Quantum computers offer hope for idle processing

By Matt Whipp

Posted on 23 Feb 2006 at 15:08

When is a running program not running? When it's on a quantum computer, according to a report in the New Scientist.

Researchers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign have devised a method of running a basic database query, via very specialised optical equipment, without actually sending a photon through the program.

Instead, by means of a Zeno effect, the photon is prevented from actually entering the program by repeated measurement of it against various components of the program. This process changes the properties of the photon from which a result can be derived without the program itself ever having been run.

One member of the research team claimed, knowingly, that non-running computers also produce fewer errors.