A few nights ago I travelled to Toronto to attended a very intriguing physics lecture about Quantum Computing, a topic 40 years ahead of its time. Now, before you say "bor-r-r-r-ing", let me tell you that the talk was anecdotal, humourous, interesting, and entertaining. I know that sounds like a stretch for a lecture on physics, but the professor, Dr. Seth Lloyd, has a way of making these concepts easy to grasp.In a night that could have been very, very heavy, it was anything but. First off, Dr. Lloyd, who is a professor of mechanical engineering at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, tells us that he has "no formal training in mechanical engineering", then goes on to say he "has no idea why it works", and even makes the claim that "Albert Einstein was wrong". These things certainly got my attention (thank you Jim Reed).
In his book Programming The Universe, the author claims "All interactions between particles in the universe... convey not only energy but also information - in other words, particles not only collide, they compute." It is not so much a book about quantum mechanics and quantum computers as it is about the make-up of the cosmos. In his lecture, Dr. Lloyd observed that one of the great aspects of being a scientist is that often you set out to prove or discover one theory and end up solving another one entirely by accident. Such was the case for him, and the reason for his book - he just had to tell the world.Though he and his team were the "originator[s] of the first technologically feasible design for a working quantum computer" (about a decade ago), and many more exist in the world today, he learned and discovered that all atoms, electrons and protrons, etc. are all a part of the original information processing system - the universe.
He delivers his lecture with such enthusiasm, passion and fire that captivates you, puts you on the edge of your seat and makes him entirely believeable, even though the sheer nature of his concepts beg the question "why should we beleive you?" I only wish it could have lasted longer than the one hour that it did for he surely had only scratched the surface with us.
My thanks go out to the Waterloo, ON based Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics for bringing this visionary, Dr. Seth Lloyd, to Canada. In fact, they recorded the lecture and it should soon be available as a webcast from their download site. Check them and it out. There are many, many more lectures there covering many different sciences, art and music.
Thanks for reading, and remember - Live it, Live!
Troy Roach
OnSite Technology
519-40-GEEKS
519-404-3357
www.onsitetechnology.caVisit my other blog "Site of the Month" for my picks of the internet's best web sites, links and technology.
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