Once I've got a PC run by these thing I can look forward to not being able to run Battlefield 3 on it because it's still too slow.

Sounds like star trek technobabble.

LaForge: "reinitializing the quantum photonic chip interface"

Yes, but will it run Skyrim on full?

Or maybe they didn't. It's uncertain.

I'll bet it's delicious.

Dear Journalists:

It's not "silica". Or "silicone".

Silicon. Sil. I. Con.

There's a difference. Sort of like, alkane, alkyl and alcohol. They are all sorta alike. But not.

Anyways, if/when they pull off chips that do quantum computation (as opposed to, say, quantum dot logic which can be quite like the computational logic we use today), then it'll be like a PS3 Cell part - good for number crunching and some massively parallel computation work, but not so good at, say, running Crysis at full frame rate.

Baron Harkonnen: Smoking GNU: Yes, but will it run Skyrim on full?

Yes, but that causes the heat death of an alternate universe.

*snrk* My 4 year old laptop will do that. Skyrim I mean. with 40 fps, no less. It's not that intense of a game.

Now X-Plane 10, holy shiat. That'd melt the quantum turboencabulating chip.

AKTurkey: i r dumb. wat mean this?

That was my first reaction too. After some googling, the answer seems to be: eventually, much faster computers capable of doing much more complicated calculations.

apoptotic: That was my first reaction too. After some googling, the answer seems to be: eventually, much faster computers capable of doing much more complicated calculations.

HOLY SHIAT! SERIOUSLY? I MEAN, SERIOUSLY? HOLY SHIAT!

doglover: Smoking GNU: Yes, but will it run Skyrim on full?

NOTHING will run Skyrim on full.


Skyrim is not that intensive. I can max it no problem.

Now, Dwarf Fortress on a hot map with a waterfall and 200 dorfs...I've yet to see a computer that can maintain that at more than 20fps. I'm lucky to get more than 7.

/Q6600@stock, ATi 5870

erewhon: Dear Journalists:

It's not "silica". Or "silicone".

Silicon. Sil. I. Con.

There's a difference. Sort of like, alkane, alkyl and alcohol. They are all sorta alike. But not.



Dear erewhon,

Y U no Google?

They were actually using silica-on-silicon wafers for this research. Read the original paper here.

photonic birds?

Ghastly: Or maybe they killed the cat.

Well, even if they did, it'll come back the very next day.

I'm sure it will be ready for commercial applications in 5 years or so.

sno man: agoodamerican: will it make my porn better

I'm thinkin' yea, by the time they have this up to speed, touch screens will be able to touch back...



Come to Nicki

Is that like a quantum electron chip?

This is awesome and exciting, but the paranoid pessimist in me (plus too much sci fi ) wonders if this won't backfire massively in some unexpected way. Great if we can observe and control (to a degree) quantum entanglement, but we still don't really understand it. Can't help but think we're about to unleash Akira or tear space-time apart or something.

doglover: Smoking GNU: Yes, but will it run Skyrim on full?

NOTHING will run Skyrim on full.

Been running it on full with no problems at all. Granted it needed the memory address retooling to avoid periodic crashing, but it's running it beautifully.

/Can't wait to get home, finally have a shot at putting it through its paces

TheBlackrose: doglover: Smoking GNU: Yes, but will it run Skyrim on full?

NOTHING will run Skyrim on full.

Been running it on full with no problems at all. Granted it needed the memory address retooling to avoid periodic crashing, but it's running it beautifully.

/Can't wait to get home, finally have a shot at putting it through its paces

Could you explain this? The random crashes are really starting to piss me off, especially after spending half an hour clearing out a dungeon without a quicksave.

Jonny17: Great if we can observe and control (to a degree) quantum entanglement, but we still don't really understand it.

Well, define "really understand it"? We understand it at least as well as gravity (probably better than gravity, actually). We don't really understand how entanglement gets mediated, although we have some pretty good ideas.

Jonny17: This is awesome and exciting, but the paranoid pessimist in me (plus too much sci fi ) wonders if this won't backfire massively in some unexpected way. Great if we can observe and control (to a degree) quantum entanglement, but we still don't really understand it. Can't help but think we're about to unleash Akira or tear space-time apart or something.

The worst that could be happen is, maybe, that the effects of quantum entanglement will be not limited to the processor core, and computers will start communicating with each other in a way that we don't understand and cannot intercept. I'm sure that will make Skyrim run a trillion times faster!

/I mean Skynet

traylor: maybe, that the effects of quantum entanglement will be not limited to the processor core, and computers will start communicating with each other in a way that we don't understand and cannot intercept.

Macroscale entanglement doesn't really happen. You can entangle small particles for long periods of time, or you can entangle large objects for extremely short periods of time. A pair of quantum CPUs could entangle for a fraction of a second, and then the entanglement would be broken forever.

t3knomanser: Well, define "really understand it"? We understand it at least as well as gravity (probably better than gravity, actually). We don't really understand how entanglement gets mediated, although we have some pretty good ideas.

