“Quantum physics enables perfectly secure cloud computing: Researchers have succeeded in combining the power of quantum computing with the security of quantum cryptography and have shown that perfectly secure cloud computing can be achieved using the principles of quantum mechanics. They have performed an experimental demonstration of quantum computation in which the input, the data processing, and the output remain unknown to the quantum computer.
[...] current trend of cloud computing: central remote servers are used to store and process data – everything is done in the “cloud.” The obvious challenge is to make globalized computing safe and ensure that users’ data stays private.
The latest research, to appear in Science, reveals that quantum computers can provide an answer to that challenge. “Quantum physics solves one of the key challenges in distributed computing. It can preserve data privacy when users interact with remote computing centers [...]
The scientists in the Vienna research group have demonstrated the concept of “blind quantum computing” in an experiment: they performed the first known quantum computation during which the user’s data stayed perfectly encrypted. The experimental demonstration uses photons, or “light particles” to encode the data. Photonic systems are well-suited to the task because quantum computation operations can be performed on them, and they can be transmitted over long distances.
The process works in the following manner. The user prepares qubits – the fundamental units of quantum computers – in a state known only to himself and sends these qubits to the quantum computer. The quantum computer entangles the qubits according to a standard scheme. The actual computation is measurement-based: the processing of quantum information is implemented by simple measurements on qubits. The user tailors measurement instructions to the particular state of each qubit and sends them to the quantum server. Finally, the results of the computation are sent back to the user who can interpret and utilize the results of the computation. Even if the quantum computer or an eavesdropper tries to read the qubits, they gain no useful information, without knowing the initial state; they are “blind.”" http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2012-01/uov-qpe011612.php

Publication: “Demonstration of Blind Quantum Computing” Stefanie Barz, Elham Kashefi, Anne Broadbent, Joseph Fitzsimons, Anton Zeilinger, Philip Walther. DOI: 10.1126/science.1214707

http://arxiv.org/pdf/1110.1381

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“And yet, even though useful quantum computers might still be decades away, many of their payoffs are already arriving. For example, the mere possibility of quantum computers has all but overthrown a conception of the universe that scientists like Stephen Wolfram have championed. That conception holds that, as in the “Matrix” movies, the universe itself is basically a giant computer, twiddling an array of 1’s and 0’s in essentially the same way any desktop PC does.

Quantum computing has challenged that vision by showing that if “the universe is a computer,” then even at a hard-nosed theoretical level, it’s a vastly more powerful kind of computer than any yet constructed by humankind. Indeed, the only ways to evade that conclusion seem even crazier than quantum computing itself: One would have to overturn quantum mechanics, or else find a fast way to simulate quantum mechanics using today’s computers.” http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/06/science/scott-aaronson-quantum-computing-promises-new-insights.html?_r=1&ref=science&pagewanted=all

“Carson Chow Says:
Comment #2 December 5th, 2011 at 10:35 pm
Nice article but I am confused about this paragraph:

“For example, the mere possibility of quantum computers has all but overthrown a conception of the universe that scientists like Stephen Wolfram have championed. That conception holds that, as in the “Matrix” movies, the universe itself is basically a giant computer, twiddling an array of 1’s and 0’s in essentially the same way any desktop PC does.”

A quantum universe or a classical universe are both computable aren’t they? It’s just that the quantum universe is exponentially “bigger”. In principle, you could have a classical computer just chug away painfully slowly and simulate the quantum universe, no? There is nothing in the “Matrix” universe that says the computation must be efficient is there? There are still just a countable number of possible quantum universes right?”

“Scott Says:
Comment #5 December 5th, 2011 at 10:59 pm
Carson #2: Yes, as the tagline of my blog says, quantum computers can be simulated classically but with exponential slowdown.

What we learn from quantum computing is that, if both quantum mechanics and the prevailing conjectures in complexity theory are valid, then the physical universe can’t be feasibly simulated by a computer that “twiddles an array of 1’s and 0’s in essentially the same way any desktop PC does.”

(That last clause was meant to indicate that I was talking about efficient simulation by conventional computers — i.e., the Extended Church-Turing Thesis, or what Wikipedia calls the Feasibility Thesis. I wish I knew how to put the point more clearly within the constraints of this article, since you’re right that it might be misinterpreted!)

For what it’s worth, Stephen Wolfram, Ed Fredkin, and other believers in “digital physics,” have been very explicit in saying that they think the universe is a classical cellular automaton—basically, a three-dimensional array of pixels—and that their view would preclude exponential speedups from quantum computation. (Wolfram believes that quantum mechanics is wrong, whereas Fredkin believes that quantum mechanics can be efficiently simulated classically.) So, these viewpoints would indeed be ruled out under the assumptions I mentioned above.

