Apr 20, 2016 06:35 AM
Trudeau versus the experts: Quantum computing in 35 seconds
http://www.macleans.ca/society/science/t...5-seconds/
EXCERPT: When Prime Minister Justin Trudeau visited the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics in Waterloo, Ont. last week and offered his explanation for how a quantum computer works, it sparked intense media coverage from around the world. It also led to a backlash over whether Trudeau really knew anything about the cutting-edge technology, or was just pretending. But what happens when experts in quantum computing themselves are asked to explain the technology to a lay audience in 35 seconds, the time Trudeau took to give his explanation? “This is something that cannot be explained well in 35 seconds,” says Aephraim Steinberg, a professor of physics at the University of Toronto and member of the Centre for Quantum Information and Quantum Computing. But Steinberg—and a half-dozen other experts from across North America—were willing to step up to our challenge and give it a try....
Information is physical, even in quantum systems, study suggests
https://www.sciencenews.org/article/info...y-suggests
EXCERPT: Information may seem ethereal, given how easily we forget phone numbers and birthdays. But scientists say it is physical, and if a new study is correct, that goes for quantum systems, too. Although pages of text or strings of bits seem easily erased with the press of a button, the act of destroying information has tangible physical impact, according to a principle proposed in 1961 by physicist Rolf Landauer. Deleting information is associated with an increase in entropy, or disorder, resulting in the release of a certain amount of heat for each erased bit. Even the most efficient computer would still output heat when irreversibly scrubbing out data. This principle has been verified experimentally for systems that follow the familiar laws of classical physics. But the picture has remained fuzzy for quantum mechanical systems, in which particles can be in multiple states at once and their fates may be linked through the spooky process of quantum entanglement. Now a team of scientists reports April 13 in Proceedings of the Royal Society A that Landauer’s principle holds even in that wild quantum landscape....
http://www.macleans.ca/society/science/t...5-seconds/
EXCERPT: When Prime Minister Justin Trudeau visited the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics in Waterloo, Ont. last week and offered his explanation for how a quantum computer works, it sparked intense media coverage from around the world. It also led to a backlash over whether Trudeau really knew anything about the cutting-edge technology, or was just pretending. But what happens when experts in quantum computing themselves are asked to explain the technology to a lay audience in 35 seconds, the time Trudeau took to give his explanation? “This is something that cannot be explained well in 35 seconds,” says Aephraim Steinberg, a professor of physics at the University of Toronto and member of the Centre for Quantum Information and Quantum Computing. But Steinberg—and a half-dozen other experts from across North America—were willing to step up to our challenge and give it a try....
Information is physical, even in quantum systems, study suggests
https://www.sciencenews.org/article/info...y-suggests
EXCERPT: Information may seem ethereal, given how easily we forget phone numbers and birthdays. But scientists say it is physical, and if a new study is correct, that goes for quantum systems, too. Although pages of text or strings of bits seem easily erased with the press of a button, the act of destroying information has tangible physical impact, according to a principle proposed in 1961 by physicist Rolf Landauer. Deleting information is associated with an increase in entropy, or disorder, resulting in the release of a certain amount of heat for each erased bit. Even the most efficient computer would still output heat when irreversibly scrubbing out data. This principle has been verified experimentally for systems that follow the familiar laws of classical physics. But the picture has remained fuzzy for quantum mechanical systems, in which particles can be in multiple states at once and their fates may be linked through the spooky process of quantum entanglement. Now a team of scientists reports April 13 in Proceedings of the Royal Society A that Landauer’s principle holds even in that wild quantum landscape....