Hello, Tech Support?

By | February 23, 2006
2 Comments

Okay, I’m speechless:

A quantum computer program has produced an answer without actually running.

The idea behind the feat, first proposed in 1998, is to put a quantum computer into a “superposition”, a state in which it is both running and not running. It is as if you asked Schrödinger’s cat to hit “Run”.

…

The new design includes a quantum trick called the Zeno effect. Repeated measurements stop the photon from entering the actual program, but allow its quantum nature to flirt with the program’s components – so it can become gradually altered even though it never actually passes through.

“It is very bizarre that you know your computer has not run but you also know what the answer is,” says team member Onur Hosten.

My question for tech support: “I don’t have a quantum computer, so why can’t I get it to work?”

  • https://www.blog.speculist.com Phil Bowermaster

    For some reason, this reminds me of a short story about some guys in a lab experimenting with a time machine. They keep sending obejcts forward and backward in time. One day, they decide that, later in the day, they will send an object to, say, noon. It shows up at noon. Later in the day, when they are supposed to send the object back to noon, they decide to see what happens if they do nothing.

    The universe ends.

    I just hope these quantum computer guys know what they’re doing!

  • eisendorn

    i once read a similar story: a guy managing to build quantum gates which allow him to send instructions one cycle back in time, so every calculation only needs a single clock cycle to complete. some day he wonders what would happen if he sent a recursion back in time before the universe existed. reality shutdown is the result.