A last remark: the Matrix movies aren’t very clear about what type of computer is being used, other than that it’s powered by human bodies! But since they never mention anything about quantum computing, and since the simulation clearly isn’t astronomically slow, it seems reasonable to assume that Keanu Reeves was trapped in some sort of classical simulation. So maybe he could’ve caused the simulation to crash by building a quantum computer and trying to run Shor’s factoring algorithm! For the version where Keanu is trapped in a quantum computation, we might need to wait for the followup trilogy, “The Unitary Matrix” (har, har).”

“Jiav Says:
Comment #8 December 6th, 2011 at 12:59 am
Nice essay Scott, but how could we know our simulation is not astronomically slow?

I’m curious to see if Greg Egan will comment this one ”

http://www.scottaaronson.com/blog/?p=871

Cf. http://theunitedpersons.org/blog/if-the-answer-is-42-what-is-the-question

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“[...] the only way to get objective data is to have institutions that assume objectivity doesn’t exist. It’s not enough to force scientists and doctors to declare conflicts of interest, because our biases seep in anyway. Rather, we need to do a better job of funding truly independent studies and approaching with extra skepticism those that are not. We should also encourage researchers to make their raw data public, as Samuel Morton did, so that others can check it. As Stephen Jay Gould proved all too well, men are inveterate mismeasurers.” http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303936704576397771567839728.html

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Cf. http://www.lyricsmania.com/storm_lyrics_tim_minchin.html

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Blown with the Wind:

The nature of wind output has been obscured by reliance on “average output” figures. Analysis of hard data from National Grid shows that wind behaves in a quite different manner from that suggested by study of average output derived from the Renewable Obligation Certificates (ROCs) record, or from wind speed records which in themselves are averaged.

It is clear from this analysis that wind cannot be relied upon to provide any significant level of generation at any defined time in the future. There is an urgent need to re-evaluate the implications of reliance on wind for any significant proportion of our energy requirement.

Analysis of UK Wind Power Generation, November 2008 to December 2010 https://www.jmt.org/assets/pdf/wind-report.pdf

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“Txchnologist is an online magazine presented by GE. Every week, we offer an optimistic, but not utopian, take on the future and humanity’s ability to tackle the great challenges of our era through industry, technology and ingenuity.” http://www.txchnologist.com/

http://www.txchnologist.com/feed

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Wolfram on the strategic direction of Mathematica: Large-Scale Systems Modeling http://blog.wolfram.com/2011/03/30/launching-a-new-era-in-large-scale-systems-modeling/

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OS sw designed to minimize synthetic biology risks http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2011-03/vt-osd032111.php

http://genothreat.sourceforge.net/

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Alonzo Fyfe

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Journal of Universal Rejection “The founding principle of the Journal of Universal Rejection (JofUR) is rejection. Universal rejection. That is to say, all submissions, regardless of quality, will be rejected. Despite that apparent drawback, here are a number of reasons you may choose to submit to the JofUR:” http://www.math.pacificu.edu/~emmons/JofUR/

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American Physical Society announces Physical Review X : “APS announces Physical Review X (PRX), an online, open access, primary research journal for authors in all fields of physics. [...]

PRX will provide validation through prompt and rigorous peer review, and an open access venue in accord with the strong reputation of the Physical Review family of publications.

Articles in PRX will be published under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License, leaving copyright with the authors. [...]

The funding required to make PRX freely available will derive from article-processing charges of $1500 per article. These will cover the expenses associated with peer review, composition, hosting, and archiving. “APS strives to be among the most cost-effective publishers in physics and is committed to a sustainable model that makes PRX affordable for authors and their funding agencies, nationally and internationally,” said Joseph W. Serene, APS Treasurer/Publisher.

A Call for Papers will be issued in March and the first article published in Fall 2011.” http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2011-01/aps-aps011911.php

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“Throughout the biological and biomedical sciences, prescriptive checklists specifying the key information to include when reporting experimental results are beginning to find favour with experimentalists, analysts, publishers and funders alike. However, such ‘minimum information’ (MI) checklists are usually developed independently, from within particular biologically- or technologically-delineated domains. Consequently, the full range of checklists can be difficult to establish without intensive searching, and tracking their evolution is non-trivial; they are also inevitably partially-redundant one against another, and where they overlap arbitrary decisions on wording and substructuring make integration difficult. This presents significant difficulties for the users of checklists; for example, in the area of systems biology, where data from multiple biological domains and technology platforms are routinely combined. We offer a common portal to such MI checklists; to act as a ‘one-stop shop’ for those exploring the range of extant projects, foster collaborative development and ultimately promote gradual integration.” http://mibbi.org/index.php/About_us

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Evaluating Extraordinary Claims: Mind Over Matter? Or Mind Over Mind? http://norvig.com/prayer.html

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The PhilPapers Survey was a survey of professional philosophers and others on their philosophical views, carried out in November 2009. The Survey was taken by 3226 respondents, including 1803 philosophy faculty members and/or PhDs and 829 philosophy graduate students.

