IBM Builds A Limited Quantum Computer

IBM Builds A Limited Quantum Computer 317

Posted by chrisd on Wednesday December 19, 2001 @09:04PM from the soon-your-pgp-key-will-be-useless dept.

phr1 writes "IBM has announced and Yahoo has noted that the first working implementation of Shor's factoring algorithm. Using NMR techniques they built a seven-qubit quantum computer and factored the number 15 into the factors 3 and 5. This is by far the most complicated quantum computation ever done. It's quite an amazing feat--many people thought quantum computing was just a theoretical curiosity and Shor's algorithm could never be implemented in practice."

IBM Builds A Limited Quantum Computer

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OS (Score:3, Funny)

by geekoid ( 135745 ) writes: <dadinportland&yahoo,com> on Wednesday December 19, 2001 @09:16PM (#2729748) Homepage Journal

Now all I need to do is write a proprietary OS for it, and convince IBM to let me keep the rights!

I'm thinking of calling my company "Quantumsoft"

And my software would be able to slow the quantum computer to a crawl!

anyone got a patch... (Score:3, Funny)

by merlyn ( 9918 ) writes: on Wednesday December 19, 2001 @09:23PM (#2729775) Homepage Journal

... for GnuPG to have 100000 bit keys? Quickly?

but... (Score:1, Funny)

by klocwerk ( 48514 ) writes: on Wednesday December 19, 2001 @09:24PM (#2729779) Homepage

What kind of tea did they use????

IBM's largest computer ever (Score:4, Funny)

by charon_on_acheron ( 519983 ) writes: on Wednesday December 19, 2001 @09:24PM (#2729781) Homepage

From the Yahoo article:
"Previously the largest computer IBM had built was based on five atoms."

So what about the 2 ton behemoths everyone's been buying for years? ;-)

Crud! (Score:5, Funny)

by Pathos78 ( 398591 ) writes: on Wednesday December 19, 2001 @09:25PM (#2729789)

And I thought my 4-bit key's were safe!
Damn the relentless progress of computing!

Nonsense! (Score:2, Funny)

by Anonymous Coward writes: on Wednesday December 19, 2001 @09:26PM (#2729795)

Just send in Robert Redford and his team of lovable misfits to get the black box out of the answering machine!

My boss says ... (Score:3, Funny)

by benedict ( 9959 ) writes: on Wednesday December 19, 2001 @09:34PM (#2729827)

... "They should have asked me to do it. They could
have saved a lot of money."

Meow (Score:5, Funny)

by KarmaBlackballed ( 222917 ) writes: on Wednesday December 19, 2001 @09:46PM (#2729868) Homepage Journal

If you put a cat inside this computer, will it die?

Re:IBM's largest computer ever (Score:5, Funny)

by Hank Reardon ( 534417 ) writes: on Wednesday December 19, 2001 @09:51PM (#2729886) Homepage Journal

So what about the 2 ton behemoths everyone's been buying for years? ;-)
Big fucking atoms...

Almost there! (Score:5, Funny)

by Black Parrot ( 19622 ) writes: on Wednesday December 19, 2001 @10:00PM (#2729914)

7 Qbits already? That's great! No one should ever need more than 640 Qbits.

Re:Meow (Score:0, Funny)

by Anonymous Coward writes: on Wednesday December 19, 2001 @10:01PM (#2729917)

Yes and no.

Time to call the DMCA (Score:1, Funny)

by Anonymous Coward writes: on Wednesday December 19, 2001 @10:11PM (#2729944)

I based my personal encryption technology on mutiplying the two primes 3 and 5. Now that IBM has broken my encryption, I'm going to go Adobe on their asses!

