Free UQ public lecture explores quantum computers
The next great leap forward in computer technology, the quantum computer, will be discussed at a free University of Queensland public lecture on Sunday, July 2.
Professor Gerard Milburn of UQ's Physics Department will discuss Quantum computation?not the next step but a whole new journey at Abel Smith Lecture Theatre, St Lucia at 8pm.
In quantum computing, individual atoms essentially become the switches inside a computer. While conventional digital computers process information encoded in bits, quantum computers process information encoded in quantum states.
Professor Milburn's group in the Centre for Quantum Computer Technology is working with the University of New South Wales on a prototype quantum-mechanical computer which encodes information onto the nuclear spins of donor atoms in silicon electronic devices.
He said interest in quantum computers had grown since it was recognised that quantum computers can, in principle, solve certain hard problems more quickly than conventional computers. Quantum computers, by exploiting properties of quantum information, make many attempts to solve hard problems at the same time, speeding up the process.
Professor Milburn will give a brief history of quantum computation and explain how a quantum computer can compute exponentially more efficiently than any classical computer. He will discuss the key features of quantum mechanics exploited in quantum computation, the superposition principle and quantum entanglement.
The superposition principle enables a quantum computer to simultaneously process a superposition of all input states for a given calculation. Quantum entanglement refers to non-classical correlation between distinct quantum systems and is the feature that enables a quantum computer to achieve an exponential speed up in computation.
Professor Milburn's lecture will show how these features can solve hard problems such as factoring - finding the prime numbers of a composite number - more rapidly.
A Griffith University graduate, Professor Milburn was awarded a PhD from the University of Waikato in 1983 and subsequently worked as a Royal Society Fellow at Imperial College London, and lecturer in theoretical physics at Australian National University, before joining The University of Queensland in 1988.
He has contributed to a number of areas of theoretical physics including quantum optics, quantum stochastic processes, and most recently, quantum computing. Currently he is a full-time member of the Special Research Centre for Quantum Computer Technology. Professor Milburn is a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Science.
The lecture is organised by UQ, the Australian Mathematical Society and FASTS (the Federation of Australian Scientific and Technological Societies).
Media: Further information: Professor Gerard Milburn, telephone 07 3365 3405, email: milburn@physics.uq.edu.au or Professor Tony Bracken at UQ Department of Mathematics, telephone 07 3365 2311.
