Don’t Blink, an article appearing in opli, discussed a little bit about quantum computer and loss of information. Now I don’t claim to know anything about Quantum Mechanics except that elementary particles all have a particular spin (up, down, strange, charm, bottom, top). Great, now we know little pieces of atoms have spin.
But what’s it mean? More specifically what does “blink” mean for quantum computers and in general?
Blink
Blinking (or Fluorescence intermittency) in quantum mechanics, as per Wikipedia, is the “phenomenon of random switching between ON (bright) and OFF (dark) states of the emitter under its continuous excitation.” What this means in simple terms, as I understand it, is that there is a loss of information and efficiency in any given quantum bit since something is being emitted.
That something is information. And in the quantum computer world, that’s very important.
Quantum Computer Problems
How important? Well, it’d be like me writing this blog article and suddenly, you, as the reader, only receive about 50-80% of it! But not like the bottom half or the top half missing. No, more like 50% of random words and letters being left out as a result of sending it to you.
80% seems better, right?
Eh, not even close. Though we could theoretically bridge the gap in understanding to “guess” what information is missing when its received, but that’s not exactly desirable. Not only do we have to struggle to create such a computer to exist, we’d have to run an algorithm on the information it sends to determine what it is trying to say.
That’s a loss in computer power. If it took like a second to fix the data with 100% accuracy, we might not care. Quantum computer certainly expresses the thought that we’d never have to wait ever again for information to be sent.
But what about the algorithm itself? For a quantum bit to be sent to another computer, the other computer has to have the ability to understand a quantum bit. If it’s not a quantum computer, it might have a decreased ability to do so which generates a bottleneck for time.
“Ok, so you’ve expressed the reality of the situation, but is there any hope?”
Potentially. At least one method might produce some positive results.
This method involves fabricating a nano-structure down to the nitty-gritty quantum scale and creating a stable environment.
This is called “Coverage-Mediated Suppression.” The idea is to trap quantum bits like electrons in a Quantum State so that the blinking stops and the switch is turned to an “off” position. That’s to turn them off. To turn them “on,” the same idea is applied but only when they blink does the bit get trapped so that it is stuck in the “on” position.
Carbonite, anyone?
Maybe. If researchers can get the states to stay in those positions for extended periods of time, they could theoretically achieve 100% in efficiency.
If so quantum computer, at least this part of it, is safe in the short term.
If not, there’s always a way and it will be found.
The Synthesis of Genius 