

Source: http://www.sciencedaily.com/re...103647.htm

Scientists at Florida State University's National High Magnetic Field Laboratory and the university's Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry have introduced a new material that could be to computers of the future what silicon is to the computers of today.
The material -- a compound made from the elements potassium, niobium and oxygen, along with chromium ions -- could provide a technological breakthrough that leads to the development of new quantum computing technologies. Quantum computers would harness the power of atoms and molecules to perform memory and processing tasks on a scale far beyond those of current computers.
"The field of quantum information technology is in its infancy, and our work is another step forward in this fascinating field," said Saritha Nellutla, a postdoctoral associate at the magnet lab and lead author of the paper published in Physical Review Letters.
Semiconductor technology is close to reaching its performance limit. Over the years, processors have shrunk to their current size, with the components of a computer chip more than 1,000 times smaller than the thickness of a human hair. At those very small scales, quantum effects -- behaviors in matter that occur at the atomic and subatomic levels -- can start playing a role. By exploiting those behaviors, scientists hope to take computing to the next level.
In current computers, the basic unit of information is the "bit," which can have a value of 0 or 1. In so-called quantum computers, which currently exist only in theory, the basic unit is the "qubit" (short for quantum bit). A qubit can have not only a value of 0 or 1, but also all kinds of combinations of 0 and 1 -- including 0 and 1 at the same time -- meaning quantum computers could perform certain kinds of calculations much more effectively than current ones.
How scientists realize the promise of the theoretical qubit is not clear. Various designs and paths have been proposed, and one very promising idea is to use tiny magnetic fields, called "spins." Spins are associated with electrons and various atomic nuclei.
Magnet lab scientists used high magnetic fields and microwave radiation to "operate" on the spins in the new material they developed to get an indication of how long the spin could be controlled. Based on their experiments, the material could enable 500 operations in 10 microseconds before losing its ability to retain information, making it a good candidate for a qubit.
Putting this spin to work would usher in a technological revolution, because the spin state of an electron, in addition to its charge, could be used to carry, manipulate and store information.
"This material is very promising," said Naresh Dalal, a professor of chemistry and biochemistry at FSU and one of the paper's authors. "But additional synthetic and magnetic characterization work is needed before it could be made suitable for use in a device."
Dalal also serves as an adviser to FSU chemistry graduate student Mekhala Pati, who created the material.
Note: This story has been adapted from material provided by Florida State University.

Fausto Intilla
http://www.oloscience.com