Your PC
A demo of a quantum calculation carried out by Japanese researchers has yielded some pretty mind-blowing results: a single molecule can perform a complex calculation thousands of times faster than a conventional computer.
A proof-of-principle test run of a discrete Fourier transform — a common calculation using spectral analysis and data compression, among other things — performed with a single iodine molecule transpired very well, putting all the molecules in your PC to shame.
Using quantum interference – the vibrations of the atoms themselves – the team was able to run the complete discrete Fourier transform extremely quickly by encoding the inputs into an optically tailored vibrational wave packet which is then run through an excited iodine molecule whose atomic elements are oscillating at known intervals and picked up by a receiver on the other side. The entire process takes just a few tens of femtoseconds (that’s a quadrillionth of a second). So we’re not just talking faster data flow or processing here; these are speeds that are physically impossible on any kind of conventional electronic device.
But don’t trade in your conventional computing power just yet. Like other quantum information platforms, molecular computing is in its infancy; we understand some of its mechanisms, but it’s difficult to execute and there are still a lot of unknowns. Further, researchers aren’t quite sure how they could integrate such technology into something that works the way we’re used to our computers working.
Still, the very fact that researchers were able to pull off a calculation at such speeds shows just how big of an impact molecular calculations could have on the science of computing.
Similar articles
- IBM triples performance of World’s Fastest Computer and breaks the “Quadrillion” Barrier
The world of computing continually throws up feats that are difficult to comprehend. If the world’s fastest car or world’s tallest building were suddenly to be outperformed by a factor of three, we’d be incredulous, yet such quantum leaps have become routine in the world of computing. IBM’s new Blue Gene/P is the second generation
... - High-performance computing
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia This article needs attention from an expert on the subject. See the talk page for details. WikiProject Computing or the Computing Portal may be able to help recruit an expert. (November 2008) This article does not cite any references or sources. Please help improve this article by adding citations to
... - Computing::World’s Fastest Computer::Los Alamos Lab
Quick read Los Alamos scientists doubled the processing speed of the former computing champ. Roadrunner, the new hybrid supercomputer, uses a video game chip to propel performance to more than a thousand trillion calculations per second. Scientists want faster, more powerful high-performance supercomputers to simulate complex physical, biological, and socioeconomic systems with greater realism and
... - HowStuffWorks “What’s the world’s fastest supercomputer used for?”
Protein molecules are the building blocks of the human body. The world’s fastest supercomputer will probably never be known as the world’s fastest supercomputer. RIKEN’s MDGrape-3 is the first machine to break the petaflop barrier — that’s 1 quadrillion calculations (floating-point operations, to be specific) per second — and it’s three times
... - What is a CPU?
If you’re in the market for a new computer, it’s necessary to understand the function of a CPU. Also known as the Central Processing Unit or processor, the CPU is essentially the “brains†of your computer. Without the CPU, you wouldn’t be able to play games, type research papers, or surf the Internet. Your computer
...