rmuldavin
3rd April 2008 - 08:24 PM
D-Wave appears to be a company now 2008 working on QC.
http://www.dwavesys.com/index.php?page=quantum-computingD-Wave, QC
Quantum Computing
Quantum computers (QCs) use quantum mechanics (QM), the rules that underlie the behavior of all matter and energy, to accelerate computation. It has been known for some time that once some simple features of QM are harnessed, machines will be built capable of outperforming any conceivable conventional supercomputer.
QCs are not just faster than conventional computers. They change what computer scientists call the computational scaling of many problems.
In 1936, mathematician Alan Turing published a famous paper that addressed the problem of computability. His thesis was that all computers were equivalent, and could all be simulated by each other. By extension, a problem was either computable or not, regardless of what computer it was run on. This paper led to the concept of the Universal Turing Machine, an idealized model of a computer to which all computers are equivalent.
We now know that Turing was only partially correct. Not all computers are equivalent. His work was based on an assumption — that computation and information were abstract entities, divorced from the rules of physics governing the behavior of the computer itself.
One of the most important developments in modern science is the realization that information (and computation) can never exist in the abstract. Information is always tied to the physical stuff upon which it is written. What is possible to compute is completely determined by the rules of physics.
Turing's work, and conventional computer science, are only valid if a computer obeys the rules of Newtonian physics — the set of rules that apply to large and hot things, like baseballs and humans. If elements of a computer behave according to different rules, such as the rules of QM, this assumption fails and many very interesting possibilities emerge.
As an example, consider the modeling of a nanosized structure, such as a drug molecule, using conventional (i.e., non-quantum) computers. Solving the Schrodinger Equation (SE), the fundamental description of matter at the QM level, more than doubles in difficulty for every electron in the molecule. This is called exponential scaling, and prohibits solution of the SE for systems greater than about 30 electrons. A single caffeine molecule has more than 100 electrons, making it roughly 100,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000, 000,000,000,000,000 times harder to solve than a 30-electron system, which itself makes even high-end supercomputers choke.
This restriction makes first-principles modeling of molecular structures impossible, and has historically defined the boundary between physics (where the SE can be solved by brute force) and chemistry (where it cannot, and empirical modeling and human creativity must take over).
Quantum computers are capable of solving the SE with linear scaling exponentially faster and with exponentially less hardware than conventional computers. For a QC, the difficulty in solving the SE increases by a small, fixed amount for every electron in a system. Even very primitive QCs will be able to outperform supercomputers in simulating nature.
Even more significant, as QC technology matures, systems containing hundreds, thousands, even millions of electrons will be able to be modeled by the direct, brute force solution of the SE. This means that the fundamental equations of nature will be solvable for all nanoscale systems, with no approximations and no fudge factors. Results of these virtual reality simulations will be indistinguishable from what is seen in the real world, assuming that QM is an accurate picture of nature.
This type of simulation, by direct solution of the fundamental laws of nature, will become the backbone of engineering design in the nanotech regime where quantum mechanics reigns.
© 2008 D-Wave Systems, Inc.
[comments/rm: fast moving with the pitches, maybe slower developing, molecular quantum computing, goes on for proteins, prions made of proteins that infect, researchers have near dozens of mutations under study, forming nets of many basic parts, next to life forms at border between chemical and cellular.
Brain structures can be invaded, co-evolutionary struggle so far we are still here, drop outs not.
Best, rmuldavin