NIST physicist David Wineland adjusts an ultraviolet laser beam
used to manipulate ions in a high-vacuum apparatus containing an
"ion trap." These devices have been used to demonstrate the
basic operations required for a quantum computer. Such
computers, by relying on quantum mechanics rather than
transistors to perform calculations or store information, could
someday solve problems in seconds that would take months on
today's best supercomputers. (Geoffrey Wheeler / NIST) Quantum
computing research is now officially Nobel Prize-worthy.
American physicist David Wineland and French physicist Serge
Haroche traveled to Stockholm in early December to share the
2012 physics honors for work their teams have done separately on
the subject. For digital natives accustomed to thinking of
smaller as better, the first quantum computers won’t look prize-
worthy. If and when they hum to life, they’ll be at least as big
as refrigerators or modern-day supercomputers. A quantum
computer might even take up an entire room. It wo