If you’ve seen either version of the film, Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, you’ll know all about the Deep Thought computer that calculates the answer to the ultimate question – what is the meaning of life?
Well it turns out we’re not far from an actual, real life Deep Thought computer of our very own. British scientists have conceived a workable blueprint of a quantum computer that could provide answers to the most mind-fucking questions we have.
To put this monstrous creation in perspective, it could process questions that would take an ordinary computer billions of years to solve. Billions. The team are planning to build an early prototype at the University of Sussex within 2 years.
The modularly designed computer could even lead to similar machines the size of a football field. Imagine the shit you could ask that computer? It could probably even make you a really good omelette.
Unlike an everyday PC, quantum computing works on an atomic level and has the potential to compute the questions that have been boggling life since we crawled out of the primordial soup.
What makes this design particularly ground-breaking is its ability to allow bullshit-quick connection speeds between individual computing modules that are 100,000 times faster than previously theorised.
Instead of using optic fibre to connect the modules – the same stuff used in the NBN rollout – this new concept uses electric field connects that allow charged atoms or ions to be directly transported from one part to another. In other words, fuck cables, we don’t need ’em.
To me, the most fascinating part of this entire concept is, when it’s all finished and we’ve booted it up, what’s the first thing we ask it to do? Cure cancer? Find alien life? Figure out why French Stewart has heaps squinty eyes?
Either way, you know it’s gonna be a hoot.
Source: Telegraph.co.uk.
Photo: Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.
