Quantum Physics

Einstein called it "Spooky"; we call it quantum!

By Joshua S. Hill

Monday, September 10, 2007

For many of us, the word 'quantum' puts us in mind of the ape that fell out of a tree and landed on a rabbit; he knew there was something he should know, he just didn't know what it was.

Terry Pratchett, author of the beloved Discworld series of books had this to say about the evolution of science in his book Lords and Ladies;

"When I was a lad there was just one decent universe and this was it… Now it turns out there's millions of the damn things. And there's this damn cat they've discovered that you can put in a box and it's dead and alive at the same time … And they all run around saying marvellous, marvellous, hooray, here comes another quantum."

For certain, when someone had a 'my day', there was very little quantum to deal with. However we've reached a point in our evolution of science that only leaves quantum as the next step for some people, and the physicists at the University of Michigan have taken a big step forward in quantum computing.

Using light, the scientists at U-M established a link called 'entanglement' between two atoms, separated a meter apart from each other. Entanglement is described in the press release from U-M as controlling the outcome of one coin flip with the outcome of a separate coin flip.

"This linkage between remote atoms could be the fundamental piece of a radically new quantum computer architecture," said Professor Christopher Monroe, the principal investigator who did this research while at U-M, but is now at the University of Maryland. "Now that the technique has been demonstrated, it should be possible to scale it up to networks of many interconnected components that will eventually be necessary for quantum information processing."

Previous attempts at localized entanglement have provided many answers, but according to David Moehring, the lead author of the paper who did this research as a U-M graduate student, the fact that they were able to establish the link between the two atoms at a distance from one another is the key piece to this new discovery. It is this separation which is imperative to the creation of a scalable quantum computer network (or internet).

The two enclosures that trapped the atoms were linked by a fiber optic thread. By manipulating the photos emitted by the two atoms and guiding them along the thread, the researchers were able to gain the data needed, and establish the first separate entanglement. However, according to Monroe, the thread was only necessary to establish the original link, and if it was cut, the entanglement would continue.

While I will not pretend to be fully aware of exactly how this discovery steps up the move towards quantum computing, the restrictions currently placed upon even our most powerful computers would disappear with the move to quantum computing. The University of Michigan suggest that with this new discovery, provable secure encryption would evolve, as the result of being able to factor numbers incredibly faster than today's computers. However, if I know anything, I know computers, and with a step that would allow for this increase in security, I know that there would be subsequent increases in gaming power, internet speeds, and pornographic resolution.

www.physorg.com/news108217803.html