Re: Quantum Computers

Lee Daniel Crocker (lcrocker@calweb.com)
Wed, 29 Jan 1997 12:30:48 -0800 (PST)


> We now have:
> 1) Coherent beams of atoms;
> 2) Quantum computers (for protein-folding simulations), Maybe This
> Year;
> 3) Wide-area STP, Maybe This Year.
>
> How long do you think it will be before all these methods of
> manipulating atoms stack up into the ability to build three-dimensional
> structures?
> My guess: Not long. I sure hope we're ready, or that we can get that
> way Real Fast.

How will quantum computation help protein-folding simulations? Isn't
that a fairly linear problem (i.e., not very suitable to parallelism)?
If so, that'd be great. That's probably the fastest way to nanotech,
because we already have the ability to synthesize arbitrary proteins,
and suitable environments for them are cheap.