News tagged with quantum computing

Quantum physicist explains $100K offer for proof scaled-up quantum computing is impossible

(PhysOrg.com) -- MIT researcher Scott Aaronson has certainly riled the physics community with his offer this past Friday, of $100,000 to anyone who can prove that scaled-up quantum computing is impossible. ...

Physics / Quantum Physics

created Feb 08, 2012 | popularity 4.2 / 5 (12) | comments 33 | with audio podcast weblog

Speed limit on the quantum highway

(PhysOrg.com) -- Physicists at the Max Planck Institute of Quantum Optics have measured the propagation velocity of quantum signals in a many-body system.

Physics / Quantum Physics

created Jan 26, 2012 | popularity 4.9 / 5 (15) | comments 0 | with audio podcast

Quantum mechanics enables perfectly secure cloud computing

Researchers have succeeded in combining the power of quantum computing with the security of quantum cryptography and have shown that perfectly secure cloud computing can be achieved using the principles of ...

Physics / Quantum Physics

created Jan 19, 2012 | popularity 4.2 / 5 (15) | comments 13 | with audio podcast

Researchers conduct experimental implementation of quantum algorithm

(PhysOrg.com) -- Researchers at D-Wave Systems have carried out a calculation involving 84 qubits on an experimental quantum computer, giving some credence to the plausibility of true quantum computers being ...

Physics / Quantum Physics

created Jan 12, 2012 | popularity 4 / 5 (8) | comments 1 | with audio podcast weblog

Choreographing dance of electrons offers promise in pursuit of quantum computers

(PhysOrg.com) -- In the basement of Hoyt Laboratory at Princeton University, Alexei Tyryshkin clicked a computer mouse and sent a burst of microwaves washing across a silicon crystal suspended in a frozen ...

Physics / General Physics

created Jan 12, 2012 | popularity 5 / 5 (3) | comments 1 | with audio podcast

A quantum leap in computing

When American physicist Richard Feynman in 1982 proposed creating a quantum computer that could solve complex problems, the idea was merely a theory scientists believed was far off in the future.

Technology / Computer Sciences

created Jan 04, 2012 | popularity 4.5 / 5 (11) | comments 5 | with audio podcast

Flipping an egg carton of light traps giant atoms

(PhysOrg.com) -- In an egg carton of laser light, University of Michigan physicists can trap giant Rydberg atoms with up to 90 percent efficiency, an achievement that could advance quantum computing and terahertz ...

Physics / General Physics

created Dec 23, 2011 | popularity 5 / 5 (4) | comments 7 | with audio podcast

Researchers use webs of lasers to remove entropy from a system causing quantum gases to cool

(PhysOrg.com) -- Many physicists around the world are hard at work trying to figure out new and exciting ways to create ultra-cold objects, the reason being is that if a system could be created that operates ...

Physics / Quantum Physics

created Dec 22, 2011 | popularity 5 / 5 (6) | comments 6 | with audio podcast report

Researchers devise a way to make a simple quantum computer using holograms

(PhysOrg.com) -- Wouldn’t it be nice if we could just jump from using computers based on circuits to machines based on quantum bits (qubits)? Things would run ever so much faster. Alas, the problem is, ...

Physics / Quantum Physics

created Dec 21, 2011 | popularity 4.5 / 5 (16) | comments 2 | with audio podcast report

NIST sensor improvement brings analysis method into mainstream

(PhysOrg.com) -- An advance in sensor design by researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology and the University of Waterloo's Institute of Quantum Computing (IQC) could unshackle a powerful, yet high-maintenance ...

Physics / General Physics

created Dec 21, 2011 | popularity 5 / 5 (1) | comments 0 | with audio podcast

Quantum computing has applications in magnetic imaging

Quantum computing -- considered the powerhouse of computational tasks -- may have applications in areas outside of pure electronics, according to a University of Pittsburgh researcher and his collaborators.

Nanotechnology / Nanophysics

created Dec 19, 2011 | popularity 5 / 5 (5) | comments 0 | with audio podcast

Finnish team devise nanomechanical microwave amplifier with near least possible noise generation

(PhysOrg.com) -- A team of Finnish physicists has developed a novel way to amplify a microwave signal that unlike other amplifiers, produces noise that is just barely above that which is necessary due to the ...

Physics / General Physics

created Dec 15, 2011 | popularity 4.8 / 5 (6) | comments 4 | with audio podcast report

Optical fiber innovation could make future optical computers a 'SNAP'

Optics and photonics may one day revolutionize computer technology with the promise of light-speed calculations. Storing light as memory, however, requires devices known as microresonators, an emerging technology ...

Physics / Optics & Photonics

created Dec 14, 2011 | popularity 5 / 5 (18) | comments 0 | with audio podcast

A new 'lens' for looking at quantum behavior

(PhysOrg.com) -- In a paper published in Physical Review Letters, researchers Daniel Terno (Macquarie University, Australia) and Radu Ionicioiu (Institute of Quantum Computing, Canada) provide a new perspe ...

Physics / Quantum Physics

created Dec 14, 2011 | popularity 4 / 5 (3) | comments 6 | with audio podcast

Quantum tunneling results in record transistor performance

(PhysOrg.com) -- Controlling power consumption in mobile devices and large scale data centers is a pressing concern for the computer chip industry. Researchers from Penn State and epitaxial wafer maker IQE ...

Technology / Semiconductors

created Dec 12, 2011 | popularity 5 / 5 (7) | comments 4 | with audio podcast

Quantum computer

A quantum computer is a device for computation that makes direct use of quantum mechanical phenomena, such as superposition and entanglement, to perform operations on data. The basic principle behind quantum computation is that quantum properties can be used to represent data and perform operations on these data.

Although quantum computing is still in its infancy, experiments have been carried out in which quantum computational operations were executed on a very small number of qubits (quantum binary digits). Both practical and theoretical research continues with interest, and many national government and military funding agencies support quantum computing research to develop quantum computers for both civilian and national security purposes, such as cryptanalysis.

If large-scale quantum computers can be built, they will be able to solve certain problems much faster than any of our current classical computers (for example Shor's algorithm). Quantum computers are different from other computers such as DNA computers and traditional computers based on transistors. Some computing architectures such as optical computers may use classical superposition of electromagnetic waves. Without some specifically quantum mechanical resources such as entanglement, it is conjectured that an exponential advantage over classical computers is not possible.

For more information about Quantum computer, read the full article at Wikipedia.
This text uses material from Wikipedia and is available under the GNU Free Documentation License.