True but last time i looked into this (it was a few years back now) there still wasn't much consesnus. Still a lot of different ideas flying around (multiple dimesnions etc, but I'm rusty on this). Good point on gravirty though. That farks with my head too.

traylor Damn, didn't even think about Skynet. This is how it starts isn't it.

Jonny17: Still a lot of different ideas flying around (multiple dimesnions etc, but I'm rusty on this)

Well, here's the deal: you know how when you mix cream into coffee, you now have creamy coffee, and it would take a lot of effort to try and separate out the cream again? It's thermodynamics, and entropy always increases. Except that's not actually true- entropy will always tend to increase, but it can spontaneously decrease due to simple probability. It's possible, but extremely unlikely, that your cream and coffee will separate out.

Well, here's the problem: at a quantum level, the same thing holds true. An interaction between two particles can spontaneously reverse itself. When we're talking about quantum particles, though, that means the wave function has to uncollapse. There's no mechanism for doing this. Quantum physicists have fits trying to figure out where that information goes- it has to go someplace, because it's possible for that wave function to uncollapse. That's where the Many Worlds (parallel universes) thing comes in: there's a universe where the other possible states of the particle still exist. Quantum Information theory takes a different approach- that information simply floats around in our universe until it's not needed anymore (essentially, "look, it's probably not going to happen, so lets not worry about this too much").

Something involving that many big words could easily destabilise time itself.

t3knomanser:

traylor: maybe, that the effects of quantum entanglement will be not limited to the processor core, and computers will start communicating with each other in a way that we don't understand and cannot intercept.

Macroscale entanglement doesn't really happen. You can entangle small particles for long periods of time, or you can entangle large objects for extremely short periods of time. A pair of quantum CPUs could entangle for a fraction of a second, and then the entanglement would be broken forever.

But you only need one bit on each CPU to be entangled to open a serial channel between them, not the entire CPU.

Hmmm.....

/ haven't had coffee yet.

Just to make sure this is one of those projects that is interesting from a theoretical point of view but practically useless right?

As soon as I saw the headline, I thought...

Heisenberg?


Photons?


And then I was full of awesome thinking about a Kirk / Walter White show down. And then I just geeked out completely.

This is... a strange sensation. I ate it, and now I'm full, and yet I'm still hungry for more.

Carth: Just to make sure this is one of those projects that is interesting from a theoretical point of view but practically useless right?

It could be worthless. Or it could eventually re-shape society. There's no way to tell.

Artificial microwaves were first created in 1888. The first commercial microwave oven debuted in 1947. The path was a very long, winding, indirect one full of dead ends, failures, misapplications, mishaps, etc. Of course, we also made progress in communications, radar and telemetry, so there's that, but I just mentioned microwave ovens because you probably can't think past your next pizza roll. My point is, ask most scientists in 1890 what we could use microwaves for and they'd have no farking clue.

Now I know your typical sociopathic Boomer/GenX day trader doesn't have the patience for a process with a long, messy and indirect path to RoI. But if we judged all discoveries based on our ability to exploit it within a year, we might as well nuke ourselves to extinction right now because there is no farking hope for us.

maxheck: But you only need one bit on each CPU to be entangled to open a serial channel between them, not the entire CPU.

But that bit has to be entangled with other bits on the CPU to work.

I wonder what Zigi has to say about this...

Am I the only one who read that as quantum photonic chimp?

StrangeQ: TheBlackrose: doglover: Smoking GNU: Yes, but will it run Skyrim on full?

NOTHING will run Skyrim on full.

Been running it on full with no problems at all. Granted it needed the memory address retooling to avoid periodic crashing, but it's running it beautifully.

/Can't wait to get home, finally have a shot at putting it through its paces

Could you explain this? The random crashes are really starting to piss me off, especially after spending half an hour clearing out a dungeon without a quicksave.

The issue I was having was crashing shortly after fast traveling to Riften, getting jumped by a dragon on the way to a Theives' Guild quest. The game would crash no matter what.

Started getting old, so I went and did a bit of research. Skyrim uses only up to 2GB of virtual memory address space. While this is fine for 32 bit processors, it's a bit of a damper on 64 bit processors. So there's a few programs and patches out there that gets around to enabling the full 4GB of virtual memory address space. Downloaded a utility to load Skyrim as large address aware, has been a lot more stable after that.

traylor:
They were actually using silica-on-silicon wafers for this research. Read the original paper here.

Actually, no, I didn't. in this case it sort of makes sense, they're using silica for the optical parts. This is what I get for posting Before Coffee.

Carth: Just to make sure this is one of those projects that is interesting from a theoretical point of view but practically useless right?

No. If they get these things to work on a large scale it will change the world as we know it. The NSA is really interested in quantum computers because they'll be able to do things like bust encryption in seconds rather than the years or decades it might take a classical computer.

There are people writing programs for computers that haven't even been built yet, so when they do make one, we're going to be off and running with some pretty advanced technology for mere mortals to possess.