Folks,

[22/12/01]

IBM has built a quantum computer to solve Shor’s algorithm.

If you’re completely in the dark about such things (and golly gosh, there’s really no reason you shouldn’t be), you need only imagine a small computer built out of lots and lots of little blocks, where each block acts as part of both the CPU and the memory. Now think big by thinking small and further imagine that each block is built out of five fluorine and two carbon atoms.

So where do you hook up the keyboard and monitor? Well, you need to program these things using bursts of radio waves… and you can get your answers by putting the whole shebang (which fits into a test tube) into a nuclear magnetic resonance instrument similar to those found in hospitals.

Yeah, okay, it’s pretty esoteric stuff right now, but it’s also very ground-breaking work, too. If this technology can be brought forward in a practical manner, we’ll someday see computers more powerful than any currently available supercomputer which will fit entirely in a thimble (and probably be powered by a watch battery).

http://www.research.ibm.com/resources/news/20011219_quantum.shtml

Of course, what we do with new wizz-bang technology at the consumer level is all together a different matter.

This week’s winner for the “most inappropriate waste of electrons” goes to http://www.familycow.com/TVGuardian.html

Kudos to TimK and Burch for putting me onto this stuff.

On that unspeakable perversion of high-tech into low-brow, today’s Ziggy’s Joke o’ the day looks at biting-edge dentistry (from AnnE, who, as we all know, is not Anne):

A fellow goes to his dentist complaining that something feels very wrong in his mouth. The dentist takes a look and shakes his head, saying, “That new upper plate I put in for you six months ago is completely disintegrated. Something has almost completely eroded it away. What have you been eating?”

The fellow replies, “Well, all I can think of is that about four months ago my wife made some asparagus and put some stuff on it she called Hollandaise sauce. I loved it so much that now I eat it on everything; my meat, my fish, on vegetables, on toast.. on everything!”

“Well,” said the dentist, “that’s the answer. Hollandaise sauce is made with lots of lemon juice, which is highly corrosive. And it has eaten away your upper plate. I’ll have to make you a new one, and this time, I’d better make it out of chrome.”

“Chrome? Why chrome?” asked the patient.

“It’s simple,” replied the dentist. “Everyone knows there’s no plate like chrome for the Hollandaise!”

Ziggy’s Tip o’ the day is in the form of a dual quote:

“Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from… … magic” — Arthur C. Clarke … a rigged demo.” — Andy Finkel

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