EVENT DETAILS AND ABSTRACT

Title: Physical constraints on error correction
Speaker: Dr. Ronnie Mainieri
Speaker Info: Theoretical Division, LANL & Institute for Physical Sciences
Brief Description:
Special Note: Two seminars on 1 day. Rescheduling was unfortunately not possible any more
Abstract:

Von Neumann showed that even if the logic gates in a computer are not reliable, it is possible to build a computer with a prescribed reliability. That could be achieved by making many copies of the computer and error correcting the output of the gates: Reliability through redundancy. I will discuss the limits imposed from nanotechnology and quantum computing on the interconnections and reliability of gates. From these limits we will conclude that von Neumann's argument does not apply and that the effectiveness of error correction may be limited.