Where's Pat when we need him?
On 5/23/2011 8:08 AM, [email protected] wrote:
I'm fairly certian this site is not umm being honest. As far as I
know we simply have not yet managed to do this.
One of the biggest problems in quantum compting is that old quantum
chestnut of simply by looking we influence the result.
With Quantum bit (Qbit) computing, the idea is to make use of the
verious quantum states of a moclucule, so that a Qbit can hold
possibly 4 (all to do with spin) pieces of data at the same time. The
problem comes in retriving this data and ensuring that by 'reading'
the data it remains unchanged.
On May 20, 10:17 pm, gabbydott<[email protected]> wrote:
Thanks for providing me with the right key words. And this is the stuff I
meant:http://www.dwavesys.com/en/products-services.html
On Fri, May 20, 2011 at 7:30 PM, Chuck Bowling<
[email protected]> wrote:
Nanotechnology is used in a lot of places but it's still far from reaching
its full potential. Right now most nanotech is just new applications of
materials science. Potentially nanotech could be used to create robots
smaller than a single human cell or for that matter to create new life.
As to quantum physics, it provides insight into microelectronics. But the
hope is that one day we will be able to create computers based on quantum
spin. That still hasn't happened yet.
On Fri, May 20, 2011 at 9:58 AM, gabbydott<[email protected]> wrote:
What? I thought nanotech was already in use in the cosmetics industry and
quantatech (is that how you call it?) in the computer industry.
On Fri, May 20, 2011 at 1:38 PM, Chuck Bowling<
[email protected]> wrote:
I'm in agreement about the radical changes that nanotech appear to
promise. Changes that could spell doom or a complete redefinition of what it
is to be human. It's about the only thing that makes me want to live longer
than my allotted time. Just so that I can see what miracles come next.
On Thu, May 19, 2011 at 9:40 PM, Ash<[email protected]> wrote:
Yeah, I was fear mongering Chuck, a political device. ;-) This is a
favorite topic of mine, it is at the axis of many fields. To accelerate
nanotech development I think we should implement rapid prototyping,
experimentation and analysis systems. When I envision man at the beginning
of this revolution I look for tools that would allow an explosion
(figuratively) of development, being able to catalog and operate a multitude
of experiments in parallel, while building a massive library of modeled
behavior for materials and systems interoperating in the real world to
improve the robustness and diversity of this technology is apparently the
way to go. To think that the behavior of biological systems can be
abstracted and used to formulate dynamic systems guided by expert algorithms
to solve material challenges in real time guided by people over vast
distances, it goes beyond genetics, I am in awe at the potential universe we
are venturing toward. We will also be able to make changes to ourselves and
our experience of this world at a similar rate..
On 5/19/2011 1:41 AM, Chuck Bowling wrote:
I think that with nanotechnology we will be able to synthesize pretty
much anything we want from raw materials in the future. Assuming that any
alien race capable of traveling the trillions of miles to get here would
have at least the same level of technology my guess is that they wouldn't
need anything we'd have to offer.
On Wed, May 18, 2011 at 8:48 PM, Ash<[email protected]> wrote:
There is another good reason to develop our technologies as a species,
think how we are looking at the planets and celestial bodies as vast
resources. Imagine if something else came through and strip mined the
resources we would need to develop into a spacefaring species, that would
suck big time. Like a tribe of humans moving through and picking all the
nuts we squirrels need, or worse, deciding we were in the way of those
resources, think what we have done in those situations.. I know it's
unlikely considering the vast resources out there, but something might have
it's eye on our pale blue dot too, working faster than us at making the
leap.
On 5/18/2011 8:37 PM, Chuck Bowling wrote:
I think right now the technology will only allow us to tell if a planet
is rocky or a gas giant. And even then only if it is a relatively massive
planet. The last time I read anything on the subject the smallest planet
found was something like 3 times the size of the Earth.
IMO, the analogy with Columbus doesn't hold. 17th century technology
allowed humans to travel anywhere on the Earth - albeit slow and wrought
with hazard. If the analogy is that a neighboring star is like a new
continent then we are more like cavemen discovering that a log can float. At
the rate we're going it might be a thousand years before we can actually
mount an expedition to another star.
I think the primary reason we are so far from actually exploring other
stars is mainly political rather than technological. But, I think you are
right. It is a project worth attaching too. Now if we could just make the
damn politicians see it that way... ;)
On Wed, May 18, 2011 at 4:58 PM, archytas<[email protected]> wrote:
I'm not sure how accurate they can be in revealing planets enough like
ours to offer possibilities of a new promised land. They claim there
is one 20 light years away, or 300,000 years at current space travel
speeds. One can feel that this at least puts us somewhere near the
position of 'Columbus'. Our current 'tin-foil' technology won't do,
but at this kind of distance we are talking about something other than
worm-holes, 'relativity flight' or the kind of physics in which
distance is an illusion.
For someone like me who can't take god-stories seriously and quite
likes the idea of a human future (or at least the idea of evolution
not just ending through catastrophe), there is an opportunity to
believe in something distant in time and a need for us to direct
ourselves towards it. A time, perhaps in which a form of conscious
life can live very differently from now, and a project worth attaching
to - perhaps a reason for spirituality. Comments on this or the
technology welcome.- Hide quoted text -
- Show quoted text -
