Successful quantum calculation uses single iodine molecule to smash computational speed record

Filed under: Fun

Stop the press! Don't click that 'buy now' button! Your Intel i7 980 is weak! Picoseconds -- pah! Today, thanks to some crafty Japanese quantum scientists, we can now talk about computation on the level of femtoseconds. That's thousands of times faster than current computer chips.

The science is way over my head, and the Popular Science article is pretty heavy going, but basically: current computers have a latency of about 500 picoseconds. Using an iodine molecule to do the processing, it took tens of a femtoseconds to complete a complex Fourier transform.

I'm not very good with numbers, but I'm going to try and put pico and femto seconds into a form you can understand... here we go!

Current latency of a 2GHz processor: 0.000,000,000,5 seconds (i.e. one instruction is processed every 500 picoseconds)
Latency of a quantum iodide processor: 0.000,000,000,000,010 seconds (i.e. ten femtoseconds)

Extrapolating that, the iodide molecule used in the quantum computer is vibrating about 5,000 (?) times faster than the clock generator in a 2GHz processor. 10,000GHz... or ONE THOUSAND BILLION HERTZ!

[Please, correct me if my maths are wrong...]

Successful quantum calculation uses single iodine molecule to smash computational speed record originally appeared on Download Squad on Mon, 10 May 2010 08:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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