Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Technology Stocks : Applied Materials No-Politics Thread (AMAT) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Lone Star who wrote (6160)	5/22/2003 10:00:19 AM
From: Fred Levine	Respond to of 25522

Lone Star-- While not disagreeing with any of your insights, I wonder if any of these creative people were locked on to older and successful solutions to problems while technologies now require different approaches. Often that is the case. Mathematicians frequently are over-the-hill in terms of creativity at 25-35, and many scientists cling to older paradigms way after they proven obsolete. I don't know whether this applies to Applied. Also, in the NY Times, a consumer HDTV camera is about to hit the market, and this could spur sales of HDTV. fred

To: Lone Star who wrote (6160)	5/22/2003 10:13:01 AM
From: Proud_Infidel	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 25522

Maryland researchers demonstrate first quantum Josephson-junction By R. Colin Johnson EE Times (05/21/03 01:08 p.m. EST) PORTLAND, Ore. — The world's first entanglement of quantum bits (qubits) in a solid-state superconducting Josephson Junction circuit has been reported by University of Maryland researchers. Though far from a quantum logic circuit and even farther from a quantum computer, the demonstration holds hope that engineering improvements could someday produce such a computer. "Our findings indicate that you could use Josephson Junctions to build a quantum computer," said professor Fred Wellstood, leader of the project and director of the University's Center for Superconductivity Research. Others contributing to the project include Andrew Berkley, Mark Gubrud, Joseph Foley, Matt Kenyon, Jan Olaf Gaudestad, Huizhong Xu and Roberto Ramos. Unlike the usual physical states such as voltage or current used to encode information in electronic circuits, quantum states have only a probable existence until they are measured. That counters intuition, but it also offers a high degree of parallelism since all possible states of an elementary particle have a probable existence simultaneously. There are many different quantum states—from electron spin direction to photon polarization angles—but all share the common ability to exist in a nebulous state that is not resolved until an observation of them is made. By encoding "1s" and "0s" in these unresolved nebulous states, quantum computers promise to perform parallel operations on both values in a single step. Quantum entanglement is important because it enables the final result to be read out without disturbing the sequence of parallel operations. Wellstood said entanglement blurs the distinction between individual particles so that it is impossible to describe the particles separately no matter how far away they are physically separated. "We view entanglement as essential to quantum computing because it packs more information into quantum bits than is possible with classical computing bits. Six quantum bits, for instance, can represent 64 pieces of information," said Berkley. Wellstood claims his approach "scales up" more easily than competing methods because it is based on solid-state electronic devices, not free-floating subatomic particles. By demonstrating entanglement between two Josephson junctions, Wellstood said he has provided important evidence that quantum computers are possible. The Josephson junction device used by the team is composed of two superconductors separated by an insulating layer so thin that electrons can tunnel through it. Otherwise he uses the same techniques used to make conventional ICs, concluding that his approach is well suited for scaling up. "We can go to the thousands of devices you need to build a real working quantum computer," said Wellstood. Wellstood's work builds on that of AT&T's Albert Chan, whose nearest-neighbor qubits were shown to be capable of interbit coupling that potentially performs calculations without resolving the qubits nebulous quantum state.