Thursday, March 18, 2010

Rethinking quantum states and computers

I am not going to even try to pretend that I understand what he is talking about... I could comprehend the first part but I was lost by the time I finished reading it. I re-read it thrice, it didn't help much either. These are the wonders (read lunacy) of quantum physics. But its the future and its in our best interest to understand at-least the basics. I guess, I have to buy this soon.

"According to a series of experiments by physicists at UCSB even something as big as 200 micrometers will still be subject to quantum effects when cooled to nearly -459°F, a temperature otherwise known as absolute zero, and zapped with packets of energy on a quantum level. Sure, a hyper-sensitive resonator 200 µm across doesn’t sound like much but until this experiment, virtually all of the objects which exhibit quantum mechanical effects measured just angstroms across, making UCSB’s resonator billions of times bigger than the largest molecule to exhibit the phenomena in question. The difference between this brand new quantum system that contains roughly a trillion atoms and a 60 atom buckyball, which was hypothesized to be the limit of quantum effects on the larger world, is similar to one between something the size of a human and an object the size of an average city. And the results of the experiment also seem to imply that getting quantum mechanical effects to show up in macroscopic objects is just a matter of getting the objects into a quantum state."

I need a drink.

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