![\"\"](\"http:\/\/joshuanewmandesign.com\/glyphpress.com\/talk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/08\/quanta.png\" "\\"quanta\\"")
<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
I’m just now writing the Quantum Computation<\/a> section of Human Contact, and lo and behold, there’s a really weird article on io9<\/a> today about a novel \u2014 and frankly paradigm-reshaking \u2014 use of the (still impractical) technology.<\/p>\n Quantum computing is interesting for a number of reasons, but the biggest one is that it can solve mathematically Complex problems in non-eschatonic amounts of time. For instance, let’s say you’re traveling the world. You want to see 50 sights, then come back home, and you want to travel the minimum distance to do it. Solving this problem with a computer like the one you’re reading this on right now would take an impractical amount of time \u2014 it would have to try 3*1064<\/sup> routes. That’s 30,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000. If each simulated route took 1,000th of a second to calculate, it would take 1057<\/sup> years to have proven that the shortest route is found. (For perspective, that’s well past any prediction of the end of the Universe.) A quantum computer operating at the same computational speed, would take about .061 seconds, or the dark half of a blink.<\/p>\n For problems that involve Complexity like that one \u2014 simple systems whose interactions depend on other interactions \u2014 quantum computers straight up solve the problem, assuming there’s a single best answer (and greatly reduce the complexity to knowable probabilities otherwise). That means that most forms of encryption are immediately decryptable. It also means that those with quantum computation capabilities have otherwise provably unbreakable encryption. And it also means that, if someone tries<\/em> to break the code, they leave indelible fingerprints that show that someone tried to tamper with it. With such a thing, you could predict weather with great accuracy, herd behaviors, probably even culture shifts \u2014 all assuming you knew what all the parts were in such a system.<\/p>\n In Human Contact, the Contactors (the starship\/institutions that meet new civilizations) possess a single, multi-node quantum computer, required for making last-femtosecond calculations when passing through a Bridge to another star system. It’s integrated into the structure of the craft itself to maximize use of the radiation shielding of the vessel (radiation being made of quanta) and reduce error with redundancy. The ubiquitous computation and networking of Academics in the field can access the quantum computer, but their clothing, tools, vehicles, and food lacks the capabilities for that kind of computing by itself.<\/p>\n So, make sure your network connection is up if you want to predict the spread of a meme through the society, huh?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I’m just now writing the Quantum Computation section of Human Contact, and lo and behold, there’s a really weird article on io9 today about a novel \u2014 and frankly paradigm-reshaking \u2014 use of the (still impractical) technology. Quantum computing is interesting for a number of reasons, but the biggest one is that it can solve … Continue reading “Quantum Computation and the Contactors”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":35,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1728","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-human-contact","category-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/glyphpress.com\/talk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1728","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/glyphpress.com\/talk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/glyphpress.com\/talk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glyphpress.com\/talk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/35"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glyphpress.com\/talk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1728"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/glyphpress.com\/talk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1728\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/glyphpress.com\/talk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1728"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glyphpress.com\/talk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1728"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glyphpress.com\/talk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1728"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}