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D-Wave's 16 qubit quantum computer is the pride of current quantum computers   (Source: D-Wave)
A team from Australia suggests that not only will ternary data be helpful in the budding field of quantum computing, but practically necessary

Generations of computer scientists grew up under the notion that ternary computing was just around the corner. Modern computers store information in a binary system, a logical representation of true and false.  Ternary computing, on the other hand, stores information as a representation of false, null and true; 0, 1, 2 or -1, 0 and 1. 

Computer storage methods going back to punch cards made binary computing methods sensible.  When storage moved to magnetic and transistor-based alternatives, the binary system continued to flourish -- and any reason to switch to a ternary system was nonessential with prolific and scalable storage.

But with the advent of quantum computing, ternary computing has a new cause.  Universal quantum logic gates, the building blocks of infant quantum computing, require hundreds of gates in order to complete any useful work.  D-Wave's quantum computer, announced last year, consists of only 16 qubits -- just enough for a controlled NOT gate. 

It's an inevitability that quantum computers will continue to scale, even based on current technologies. In the meantime a team lead by University of Queensland's B. P. Lanyon proposed a new method to scale quantum computers faster by exploiting the well researched fields of ternary computing.

The modern representation of true or false can be expressed as a bit.  The quantum computing equivalent of a bit is dubbed a qubit.  Traditional computers that store data in ternary operations are dubbed trits; the quantum equivalent is called a qutrit.

What makes Lanyon's method truly innovative is that by using qutrits for universal quantum gates instead of qubits, researchers can reduce the number gates needed in a computer significantly. 

Lanyon proposes that a computer that would traditionally take 50 conventional quantum gates could use as few as 9 gates using the ternary method. 

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The FUTURE IS QUANTUM NULL!
By StormEffect on 4/6/2008 4:58:12 PM , Rating: 5
It looks like I finally have some hope that 50 years from now I can tell my grandkids, "Now see here young'ins, back in my day calculating pie took a lot longer than .2 seconds!"




RE: The FUTURE IS QUANTUM NULL!
By lagitup on 4/6/2008 5:44:12 PM , Rating: 3
pff .2 seconds is like an eternity. try .03141 seconds :P


RE: The FUTURE IS QUANTUM NULL!
By Joz on 4/6/08, Rating: -1
RE: The FUTURE IS QUANTUM NULL!
By Cr0nJ0b on 4/6/2008 6:22:15 PM , Rating: 5
quote:
pft, on my Core 666 Pentium 1000 core CPU can calculate ten trillion digits of pie in 1 googleseconds (0.000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 0000000000000000000000001)


mmmmmmm....pie.

:-)


RE: The FUTURE IS QUANTUM NULL!
By ZaethDekar on 4/6/2008 6:36:17 PM , Rating: 2
You know.. with time travel... that is a very interesting thing you could do....

Considering some speculation is you can never have too large of a change in time due to there being issues with worm holes and destruction of time itself and so on so forth... so. If you did have a simulation you wanted to do.. you have just one cable that goes through time... That way the computer goes through the numbers, sends it to another computer, that is connected to a computer in the past (Or itself?) that shows the results... thus you start... then a few seconds later.. the other computer shows the ending results.

Time to go to school for quantum mechanics, light mechanics, and space mechanics and go to work on the Delorian.


RE: The FUTURE IS QUANTUM NULL!
By KristopherKubicki (blog) on 4/6/2008 6:54:00 PM , Rating: 3
Mmmm :) Interesting topic. With our current understanding of time travel, it seems like only subatomic particles stand much of a chance of surviving a wormhole -- which might be enough for a future communication device. And at that it seems like it would only be useful for single direction communication (from the future to the past).

But then you could run the simulation, return the results to your past self and then never have to run the simulation in the first place.

I guess the strongest argument against universe-folding paradoxes is that Academia would never accept that, so who would do it!


RE: The FUTURE IS QUANTUM NULL!
By exanimas on 4/6/2008 7:31:35 PM , Rating: 5
Mmm, future communication devices.

*Calls future self*: "What's the biggest invention of your time and how can I make it so we can be rich?... Also when will I get laid next?"


RE: The FUTURE IS QUANTUM NULL!
By FITCamaro on 4/7/2008 8:34:00 AM , Rating: 5
quote:
Also when will I get laid next?


Sadly the answer will still be never.


RE: The FUTURE IS QUANTUM NULL!
By geeg on 4/7/2008 8:43:13 AM , Rating: 2
If you sit at the computer this much.. dont need a computer to know.


