Quantum computing on the horizon?

[Mike Rotch]

Interesting article

 

[TS020]

 

[Solid Fro]

Mmmmm, unlimited processing power.

"With 100 transistors, each containing one of these electrons, you could have the implicit information storage that corresponds to all of the hard disks made in the world this year, multiplied by the number of years the universe has been around," Yablonovitch said. "And why stop with 100 transistors?"

If anyone knew how many hard drives were produced this year and how long the universe has existed, I would assume you could store a butt-load of data on the tip of a pin needle.

 

[Famine]

I don't know what total capacity of all hard drives produced this year is, but even assuming it was just one 120Gb one, the universe has been around for "approximately 18 billion years" - giving a capacity of 2.16 Zettabytes (2160,000,000,000 Gb)

For your reference:
1000 bytes = 1 kilobyte (kb)
1000kb = 1 Megabyte (Mb)
1000Mb = 1 Gigabyte (Gb)
1000Gb = 1 Terabyte (Tb)
1000Tb = 1 Exabyte (Eb)
1000Eb = 1 Petabyte (Pb)
1000Pb = 1 Zettabyte (Zb)
1000Zb = 1 Yottabyte (Yb). That's 1x10^24 bytes.

There's no bigger prefix used than Yb.

 

[heero 12]

Where is ribble on that list Famine? And all this sounds interesting, but how many and how cheap can they make them?

 

[the_cobbinator]

Infinite storage always sounds cool, but I wonder how sson it will be commercial.

 

[Sage]

I really wish I could understand this stuff – Could somebody explain to me how manipulating an electron = massive computing power?

 

[halfracedrift]

I thought 1024 bytes = 1 kb and 1024 kB = 1 mb?

 

[Famine]

That's roughly true, yes. But not technically true.

1000 bytes = 1 kilobyte - by the very definition of "kilo".
1024 bytes = 1 kibibyte - commonly and incorrectly abbreviated to kb (ought to be Kib).

Therein lies the confusion.

 

[Omero]

For one, I am going to say that I disagree with the theory of quantum physics (that all possibilities are correct excepting the possibility of impossibility). Even though that has virtually nothing to do with the article, I must say that I could gather almost nothing from their statements. There were alot of quotes that made little sense. One problem I have with these articles is that they fail to explain just what quantum computers are. I know they have to do with transistors that can have 3 states instead of two, basing the computer's language on base-3 instead of base-2. If what I'm reading in the thread is correct, though, they're talking about memory storage using nothing more than electron pairs, which is rather interesting (well, memory processing; kinda like boosting the ram almost infinitely). I don't see how it applies to processing, except that the processors would become RAM units...

 

[87chevy]

Yottabyte [Yoda voice]Very big, my storage capacity is.[/Yoda voice]

 

[High-Test]

Yottabyte [Yoda voice]Very big, my storage capacity is.[/Yoda voice]

the force of small things you must use. the power, the electron is.

 

[Omnis]

many asians, ucla has.

mmmmmmmmm.....

yottabyte, lightsaber has.


and crap.

 

[Omnis]

i cant wait till i see commercials on TV about quantum exercise.

"the electron flips so your ass doesnt have to!"

 

[Omero]

Those are going to be some funny commercials. BTW Omnis, I know it's kinda late this time, but next time, could you use the Edit button? It makes things so much cleaner.

I'd never heard of the Yottabyte before this thread. Famine, where did you hear about this stuff?

 

[Famine]

I'm a scientist. Those are standard SI prefixes. You can replace "byte" with any other unit - metre, gram, Ohm.

I could go down the small scale too if you'd like?
1 metre = 1000 millimetres (mm)
1mm = 1000 micrometres (m) (this symbol may not work on all browsers - it's the Greek letter "mu")
1m = 1000 nanometres (nm)
1nm = 1000 picometres (pm)
1pm = 1000 femtometres (fm)
1fm = 1000 attometres (am)
1am = 1000 zeptometres (zm)
1zm = 1000 yoctometres (ym), or 1X10^-24 metres.

 

[Omnis]

yeah my fault.

should've done that, lol.

but, about the prefixes, the only ones i knew were from nano-terra.

thanks famine.

 

[Omero]

Yeah, I'd only heard of about half of those prefixes before (but based on the metric system, and I trust you listed them in order, it's pretty easy to figure out how things go).