In these pre-AGM days with nothing spectacular happening on stage (disregarding what is happening behind the scenes), I have just been reminded again that Dr. Taylor has developed and has been granted patents quantum computing techniques, which will probably be deployed in future POET chips.
I just read a thrilling new article questioning a fundamental presumption of quantum physics, that is that a quantum system can be in two different states at the same time – as long as no one observes it. As soon as an observation takes place, the superposed system collapses into on or the other (classical) states. In Schrödinger's famous thought experiment the cat is dead and alive at the same time until someone opens the box.
Until now, physicists assumed that the switch from the superposed state to the classical state would happen in an instant. But researchers are now saying that the transition is a continuous path and can be observed if only this observation is done very carefully, very lightly and almost not at all. This would allows us to watch Schrödinger's cat on its way through the box.
If this is true, the consequences are huge. As the article points out, error correction in quantum computers would be possible. If you could watch a superposed state and find out that something is wrong with it, you could carefully apply measures to bring it back into shape without destroying the superposition. Sounds very promising!
But read for yourself:
Andrea ("Powered by POET")
