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back to article Quantum computing comes closer as diamonds get spooky

International boffins are chuffed today to publish cunning research in which they demonstrate quantum entanglement - the "spooky action at a distance" so disliked by Einstein - between a pair of small synthetic diamonds: and, this is the clever bit, at room temperature rather than in a cryogenic chamber or similar, so bringing …

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  1. CredulousDolt

    Boffin much?

    You missed several opportunities to repeat the word "boffin". Next time, you can satisfy your urge by simply placing any number of "boffin" at the beginning or end of the article, like this:

    "Boffin boffin boffin boffin boffin boffin boffin boffin boffin boffin boffin boffin boffin boffin boffin boffin boffin boffin boffin boffin boffin boffin boffin boffin boffin boffin boffin boffin boffin boffin boffin boffin boffin boffin boffin boffin boffin boffin boffin boffin boffin boffin boffin boffin boffin boffin boffin boffin boffin boffin boffin boffin boffin boffin boffin boffin".

    Chuff, chuff.

    9 13
    1. Anonymous Coward
      Reply Icon
      Anonymous Coward

      Boffins are all around us

      Its funny. I can be gleefully reading stories from Google News and then I come across the word, "boffin". Every time that has happened it has been a Register article. I understand that there are differences in word use across the pond, but to dispense with "scientist" entirely and use boffin all the time seems cheeky at best and lame at worst.

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  2. Adrian Challinor
    Holmes

    Quantum bitching..

    "I am not sure where this particular work will go from here," Andrew Cleland, a rival quantum boffin in California, tells rival journal Nature. "I can't think of a particular use for entanglement that lasts for only a few picoseconds."

    I rival in the field tells a rival magazine that work reported has no practical benefit.

    As in "Not invented here"? Or, "Oh shit, there's MY funding grant down the swannee".

    10 0
    1. Goat Jam
      Reply Icon

      Funding grant?

      If he wants one of those he'd better get on to the "We're all going to die in flames due to global warming unless I get more funding" bandwagon.

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    2. Sir Runcible Spoon
      Reply Icon

      Sir

      Perhaps we can get them tangled together so they can play with each others' (Qu)bits.

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    3. Tim Starling
      Reply Icon

      Coherence time

      The coherence time really is important, it indicates that they didn't isolate the quantum states from the environment, rather they just did the experiment fast enough that the environment didn't have time to destroy everything. It makes the result a lot less extraordinary, and it brings into question the researchers' claim that the entangled state "persists" at ambient temperature -- it's a funny definition of "persist".

      0 0
  3. Jon Double Nice
    Coat

    Shirley now all they need

    is a really hot cup of tea etc...

    12 1
    1. K. Adams
      Reply Icon
      Boffin

      Bambleweeny 57

      Yup... And a Bambleweenie Sub-Meson Brain. :-)

      Oh, and an Atomic Vector Plotter. I know where I can get an HP 7475

      -- -- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HP_7475

      on the cheap; I'm sure I can bodge together an AVP from that...

      2 0
      1. Richard 12 Silver badge
        Reply Icon
        Pint

        They've already got an Atomic Vector Plotter

        The laser rig they used to measure the effect is pretty much exactly that.

        I checked my local PC World for sub-meson brains, it turns out that they don't sell them and I'm not supposed to go there again.

        2 0
    2. Will Godfrey Silver badge
      Reply Icon
      Happy

      It's late and I'm tired, but would I be right in thinking a towel would be involved as well?

      0 0
  4. Big Al
    Joke

    But...

    ... surely using diamonds is going to put up hardware costs?!

    2 0
    1. Simon Harris
      Reply Icon
      Joke

      Probably no more than buying a new set of inkjet cartridges for their printer!

      1 0
  5. D@v3

    Raman-scattered photons

    Blessed be his noodly appendages.

    10 0
    1. Will Godfrey Silver badge
      Reply Icon

      But they they only used two diamonds. The Raman's do everything in threes

      2 0
      1. Basic
        Reply Icon
        Thumb Up

        Very good

        Wasn't expecting that - nice one

        0 0
  6. MyronC
    Trollface

    This article brought to you be DeBeers...

    4 0
    1. James O'Brien
      Reply Icon
      Joke

      Because quantum entangled diamonds are forever....

      4 0
    2. Handle This
      Reply Icon
      Pint

      Here's To . . .

      . . . da beers!

      (Oh please, you knew it was coming!)

      0 0
  7. OrsonX

    Entanglement

    like women

    unfathomable.

    2 0
  8. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    State of the Art BS

    Quantum anything is state of the art BS. Theories about theories, spun by smooth talkers but non-walkers. No proof, stay aloof.

