NPR Tunnels into Future State

nextquant Blog points to one of the most ill phrased NPR story titles of all time:

Quantum Computer Discovery Nets Nobel Prize
by Richard Harris
All Things Considered, October 9, 2007 · Two scientists will share this year’s Nobel Prize in physics for discoveries that have revolutionized computer memory.
Albert Fert of France and Peter Grunberg of Germany independently discovered a phenomenon that relies on the spooky world of quantum mechanics to read data from computer disks.
Most computers use it, because it allows manufacturers to pack a lot more data on a single hard drive. It also changed the way scientists and engineers have been thinking about computer memory.

Crap, if I knew that all I had to do was use my hard drive reading head to build a quantum computer I would have done that years ago.

3 Replies to “NPR Tunnels into Future State”

  1. Sometimes I wish I could bitchslap reporters with cash penalties, like the FCC fines for profanities. It’s like these a bunch of reporters kept describing it to each other until someone mentioned a single scientist had uttered the words QM, and then poof! the story’s ready to be published.

  2. Apparently the NPR story when it was first broadcast, made it sound like the winners invented the iPod 🙂 Indded today’s NYTimes reports that “Two physicists who discovered how to manipulate thin layers of atoms to store vast amounts of data on tiny disks, making iPods and other wonders of modern life possible, won the Nobel Prize in Physics.” The iPod as a wonder of modern life makes me laugh.

  3. http://michaelnielsen.org/blog/?p=274
    After 12 years of work on quantum information
    and quantum computation, I’ve decided to shift
    my creative work to a completely new direction.
    I’m making this shift because I believe I can contribute more elsewhere.
    I became interested in quantum information and computation in 1992, and started working fulltime on it in 1995. When I started it was a tiny little field with a handful of practitioners around the world. Most scientists hadn’t even heard of quantum computers. Those few who had would often use what they’d heard to pour cold water on the idea of ever being able to build one. Now, in 2007 the field is one of the hottest in physics, and many researchers, myself included, believe it is only a matter of time and concentrated effort before a large-scale quantum computer is built.
    To me this seems a propitious time to change direction.
    The new direction I’ll be working toward is the development of new tools for scientific collaboration and publication. This is a tremendously exciting area, and it’s also one where my skills and interests seem likely to be useful. I’m a beginner in
    the area, and so for the next few months, I’ll be doing a “reconnaissance in force”, orienting myself, figuring out what I need to learn, where I might be able to make a contribution, and launching some small projects. It ought to be a blast.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *