First Quantum Byte Created

gila_monster writes "Juice Enews Daily is reporting that the Institute of Quantum Optics and Quantum Information at the University of Innsbruck in Austria has created an entanglement of eight quantum particles, yielding a quantum byte or 'qubyte,' or eight qubits. The formal paper was published in the December 1 issue of Nature. A qubyte with eight ions provides a computing matrix of 65536 mostly independent elements. No word in the article about whether they were able to actually use the qubyte for computing."

obligatory bill cosby quote

[baldass_newbie]

"God, what's a qubit?"

A few more..

[Renraku]

We need a few more before quantum porn.

Think about it..any kind of porn in one file..

Re:no word in the article

[Anonymous Coward]

Quickly get those tinfoil hats on!

Re:no word in the article

[Anonymous Coward]

And what would an alcoholic like yourself know about anything?

note to non-geek mods who haven't memorised every line of monty python: this is a joke

Re:no word in the article

[bhiestand]

I think we can be sure that if somebody had unlocked the secret of quantum computing there's a chance they'd say so at some point.

Unless that someone worked for the National Security Agency.

Not true! They'd most certainly tell their boss about it, especially when discussing future salaries and promotions.

Think of the cats!

[Anonymous Coward]

Let us all take a minute to reflect on all the cats who died in support of this research.

Or maybe they didn't.

Star Trek School of Programming

[UncleAlias]

"That's not a bug, that's a quantum singularity!"

New frontiers in computing

[Urusai]

Maybe we can finally figure out what happened to that dang cat.

But...

[cshank4]

But will it run Linux?

And God Said to Moses...

[craznar]

... build a Linux Box 40 Qubits in size....

Why, Oh, Why?

[tcdk]

Do we really need this? I can't imagine how anybody will have usage for more that four qubits anyway. When will the madness stop?

Re:A few more..

[aug24]

Mmmm, quantum porn. Super-position, entanglement and some guy with a pussy.

J.

Make no bones about it, Calcium works

[digitaldc]

"With a trap using magnetic fields they captured eight calcium ions, lined them up, and set up them in "W states" using a complicated laser technology"

Calcium again coming to the rescue to provide structure for a complex system. What would people or quantum computers be without it?

Re:Mostly independent?

[spot35]

We are qubit 7 of 8 or computing matrix 65536. We will will add your cryptographic and entangled distinctivenes to our own. We are the qubyte. Resistance is uncertain.

yay!

[3-State Bit]

I was born in 1983, but now I can re-experience even advances in computing that happened in the seventies and before! Cabinet-sized hard-drives that hold a couple of megabytes? Quantum computing is at A FEW QUBITS! I doubt many people here lived through the ENIAC (and realized what it meant at the time), but that's exactly what my grandchildren will be hearing from me. Granson, back in my day we had EIGHT QUBITS! Not qubytes, QUBITS, sonny boy, eight of 'em. Like this: one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight. Total. And that was state of the art. It was a research demonstration! And we liked it!

"There is a world market for 4, maybe 5 quantum computers."

"512 kiloqubytes outta' be enough for anybody!"

Etc, etc, etc. WHOOOHOO!!! I was there at ground zero, baby!!! In ought six!!!!

What do you mean ought-six, grandpa? "I mean 2006, granson".

"Whoa! When were you born?"

"I was born in the LAST MILENNIUM, GRANSON"

"Did they have cars?"

"Just road ones."

"What about Google?"

"yeah, but it wasn't like today. Man I wish I'd have held on to that stock tho'..."

No word?

[Syberghost]

Actually, there was an announcement, but they used their qubit to crack your ssh key in five seconds and deleted it from your email.

Re:Why eight?

[glwtta]

Why did they choose eight 'bits' for their quantum 'byte'?

They probably felt that 7 wasn't enough and 9 was too many.

Re:Make no bones about it, Calcium works

[NatasRevol]

What would people or quantum computers be without it?

Flexible?

Re:no word in the article

[Anonymous Coward]

Quickly get those tinfoil hats on!

Yours has been off?

Re:Oblig

[maxwell demon]

1) Are they certain?

I guess they produced an eigenstate of the atom number operator, therefore they should be quite certain.

What do qbit bytes taste like?

That of course depends on what they are made of :-) Now it's very likely that their qubits only contain the traditional flavours up and down, because particles with strange flavour tend not to be very stabile.

So is this cat dead or what?

I just looked: It is dead. However, now I have problems with PETA activists from Copenhagen who claim I killed the cat by looking ...

Re:no word in the article

[bhiestand]

Did you ever see "Mercury Rising"?

Yes, but I thought it was rather unrealistic. Any self-respecting cryptologic organization would give the young man a security clearance and let him work his magic. If they really think he's a threat, their best bet would be to lock him in one of those windowless buildings and make him check his email 500 times a day. That'll destroy him mentally faster than a lobotomy.

Re:Why eight?

[City Jim 3000]

The extranous bit(s) are evil of course.

So,

[2names]

When do we get an Improbability Drive?

Re:no word in the article

[Anonymous Coward]

> I think we can be sure that if somebody had unlocked the secret of quantum computing there's a chance they'd say so at some point.

Ha. Very funny, in a dead/alive-cat sense.

Of course, they can't tell or else the whole thing will stop working... in a way, they've outdone the cold fusion team.

Well done!

Re:New frontiers in computing

[indifferent children]

New physics textbook: 101 Uses for a Dead or Not-Dead Cat

Re:Que?

[Pollardito]

very, very enlightening. not that i understood at all what you said, but now i understand perfectly how my dad feels when i explain the PC on his desk

Re:no word in the article

[k1773re7f]

Yes. That is specifically why I have become confortably numb.

Oh good, more E-Mail

Re:A few more..

[syle]

But is the pussy alive or dead? Beastality or necrophilia are two completely different areas of porn and discriminating viewers need to know!

Re:But...

[maxwell demon]

It will be in a superposition of running Linux and not running Linux, until you look if it does.