RE: The FUTURE IS QUANTUM NULL!
By FITCamaro on 4/7/2008 9:16:06 AM , Rating: 1
You're right I don't. Will be Tuesday night since that's the next time I'll see the girlfriend.


RE: The FUTURE IS QUANTUM NULL!
By Samus on 4/8/2008 1:42:28 PM , Rating: 1
You only have one girlfriend!? pfft. n00bs...


By freeagle on 4/8/2008 2:20:12 PM , Rating: 2
girlfriend != hand


By ZaethDekar on 4/6/2008 11:21:11 PM , Rating: 2
However, private institues or government agencies (NASA in particular) would love having that.... imagine needing a few months to see if this new design will hold up to intersteller travel... but getting the results instantly. However... in theory, you can have it all done on one computer.. connected to itself, multiple times through time.

So then a super computer wouldn't be how many CPU's it has it would be how many times its there multiplied by the number of CPUs. So 100 computers could become 1000's. and it would take less power per computer however then it comes into play of how much power it would take to open a hole in time. Would it be 1 mass amount or would it be a constant? Granted... I am sure there would be a way to gain a part of that power back though the time hole.

Mmmm I can't wait for the day time isn't a concern.


RE: The FUTURE IS QUANTUM NULL!
By AvidDailyTechie on 4/8/2008 2:43:56 AM , Rating: 2
The implications of Einstein’s theory of relativity lead to the closest things I'v ever seen to plausible "time travel".

Anyways, violating the idea that you cannot meet your father before he has birthed you leads to catastrophic consequences in physics…

Rather than trying to redefine everything, and include a really cool idea, why not try to account for phenomena in more constructive ways. :-)

nuen.


By desertvet on 4/8/2008 11:52:56 AM , Rating: 4
As I remember Einstein's Special Theory of Relativity, time travel was possible by the act of someone accelerating and traveling near the speed of light relative to someone that was static. But the direction of time travel was to the future for the person traveling near the speed of light, never to the past.


RE: The FUTURE IS QUANTUM NULL!
By DerwenArtos12 on 4/7/2008 3:19:01 AM , Rating: 2
Why is it that quantum computing topics seem to always turn into discussions of quantum mechanics?

Time travel will never exist for the sole purpose that you cannot change the past without irreparably changing the future away from the future in which making the time travel backwards was even necessary therefore negating the travel and creating a temporal paradox.

On the flip side, nothing wrong with traveling to the future, you just can't go back from whence you came because the knowledge gained from the future will change the present so that future to which you went will no longer exist so the knowledge gained will be essentially useless in the new future.

Take the back to the future movie. When the book traveled from the future to the past that changed the present, with the changed present comes a changed future, in that changed future, the book may not have even been written, let alone in that shop window where he could buy and subsequently throw away the book, let alone the fact that the changed bif would not have been there had everything else still gone the same way.

Lets not forget that the whole idea of tearing the space-time continuum is just an all around bad idea regardless of whether or not so much as an atom travels from one time to another, we have no way of even guessing at the repercussions of the mere existence of the tear itself.


By KristopherKubicki (blog) on 4/7/2008 12:30:11 PM , Rating: 3
Well, paradoxes aside it does seem possible that you can open up a wormhole with a device -- and possibly send data through it. The only problem is that you can only communicate with future you that has the same device open. Also the amount of energy seems to be a problem (seriously unfathomable amounts of energy).

But, Einstein and others have proposed it possible.


RE: The FUTURE IS QUANTUM NULL!
By m104 on 4/8/2008 3:58:15 AM , Rating: 2
I dont buy that whole "because you change something that created you, you cannot exist" - organisms just dont work that way. I also think meeting yourself would be possible, given that time travel is possible that is....


By callmeroy on 4/8/2008 10:47:58 AM , Rating: 2
I find the topics of time travel and creation and really the universe as a whole as the most interesting ones I can think of. It just boggles my mind -- time travel. Creation -- relgious beliefs aside, how the hell does something come from nothing? Or was there really always something, but then how did that something become something in the first place? And the mess of part of it all is it must "work" because alas here we are living and breathing....

Anyway I read a book on time travel and the great minds all actually say it is possible in "theory" the largest problem would actually be the sums of energy needed would be near infathomable to comprehend. I mean in this book they are talking on the order of energy equivalent to the Sun.


RE: The FUTURE IS QUANTUM NULL!
By eman7613 on 4/6/2008 7:59:54 PM , Rating: 2
my copmuter can calculate pi to 100k decimal places in 2.71828183 seconds :) :P


RE: The FUTURE IS QUANTUM NULL!
By MrPoletski on 4/6/2008 10:39:58 PM , Rating: 2
Is that on one of these new ee pc's?


