gjerawlins@watdaisy.UUCP (Greg Rawlins) (11/21/84)
["I don't want millions,I want answers to my questions."] I have a question for the net: in Gribbin's "Schrodinger's Cat" book(*) he claims that Terry Clark at the University of Sussex has created a "quantumatom" in a ring of superconducting material roughly 1/2 cm across. This object is supposed to mimic the behaviour of true quantum particles in that a change in state is *instantaneous* over the entire ring. The obvious use for this is as the next generation after Josephson junction computers, since (theoretically) there will be *zero* time spent in between one state and the next. A good example bringing this home to the non-architecture people out there is the possibility of putting information on a bus (say) and having zero time elapse before this information causes some action! Does anyone know whether this is an ongoing project? Also, if it is what does it mean for us in computer science/physics? For example what kind of protocols would be necessary (/sufficient) to make use of such a machine? ----- (*) yet-another-book-on-quantum-mech-for-laypersons. -- /-----------------------------------------------------\ |Mail :Greg Rawlins :Department of Computer Science | | allegra\ U.of Waterloo,Waterloo,Ont.N2L3G1| | clyde \ \ | |UUCP :decvax ---- watmath --- watdaisy --- gjerawlins| | ihnp4 / / | | linus / | |CSNET:gjerawlins%watdaisy%watmath@waterloo.csnet | \-----------------------------------------------------/
chris@politik.UUCP (Christopher Seiwald) (11/25/84)
> > "Schrodinger's Cat" book(*) he claims that Terry Clark at the > University of Sussex has created a "quantumatom" in a ring > of superconducting material roughly 1/2 cm across. This > object is supposed to mimic the behaviour of true quantum > particles in that a change in state is *instantaneous* over > the entire ring. > > gjerawlins@watdaisy.UUCP (Greg Rawlins) Sounds like an FTL farce to me. Am I wrong, or can information (e.g. the change in state) travel no faster than light, since the information carrier (e.g. electrons, photons) itself is so bound? -- Christopher Seiwald dual!ptsfa!politik!chris