Transcript · English → Chinese
Exploring Quantum Computing and Qubits
这就是它们的样子。 一共有两个。
这些来自我们位于不列颠哥伦比亚 省 本拿比的实验室。
从外面看， 它们就像巨大的黑色独石。
巨大的金属箱子， 边长约十英尺，高12英尺。
它们通着电， 里面有一个制冷机，
这个制冷机能将这些芯片 冷却到接近绝对零度。
仅比绝对零度 高出那么微乎其微的一点点。
比星际空间 还要冷上数百倍。
处于最寒冷、最孤立 以及人类
有史以来所能创造的最极端环境之 中。
有趣的是，这些制冷机
被称为脉冲管 稀释制冷机，
它们有一个叫作脉冲管的部件，
大约每秒钟 发出一次声音，
听起来诡异地像心跳声。
所以，如果你有机会 站在其中一台机器旁，
那是一件令人肃然起敬的事， 至少对我来说是这样。
它感觉就像是外星神明的神坛。
它们确实是令人叹为观止的机器。
在这个大箱子的核心，是一个 大约只有大拇指指甲盖大小的微型 芯片。
而这个芯片上，凝聚了让这台机器 运转的所有奇迹与魔力。
在量子力学中，
有这样一个概念：一个事物 可以同时存在于两种状态，
而且这两种状态是互斥的， 所谓“同时存在”。
我之所以用这些词， 是因为英语是在
我们拥有描述这些事物实际行为的 概念之前发展起来的。
想象一下，现实中真的 存在平行宇宙。
现在，想象有两个在各方面 都完全相同的宇宙，
一直延伸到地平线， 尽我们目力所及，
细致到世间万物的 每一个微小原子细节，
只有一个区别。
这就是这个芯片上被称为量子比特 的 小东西的价值所在。
它是“量子比特”（quantum bit）的缩写。
而那个量子比特非常像传统计算机 中的 一个比特或晶体管。
它有两个截然不同的物理状态， 对于比特，我们称之为0和1。
在传统计算机中， 这两者是互斥的。
那个设备要么是其中之一，要么是另 一个， 绝不会是其他任何状态。
而在量子计算机中， 那个设备可以处于
这样一种奇特的状态：这两个平行宇 宙 产生了一个连接点，
一个它们在空间中重叠的交汇点。
而当你增加 这些设备的数量时，
你每增加一个 这样的量子比特，你就会将
500个这样的比特，
你就拥有了大约 2的500次方个这样的东西
存在于那个芯片中。
所以我的理解是 这些平行世界的影子
与我们的世界重叠。
如果我们足够聪明，
我们可以潜入其中攫取资源 并将它们带回
我们的世界，从而在我们的世界中产 生影响。
这听起来可能非常 古怪和不可思议。
事实上，我使用的语言 是普通的理论
物理学家可能不会使用的。
但我告诉你们的这些
是绝对正确的，而且符合 这些事物实际运作的方式。
芯片上这些量子比特
的数量翻倍，在过去 每年都会发生一次。
End of transcript · 567 words · machine translated
Original transcript (English)
This is what they look like. There are two of them. These are from our lab in Burnaby in British Columbia. From the outside, they look like giant black monoliths. Big metal boxes, about 10 feet on a side, 12 feet tall. And they are powered, they have a fridge inside them,
a refrigerator that cools these chips to almost absolute zero. Just a wisp, a fraction of a degree above absolute zero. Hundreds of times colder than interstellar space. Amongst the coldest and most isolated and extreme conditions that humans have ever been able to engineer.
These fridges, interestingly enough, which are called pulse tube dilution refrigerators, have a thing called a pulse tube, which emits a sound roughly once per second, which sounds eerily like a heartbeat.
So if you have the opportunity to stand next to one of these machines, it is an awe inspiring thing, at least for me. It feels like an altar to an alien god. They really are impressive machines. At the heart of this big box is a tiny chip about the size of your thumbnail.
And on this chip resides all of the wonder and magic that makes this thing go. In quantum mechanics, there's this concept that a thing can exist in two states, which are mutually exclusive at the same time, quote unquote. And I'm using those words because the English language was
developed before we had concepts to describe what these things actually are doing. Imagine that there really are parallel universes out there. And now imagine you have two that are exactly identical in every respect, all the way out to the horizon, as far as we can see, down to the last little atomic detail of every single thing,
with only one difference. And that's the value of a little thing called a qubit on this chip. It's a contraction of quantum bit. And that qubit is very much like a bit or a transistor in a conventional computer. It has two distinct physical states, which we call 0 and 1 for bit.
In a conventional computer, these are mutually exclusive. That device is either one or the other and never anything else. In a quantum computer, that device can be in this strange situation where these two parallel universes have a nexus, a point in space where they overlap.
And when you increase the number of these devices, you, every time you add one of these qubits, you double the number of these 500 of these bits, you have something like 2 to the 500th power of these guys living in that chip.
So the way I think about it is that the shadows of these parallel worlds overlap with ours. And if we're smart enough, we can dive into them and grab their resources and pull them back into ours to make an effect in our world.
Now, this may sound very odd to you and bizarre. And in fact, I am using language that a normal theoretical physicist probably wouldn't use. But this is what I'm telling you is absolutely correct and in line with the way that these things actually work.
The doubling of the number of these qubits on the chip has happened once a year for the past.