RE: The FUTURE IS QUANTUM NULL!
By christojojo on 4/6/2008 11:00:35 PM , Rating: 5
No, cant you read? He said, his "copmuter"

Apparently his mother is genius with a badge. ;)


RE: The FUTURE IS QUANTUM NULL!
By eman7613 on 4/7/2008 9:57:16 AM , Rating: 3
actually the # of seconds was the constant "e", guess no one noticed.


By MrPoletski on 4/7/2008 10:22:38 PM , Rating: 2
Why do you think I asked if it was done on the new asus 'eee PC'? :)


RE: The FUTURE IS QUANTUM NULL!
By phxfreddy on 4/6/2008 7:44:25 PM , Rating: 2
a piece of pie.


By Misty Dingos on 4/7/2008 8:40:10 AM , Rating: 2
The pi is a lie.
The pi is a lie.
The pi is a lie.
The pi is a lie........


RE: The FUTURE IS QUANTUM NULL!
By Regs on 4/7/2008 4:37:38 PM , Rating: 2
"Looks like Ill have to buy the white album again"


RE: The FUTURE IS QUANTUM NULL!
By Jephph on 4/8/2008 7:40:46 AM , Rating: 2
quote:
It looks like I finally have some hope that 50 years from now I can tell my grandkids, "Now see here young'ins, back in my day calculating pie took a lot longer than .2 seconds!"


Pi will still take more than .02 seconds seeing as it has no end.


"It's likely an inevitability"
By Basilisk on 4/6/2008 6:58:30 PM , Rating: 5
It's a dead-certain possibility that there's a unavoidable chance and an inescapable potential that this qualified absolute ain't the best form of English! :) (Even if we completely understand your probable meaning....) </pedantics>




By KristopherKubicki (blog) on 4/6/2008 7:19:10 PM , Rating: 2
Ah yeah and it's so cliche too :( My bad.


By eye smite on 4/6/2008 7:20:43 PM , Rating: 3
That's an interesting way to put it.


By Arctucas on 4/7/2008 7:36:30 AM , Rating: 2
It should in no way be misconstrued that I do not disagree!


Qutrit?
By Some1ne on 4/6/2008 10:22:42 PM , Rating: 3
Now I've never been fond of physics, especially the more advanced parts of it that start becoming increasingly counter-intuitive the more you delve in to them, but as I understand the way qubits work, they are already capable or storing more than just 0 and 1. To quote the wikipedia article, "a qubit can be 0, 1, or a superposition of both".

So if that's the case, then why is a qutrit even necessary? Shouldn't it be possible to just map the "superposition of both" value to 2 (or "null", or whatever you want to call the third value in the ternary system)? It seems like doing so would allow ternary logic functions to be built out of the existing qubit technology, and eliminate the need to implement a whole new basic quantum storage unit such as the qutrit.

I guess I'll wait and hope someone who actually understands physics takes the time to explain why qutrits really are required.




RE: Qutrit?
By Joz on 4/6/2008 10:43:33 PM , Rating: 2
Its so they can use differnt words then the qubit quys.


RE: Qutrit?
By MrBlastman on 4/7/2008 11:10:31 AM , Rating: 3
It gets them one step closer to quantum pr0n... The quti* ....


Old Idea
By chromal on 4/7/2008 2:11:33 PM , Rating: 2
Ternary Computing's Big Debut? Oh, how we continue to fail to learn from our history.

Ternary computing's debut was in the 1958 Setun computer, something a cursory study of Soviet computing history would have revealed, had this article's author bothered to do some basic research.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Setun

The only thing 'new' here is using it in quantum computer implementations.




RE: Old Idea
By callmeroy on 4/9/2008 2:20:46 PM , Rating: 2
fail...

I think you are being one of those folks very common these days on forums -- finding the need to nit pick or otherwise start arguments over any little detail on a web forum.

Reading the context of the article I did not get the impression they were suggesting Ternary computer is brand new and was never used before - quite the opposite.

the article at one point even mentions the "well researched" fields of ternary computing...logic dictates to me if they stated something as "well researched" obviously that must mean it has already existed.

The only part of your post I agree with is the last line, you are correct (and that's the whole point the article is making) it is the first using ternary computing with quantum computing.


Sure.....
By aeroxander on 4/6/2008 8:16:35 PM , Rating: 2
Um yah, totally understood that, ask me anything.... except for what that article was about....




Nothing to see here
By NickF001 on 4/7/2008 5:38:57 PM , Rating: 2
move along now




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