The PhilPapers Metasurvey was a concurrent survey of professional philosophers and others concerning their predictions of the results of the Survey. The Metasurvey was taken by 727 respondents including 438 professional philosophers and PhDs and 210 philosophy graduate students.

Results:

http://philpapers.org/surveys

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“[...] At least based on our current human characteristics, we’d expect that our technology would advance to the point where we can tool around the universe—and colonize it.

So why haven’t we met any extraterrestrials? It seems like it’d take only one instance to eventually fill the whole universe.

Well, maybe there just aren’t ones close enough to human-like. Or maybe we’ve got something wrong in our expectations for the future.

Perhaps exploration just isn’t terribly popular. I mean, there are lots of parts of the Earth—like the bottoms of the oceans—where we could in principle go, but we usually don’t bother.

But unless something kills off diversity in purposes, even if there wasn’t a giant cultural push towards exploration, one might still expect one solitary extraterrestrial to decide to do it. And that’d be enough.

Of course, what really is the point? Let’s assume we know the fundamental theory of physics; we know the program for our universe.

Well, there’s computational irreducibility, so we can’t make general predictions from it. But we can certainly use it to systematically search for possible technology that we can implement in our universe, and so on.

But in a sense we don’t need physical—starships and everything—exploration to find it.

We just need to be running computations.

Well, you might think surely it’d be good to do a giant, bizarrely modified version of SETI@home all over the universe. But, you know, there are a lot more orders of magnitude that can be achieved by making things smaller than by going out and co-opting other planets to turn into computers and so on.

Well, OK, so we have a sort of strange view of the limiting future.

We’re reduced to computations. But computations that in some absolute sense are nothing special; they’re just as sophisticated or unsophisticated as lots of other computations happening around the universe.

But what’s special about these computations is that they have evolved from us—with our various special features and purposes.

How will those purposes evolve? Perhaps they will in effect dissipate—and it will in a sense be the end of meaningful history.

But I have a slight—perhaps self-serving—guess.

That when our current constraints are all removed, our future selves will indeed have a difficult time knowing which of all possible purposes to pursue.

But that one of the most important guides will be to look at history. To look back at a time when there were constraints—like mortality and scarce resources—that pruned out possible purposes.

And perhaps there will be a desire to go back as far as possible—to understand the origins of purposes.

But one will need data—as much as possible—on what actually happened.

So here’s the funny thing: our times, these years, are the first times in history when a decent fraction of everything that happens is recorded.

And that will only increase over the next few years.

So from the future, as one tries to analyze history and purposes, one will potentially land right on our times in these years.

So that it’ll be our activities and purposes in these years that define the purposes for our whole future.

I don’t know if that’s actually how things will work. It’s perhaps satisfying to think so. Though it’s a big responsibility.

To think that our efforts at this time in history might not just be stepping stones to the future, but actually define all of it.

In effect, pulling from the computational universe that part which defines the future essence of the human condition.

Well, I think I should wrap up.

I hope you found this interesting, and that it didn’t get too abstract.

I find all this fun. But I also like to think more seriously about how it relates to things I actually do.

And for example to my own life projects.

Well, obviously NKS is trying to tell us about everything that’s out there, independent of our human condition—and giving us a paradigm to think about it all.

And Wolfram|Alpha is trying to capture the computable knowledge of our civilization—the stuff that in a sense defines what’s special about the human condition.

And Mathematica is in a sense the bridge between these two—a language that makes raw, formal, precise computation accessible to us humans.

I have my next big project picked out: trying to find the fundamental theory of physics.

But if I get the chance to do more projects, it’s this kind of thinking about the future that’s going to determine what they are.

It’s always fun at that moment when all the abstraction condenses into something very definite—and turns into something that helps us concretely define the future.

I hope I’ll be back in a few decades to talk more about what happened.

Well, I should stop now. I’d be happy to discuss both abstract and concrete things.

Thanks very much.”

http://www.stephenwolfram.com/publications/recent/hplus2010/

Cf. http://theunitedpersons.org/blog/if-the-answer-is-42-what-is-the-question

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