Quantum computing comes closer as diamonds get spooky
International boffins are chuffed today to publish cunning research in which they demonstrate quantum entanglement - the "spooky action at a distance" so disliked by Einstein - between a pair of small synthetic diamonds: and, this is the clever bit, at room temperature rather than in a cryogenic chamber or similar, so bringing …
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Boffin much?
You missed several opportunities to repeat the word "boffin". Next time, you can satisfy your urge by simply placing any number of "boffin" at the beginning or end of the article, like this:
"Boffin boffin boffin boffin boffin boffin boffin boffin boffin boffin boffin boffin boffin boffin boffin boffin boffin boffin boffin boffin boffin boffin boffin boffin boffin boffin boffin boffin boffin boffin boffin boffin boffin boffin boffin boffin boffin boffin boffin boffin boffin boffin boffin boffin boffin boffin boffin boffin boffin boffin boffin boffin boffin boffin boffin boffin".
Chuff, chuff.
Boffins are all around us
Its funny. I can be gleefully reading stories from Google News and then I come across the word, "boffin". Every time that has happened it has been a Register article. I understand that there are differences in word use across the pond, but to dispense with "scientist" entirely and use boffin all the time seems cheeky at best and lame at worst.
Quantum bitching..
"I am not sure where this particular work will go from here," Andrew Cleland, a rival quantum boffin in California, tells rival journal Nature. "I can't think of a particular use for entanglement that lasts for only a few picoseconds."
I rival in the field tells a rival magazine that work reported has no practical benefit.
As in "Not invented here"? Or, "Oh shit, there's MY funding grant down the swannee".
Funding grant?
If he wants one of those he'd better get on to the "We're all going to die in flames due to global warming unless I get more funding" bandwagon.
Sir
Perhaps we can get them tangled together so they can play with each others' (Qu)bits.
Coherence time
The coherence time really is important, it indicates that they didn't isolate the quantum states from the environment, rather they just did the experiment fast enough that the environment didn't have time to destroy everything. It makes the result a lot less extraordinary, and it brings into question the researchers' claim that the entangled state "persists" at ambient temperature -- it's a funny definition of "persist".
Shirley now all they need
is a really hot cup of tea etc...
Bambleweeny 57
Yup... And a Bambleweenie Sub-Meson Brain. :-)
Oh, and an Atomic Vector Plotter. I know where I can get an HP 7475
-- -- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HP_7475
on the cheap; I'm sure I can bodge together an AVP from that...
They've already got an Atomic Vector Plotter
The laser rig they used to measure the effect is pretty much exactly that.
I checked my local PC World for sub-meson brains, it turns out that they don't sell them and I'm not supposed to go there again.
It's late and I'm tired, but would I be right in thinking a towel would be involved as well?
But...
... surely using diamonds is going to put up hardware costs?!
Probably no more than buying a new set of inkjet cartridges for their printer!
But they they only used two diamonds. The Raman's do everything in threes
Here's To . . .
. . . da beers!
(Oh please, you knew it was coming!)
State of the Art BS
Quantum anything is state of the art BS. Theories about theories, spun by smooth talkers but non-walkers. No proof, stay aloof.
Don't be so hard on him
I think he just had a bad experience with Deepak Chopra.
FTL communcation
The author of this article missed out the potential FTL communications capabilities for quantum entanglement. With 2 quantum entangled entities, any effect on 1 entity is replicated instantaneously in the corresponding entangled entity regardless of the distance between each entity. This means you could stick a rover on Mars and drive it round like a remote control car instead of having to wait 30 minutes uploading instructions. However, it doesn't sound like the scientists involved have achieved anything near the level of robustness in their experiment to achieve this....yet!
Not necessarily
This isn't necessarily possible. Firstly, it's not "any effect", it's that measurements on each particle have to be consistent with their entangled nature, which seems to imply some kind of FTL communication (or else hidden variables). However, it doesn't automatically provide a usable FTL communication channel; since you have no control over *how* the measurements come out.
very good point
I would go further than merely saying that it doesn't "automatically" provide a FTL comms channel. There seems to be fundamental property of information, that it cannot be transmitted faster than light, well otherwise causality would break, wouldn't it.
So, all you will ever get from an entangled FTL channel is a series of random bits, whose inverse is available at the other end, instantly.
I can't see any way to use this to carry payload - though I would welcome suggestions. ??
I was pretty sure..
they had already done an experiment that showed that entanglement operated inside the speed of light. It's just generally done at such a small scale because of the noise that it's kind of hard to measure.
Optional
'... so disliked by Einstein'
Why did Einstien hate entanglement so much? Was it because the response of the entangled twin's 'thing' at a distance was speedier than the speed of a speeding neutrino?
Seriously, how fast does it happen? Anyone got an Alp I can borrow?
Hmm - one day we will be thinking that a picosecond is a long time, so who knows.
Fascinating though that they have been able to achieve entanglement at room temperature, what's next, room temperature super-conductors? teleportation and anti-grav? roll on the science non-fiction..
ttfn
@richard 12
Yeah, but let's be honest, if they had a bambleweenie, they'd only have wanted to sell you norton for sub-meson brains with it.
Anyone else think 14.99 for norton for tablets was a bit of a joke on their latest ads?
1. Quantum entanglement can NOT be used to communicate FTL. There is a correlation in measurments but looking at either end alone they are random so do not communicate information.
2. This is very exciting from the potential to perform experiments on macroscopic objects. One of teh strangest thinsg about quantum mechanics with no generally accepted solution is not why theer are entangled states but why everything is not entangled. The so called measurment problem. There are attempts such as decoherence theory but AFAIK there is no clean solution that does not make the problematical distinction betwene the measurment equipment/observer an dteh system. As the same physcis should apply to both we have a problem. Quantum phsycis is strange and even a century after the first quantum theories still seems just a weird.
'Hmm - one day we will be thinking that a picosecond is a long time, so who knows.
Fascinating...'
there's a lotta femtoseconds in a picosecond...
Sounds like they already have...
... a suitably presentable party hostess, whose underwear can be shifted 30cm westwards.
"Boffins Chuffed at Cunning Research"
Seriously; who talks like that besides you people? I laugh myself sick every time I read a science article here.
I know they can do this
I know they can do this as in trick some government stooge into giving them several millions of dollars to investigate this and then say we might be wrong but lets throw a few more million at the problem just to be sure.
Diamonds? Lasers? Are we sure that Ernst Stavro Blofeld isn't behind this?
FTL comms?
Why does nobody mention comms? Quantum-entangled stuff should theoretically enable us to do a real-life ansible. Now if we only could get to do FTL travel as well....
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