Feb

12

The Age of Quantum Computers Coming Tomorrow

February 12, 2007 |

According to ABC News it is:

But it’s [quantum computing] been a holy grail in the arcane world of supercomputers — and a Canadian firm claims it will be unveiling one on Tuesday. Nevermind that most engineers thought quantum computers were decades away.

D-Wave Systems, Inc., based near Vancouver, is the company that’s been working on the project. Its machine is described as a computer that can perform 64,000 calculations at once.

Not sure what is so arcane about supercomputers, but lets just say that I am skeptical. The article is low on facts. 64.000 calcualations at one isn’t exactly a very precise measure. How long is ‘at once’ after all?

Apparently this prototype is the size of a freezer, which means, according to the article it is too big. Well, maybe the author has never seen a super-computer, but those ‘arcane’ machines are a bit bigger than a freezer.

Here is another stupid line from the article, just for the fun of it:

The current prototype, says Martin, is as big as a good-sized freezer, and a lot colder. It uses superconducting circuits that have to be refrigerated, close to absolute zero. That’s the kind of temperature at which electrical resistance fades nearly to nothing (think of the heat generated by a conventional laptop), so that massive calculations can be done.

And what exactly does the heat of a laptop have to do with superconducting? It’s reporting like this that makes me distrust any mainstream news reports.

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