Quantum Computing

For the NSA...

The usual rules of physics break down at the subatomic level. According to quantum mechanics, electrons and photons can act like both particles and waves, located in more than one place at a given moment — among other goofy behaviors.

For instance, check out the video from Google below to learn why, when you plunge into the quantum realm, pizza might also be a bagel. (Go ahead, we’ll wait.)

Applying quantum principles to computers gets you a different kind of computing.

Traditionally, bits of memory are either set to 0 or 1, on or off.  But a quantum bit (or qubit) can be in a state of 0 and 1 at the same time.

Jordan Brandt, technology futurist at Autodesk (Photo courtesy of Autodesk)

That means so called quantum computers, like the D-Wave Two recently acquired by Google and NASA, can process all combinations of bits at once, enabling fast and powerful computation. (For our purposes here, we’re sidestepping the controversy over whether or not the machine is a genuine quantum computer.)

“Computer scientists have given up on the brute force approach because there are not enough computers in the world,” said Vern Brownell, CEO of D-Wave Systems, in an earlier interview. “With this tool computer scientists can look at really solving for answers and doing it in real time. In some cases you couldn’t do it any other way.”

That opens up new possibilities for exploring complex scenarios with lots of variables and less than perfect data, like simulating NASA missions to Mars or Google’s efforts in artificial intelligence and machine learning.

“We can have more open-ended questions,” said Jordan Brandt, technology futurist at Autodesk. “We can suspend disbelief longer in asking questions, because it can hold multiple states simultaneously.”

http://recode.net/2014/01/01/robots-regenerative-medicine-and-more-futurists-...