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Authors: Robert Kroese
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coverage.”
“ Coverage of what exactly?”
“ Psionic field disruptions.”
I ’m inspecting the doodad. It doesn’t look like much. “Does that qualify as science or is that some of the pseudoscience stuff?”
He shrugs. “It’s a bit out on the fringe. You ever watch any of those ghost hunter shows?”
Here we go again with the ghosts. “I’ve seen a couple.”
“ They use EMF detectors to detect electromagnetic disturbances that are supposed to be evidence of supernatural activity. It’s mostly bullshit, though, because ghosts don’t leave much of a trace in the electromagnetic spectrum.”
“ You’re saying there’s such a thing as ghosts.”
“ Sure, in a sense. Conscious beings leave traces of themselves in their environment that are detectable even after the person is dead.”
“ And before the person is dead.”
“ Ah, you have been talking to Tali,” he says, smiling. “Yes, I was getting to that. OK, what’s the simplest way to explain this? Have you heard of quantum computing?”
I shake my head. “Tali and I talked a little about quantum mechanics. Schrödinger’s Cat and all that. And I’ve done a little reading since then.”
“ So you know about quantum indeterminacy? The idea that it’s possible for matter to be smeared across an area probabilistically?”
I sort of shrug-nod.
“Are you familiar with Moore’s Law?”
“ The one about computing speed doubling every year?”
“ Eighteen months. Gordon Moore’s original formulation was that the number of transistors that can fit on a circuit board doubles every eighteen months, give or take. It’s the rare example of a law outside of the hard sciences that appears to be deterministic. Nobody knows why it happens, exactly, but for some reason just enough breakthroughs in miniaturization occur in the computer industry every eighteen months that computing power doubles. But recently we’ve reached the limits of miniaturization. We’ve literally made circuits that are as small as they can possibly be made: only one atom across. This has prompted a lot of people to predict the end of Moore’s Law. But these limits apply to the current paradigm of computer design, and may not hold true for different sorts of computers. One direction that industry might go in the future is quantum computing.”
“ Which means what, exactly?”
“ You know how quantum mechanics allows a particle to be in two different places at the same time? Well, imagine a computer that can try out two different solutions to a mathematical problem simultaneously, by being in two different states at the same time. And if you can have a computer that’s in two states simultaneously, there’s no reason it couldn’t be in four, or eight, or a thousand. You could theoretically increase a computer’s power infinitely simply by putting it into a state of quantum indeterminacy.”
“ And how do you do that?”
“ Well, you have to put it in a state of complete isolation from the rest of the universe, so that it can’t be observed or interacted with in any way. That’s easy enough to do with a few atoms, if you’ve got the right equipment, but assembling those atoms into something like a computing machine and getting them to do any actual computing before they decohere – that is, before they drop out of a state of indeterminacy – is, well, problematic.”
“ I can imagine,” I say. I can’t, of course. I’m starting to think he’s making this up as he goes along.
“ There are people experimenting with quantum computers right now, but there are some problems with the idea that may be intractable. I suspect that the solution – if there is a solution – will be to create a sort of an interface module that connects a classical computer with a quantum computer. You’d have to sever the connection while the quantum computer is working, of course, or it wouldn’t be properly isolated. But when the quantum computer finds a solution, it
“ Coverage of what exactly?”
“ Psionic field disruptions.”
I ’m inspecting the doodad. It doesn’t look like much. “Does that qualify as science or is that some of the pseudoscience stuff?”
He shrugs. “It’s a bit out on the fringe. You ever watch any of those ghost hunter shows?”
Here we go again with the ghosts. “I’ve seen a couple.”
“ They use EMF detectors to detect electromagnetic disturbances that are supposed to be evidence of supernatural activity. It’s mostly bullshit, though, because ghosts don’t leave much of a trace in the electromagnetic spectrum.”
“ You’re saying there’s such a thing as ghosts.”
“ Sure, in a sense. Conscious beings leave traces of themselves in their environment that are detectable even after the person is dead.”
“ And before the person is dead.”
“ Ah, you have been talking to Tali,” he says, smiling. “Yes, I was getting to that. OK, what’s the simplest way to explain this? Have you heard of quantum computing?”
I shake my head. “Tali and I talked a little about quantum mechanics. Schrödinger’s Cat and all that. And I’ve done a little reading since then.”
“ So you know about quantum indeterminacy? The idea that it’s possible for matter to be smeared across an area probabilistically?”
I sort of shrug-nod.
“Are you familiar with Moore’s Law?”
“ The one about computing speed doubling every year?”
“ Eighteen months. Gordon Moore’s original formulation was that the number of transistors that can fit on a circuit board doubles every eighteen months, give or take. It’s the rare example of a law outside of the hard sciences that appears to be deterministic. Nobody knows why it happens, exactly, but for some reason just enough breakthroughs in miniaturization occur in the computer industry every eighteen months that computing power doubles. But recently we’ve reached the limits of miniaturization. We’ve literally made circuits that are as small as they can possibly be made: only one atom across. This has prompted a lot of people to predict the end of Moore’s Law. But these limits apply to the current paradigm of computer design, and may not hold true for different sorts of computers. One direction that industry might go in the future is quantum computing.”
“ Which means what, exactly?”
“ You know how quantum mechanics allows a particle to be in two different places at the same time? Well, imagine a computer that can try out two different solutions to a mathematical problem simultaneously, by being in two different states at the same time. And if you can have a computer that’s in two states simultaneously, there’s no reason it couldn’t be in four, or eight, or a thousand. You could theoretically increase a computer’s power infinitely simply by putting it into a state of quantum indeterminacy.”
“ And how do you do that?”
“ Well, you have to put it in a state of complete isolation from the rest of the universe, so that it can’t be observed or interacted with in any way. That’s easy enough to do with a few atoms, if you’ve got the right equipment, but assembling those atoms into something like a computing machine and getting them to do any actual computing before they decohere – that is, before they drop out of a state of indeterminacy – is, well, problematic.”
“ I can imagine,” I say. I can’t, of course. I’m starting to think he’s making this up as he goes along.
“ There are people experimenting with quantum computers right now, but there are some problems with the idea that may be intractable. I suspect that the solution – if there is a solution – will be to create a sort of an interface module that connects a classical computer with a quantum computer. You’d have to sever the connection while the quantum computer is working, of course, or it wouldn’t be properly isolated. But when the quantum computer finds a solution, it
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