Wonder if they’ll come to the Met in NY, or the Hollywood Bowl in CA.
A Welsh mezzo-soprano in England recently performed a real-time duet with a quantum computer. Here’s how it sounded.
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Category: quantum physics
Quantum computers promise speedy solutions to some difficult problems, but building large-scale, general-purpose quantum devices is a problem fraught with technical challenges.
To date, many research groups have created small but functional quantum computers. By combining a handful of atoms, electrons or superconducting junctions, researchers now regularly demonstrate quantum effects and run simple quantum algorithms —small programs dedicated to solving particular problems.
But these laboratory devices are often hard-wired to run one program or limited to fixed patterns of interactions between the quantum constituents. Making a quantum computer that can run arbitrary algorithms requires the right kind of physical system and a suite of programming tools. Atomic ions, confined by fields from nearby electrodes, are among the most promising platforms for meeting these needs.
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Exciting news today about the new smaller reprogrammable QC discovery; however, in China.
Scientists in China are set to launch the world’s first ‘quantum satellite,’ which could one day make for an ultra-secure global communications network.
The 1,300 pound craft contains a crystal that produces pairs of entangled photons, which will be fired to ground stations in China and Austria to form a ‘secret key.’
Entangled photons theoretically maintain their link across any distance, and according to the scientists, any attempts to breach this type of communication would be easily detectable.
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A single photon can excite two or more atoms at the same time, scientists found. And the light particle would do so in a very counterintuitive way, by summoning one or more companion photons out of nothingness.
If you think of particles of light, or photons, as billiard balls, it makes intuitive sense that a single photon can excite a single atom.
The new, less intuitive finding depends on the strange nature of quantum mechanics, and might help improve advanced machines known as quantum computers, researchers said. Prior work suggested that such machines could simultaneously perform more calculations in one instant than there are atoms in the universe. [Warped Physics: 10 Effects of Faster-than-Light Travel].
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Electronic computer technology has moved from valves to transistors to progressively more complex integrated circuits and processor designs, with each change bringing higher levels of performance. Now the advent of quantum computers promises a huge step increase in processor performance to solve certain types of problems.
Quantum computers are much faster than the world’s fastest supercomputers for some applications. In 1994 Peter Shor, an applied mathematician at Bell Laboratories, gave the encryption world a shock when he demonstrated an algorithm showing that quantum computers could threaten conventional prime number based encryption methods.
If an adversary conducts successful espionage raids on encrypted information stored in present technology computer installations, possibly through a compromised or issue-motivated individual who transfers it to portable media, it could become vulnerable to decryption by that rival’s quantum computers.
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More on the new most powerful QC at USC.
Following a recent upgrade, the USC-Lockheed Martin Quantum Computing Center (QCC) based at the USC Information Sciences Institute (ISI) with 1098 qubits, is now the leader in qubit capacity…
USC Viterbi School of Engineering Amy Blumenthal, 917.710.1897 [email protected]
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