    1 6
    1. hplasm
      Reply Icon
      Happy

      Nurse!

      You left the workstation unlocked- AGAIN!

      2 0
      1. Francis Boyle Silver badge
        Reply Icon

        Don't be so hard on him

        I think he just had a bad experience with Deepak Chopra.

        0 0
  9. brudinie

    FTL communcation

    The author of this article missed out the potential FTL communications capabilities for quantum entanglement. With 2 quantum entangled entities, any effect on 1 entity is replicated instantaneously in the corresponding entangled entity regardless of the distance between each entity. This means you could stick a rover on Mars and drive it round like a remote control car instead of having to wait 30 minutes uploading instructions. However, it doesn't sound like the scientists involved have achieved anything near the level of robustness in their experiment to achieve this....yet!

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    1. Eddie Edwards
      Reply Icon

      Not necessarily

      This isn't necessarily possible. Firstly, it's not "any effect", it's that measurements on each particle have to be consistent with their entangled nature, which seems to imply some kind of FTL communication (or else hidden variables). However, it doesn't automatically provide a usable FTL communication channel; since you have no control over *how* the measurements come out.

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      1. Anonymous Coward
        Reply Icon
        Thumb Up

        very good point

        I would go further than merely saying that it doesn't "automatically" provide a FTL comms channel. There seems to be fundamental property of information, that it cannot be transmitted faster than light, well otherwise causality would break, wouldn't it.

        So, all you will ever get from an entangled FTL channel is a series of random bits, whose inverse is available at the other end, instantly.

        I can't see any way to use this to carry payload - though I would welcome suggestions. ??

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    2. Shakje
      Reply Icon

      I was pretty sure..

      they had already done an experiment that showed that entanglement operated inside the speed of light. It's just generally done at such a small scale because of the noise that it's kind of hard to measure.

      0 0
  10. Andy The Hat Silver badge
    Facepalm

    Optional

    '... so disliked by Einstein'

    Why did Einstien hate entanglement so much? Was it because the response of the entangled twin's 'thing' at a distance was speedier than the speed of a speeding neutrino?

    Seriously, how fast does it happen? Anyone got an Alp I can borrow?

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  11. Paul_Murphy

    Hmm - one day we will be thinking that a picosecond is a long time, so who knows.

    Fascinating though that they have been able to achieve entanglement at room temperature, what's next, room temperature super-conductors? teleportation and anti-grav? roll on the science non-fiction..

    ttfn

    2 0
  12. Rob Daglish

    @richard 12

    Yeah, but let's be honest, if they had a bambleweenie, they'd only have wanted to sell you norton for sub-meson brains with it.

    Anyone else think 14.99 for norton for tablets was a bit of a joke on their latest ads?

    0 0
  13. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    1. Quantum entanglement can NOT be used to communicate FTL. There is a correlation in measurments but looking at either end alone they are random so do not communicate information.

    2. This is very exciting from the potential to perform experiments on macroscopic objects. One of teh strangest thinsg about quantum mechanics with no generally accepted solution is not why theer are entangled states but why everything is not entangled. The so called measurment problem. There are attempts such as decoherence theory but AFAIK there is no clean solution that does not make the problematical distinction betwene the measurment equipment/observer an dteh system. As the same physcis should apply to both we have a problem. Quantum phsycis is strange and even a century after the first quantum theories still seems just a weird.

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  14. kyza
    Thumb Up

    'Hmm - one day we will be thinking that a picosecond is a long time, so who knows.

    Fascinating...'

    there's a lotta femtoseconds in a picosecond...

    0 0
  15. Oils
    Happy

    Sounds like they already have...

    ... a suitably presentable party hostess, whose underwear can be shifted 30cm westwards.

    0 0
  16. James Micallef Silver badge
    Devil

    Diamond-based chips

    Bling computing for the masses

    0 0
  17. Amos Tirius Trayngre

    "Boffins Chuffed at Cunning Research"

    Seriously; who talks like that besides you people? I laugh myself sick every time I read a science article here.

    0 0
  18. shawnfromnh
    FAIL

    I know they can do this

    I know they can do this as in trick some government stooge into giving them several millions of dollars to investigate this and then say we might be wrong but lets throw a few more million at the problem just to be sure.

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  19. Hoagiebot
    Joke

    Diamonds? Lasers? Are we sure that Ernst Stavro Blofeld isn't behind this?

    1 0
  20. Bronek Kozicki
    Joke

    ok, so where is my superluminal communication set?

    0 0
  21. Daniel B.

    FTL comms?

    Why does nobody mention comms? Quantum-entangled stuff should theoretically enable us to do a real-life ansible. Now if we only could get to do FTL travel as well....

    0 0
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