A Shortcut Through Time: The Path to the Quantum ComputerThe first book to prepare us for the next big--perhaps the biggest--breakthrough in the short history of the cyberworld: the development of the quantum computer. The newest Pentium chip driving personal computers packs 40 million electronic switches onto a piece of silicon the size of a thumbnail. It is dramatically smaller and more powerful than anything that has come before it. If this incredible shrinking act continues, the logical culmination is a computer in which each switch is composed of a single atom. And at that point the miraculous--the actualization of quantum mechanics--becomes real. If atoms can be harnessed, society will be transformed: problems that could take forever to be solved on the supercomputers available today would be dispatched with ease. Quantum computing promises nothing less astonishing than a shortcut through time. In this book, the award-winning "New York Times "science writer George Johnson first takes us back to the original idea of a computer--almost simple enough to be made of Tinkertoys--and then leads us through increasing levels of complexity to the soul of this remarkable new machine. He shows us how, in laboratories around the world, the revolution has already begun. Writing with a brilliant clarity, Johnson makes sophisticated material on (and even beyond) the frontiers of science both graspable and utterly fascinating, affording us a front-row seat at one of the most galvanizing scientific dramas of the new century. |
Contents
The Road to Blue Mountain | 3 |
The Hardest Problem in the Universe | 155 |
The Nine Billion Names of God | 168 |
Copyright | |
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Alice Alice and Bob amplitude answer arithmetic beam become binary Blue Mountain bouncing calculations called cells cellular automaton chip classical computer clock clockwise complex controlled NOT gate counterclockwise cryptography David Deutsch decoherence device digits electrical electrons encoded encrypted entangled error experiment exponential factoring faster Figure filter flip Geniac Grover's Grover's algorithm horizontal idea input inside interact kind larger number laser pulses light manipulate mathematical mathematicians measured million molecule NP-complete output parity bits particles pattern photons physicists possible problem processors proteins puter quan quantum computer Quantum Cryptography quantum mechanics quantum superposition quantum switches quantum system qubits rectilinear representing result scientists sequence Shor Shor's algorithm simple simulate simultaneously single solve spinning spools square string subatomic supercomputer Suppose tape Tinkertoy tiny tion traveling salesman problem trillion Turing machine vacuum tubes vertical wave wavelets Wineland wires