Downsides.... (Score:1, Funny)

by dh003i ( 203189 ) writes: <`dh003i' `at' `gmail.com'> on Wednesday December 19, 2001 @10:32PM (#2730028) Homepage Journal

The downsides of the possible onset of quantum computers are:

(1) Any government agent could crack your encryption...after all, a quantum computer could crack a fifteen thousand letter password in like two seconds. (of course, not for PGP, since it is based on unsolvable algaebraic formuli)

(2) This means that programmers will take this as an excuse to write even sloppier code and put in even more unnecessary features that we don't want and don't need.

Old news (Score:5, Funny)

by sharkey ( 16670 ) writes: on Wednesday December 19, 2001 @11:07PM (#2730169)

7 qubits!?!? Sheesh, Noah's Ark was 300 qubits long, by 50 wide, by 30 high. And seven is supposed to be impressive thousands of years later?

that's not much of an upshot then... (Score:1, Funny)

by Anonymous Coward writes: on Wednesday December 19, 2001 @11:49PM (#2730284)

...since all NP-complete problems are currently possible to solve. You can solve any NP-complete problem on a deterministic computer, just not in polynomial time.
More generally (and more interestingly), there is absolutely NOTHING that a quantum computer, or any mythical non-deterministic computer, can do that a deterministic one can't. DTM's are just a bit slow is all.

Re:OS (Score:2, Funny)

by mj01nir ( 153067 ) writes: on Thursday December 20, 2001 @12:44AM (#2730430)

Now all I need to do is write a proprietary OS for it, and convince IBM to let me keep the rights!

Write your own? Who the hell would do that? Just buy someone else's, slap your label on it, and then start bundling everything under the sun along with it.

So you want 1,000 copies of the Quantumsoft Ion OS? OK, we'll give you a great deal if you also buy 1,000 copies of Quantumsoft Cubix office suite and 1,000 copies of Quantumsoft Visual Q++.

Re:IBM's largest computer ever (Score:3, Funny)

by iabervon ( 1971 ) writes: on Thursday December 20, 2001 @01:00AM (#2730473) Homepage Journal

Those were based on only five atoms. The 2 tons were for the case, the power supply, the monitor, the fans, those sturdy IBM keyboards, the user manual, and so forth. But all of the really clever design was in those five atoms.

Re:You Heard It Here First... (Score:4, Funny)

by Traa ( 158207 ) writes: on Thursday December 20, 2001 @02:12AM (#2730691) Homepage Journal

please tell us you heard some important dude at IBM claim this growth patern first....

because I'm not looking forward to calling it cybrpnk's law

Fool! (Score:3, Funny)

by Jebediah21 ( 145272 ) writes: on Thursday December 20, 2001 @05:09AM (#2731023) Homepage Journal

You should have used 5-bit keys like me.

Re:The End of Asymmetric Key Distribution (Score:3, Funny)

by zCyl ( 14362 ) writes: on Thursday December 20, 2001 @09:46AM (#2731556)

I think that most current crypto algorithms are based on factoring primes

When you factor your first prime, I recommend publishing the result...

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IBM Builds A Limited Quantum Computer 317

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IBM Builds A Limited Quantum Computer

OS (Score:3, Funny)

anyone got a patch... (Score:3, Funny)

but... (Score:1, Funny)

IBM's largest computer ever (Score:4, Funny)

Crud! (Score:5, Funny)

Nonsense! (Score:2, Funny)

My boss says ... (Score:3, Funny)

Meow (Score:5, Funny)

Re:IBM's largest computer ever (Score:5, Funny)

Almost there! (Score:5, Funny)

Re:Meow (Score:0, Funny)

Time to call the DMCA (Score:1, Funny)

Downsides.... (Score:1, Funny)

Old news (Score:5, Funny)

that's not much of an upshot then... (Score:1, Funny)

Re:OS (Score:2, Funny)

Re:IBM's largest computer ever (Score:3, Funny)

Re:You Heard It Here First... (Score:4, Funny)

Fool! (Score:3, Funny)

Re:The End of Asymmetric Key Distribution (Score:3, Funny)

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