A newly discovered trade-off in the way time-keeping devices operate on a fundamental level could set a hard limit on the performance of large-scale quantum computers, according to researchers from the Vienna University of Technology.
While the issue isn’t exactly pressing, our ability to grow systems based on quantum operations from backroom prototypes into practical number-crunching behemoths will depend on how well we can reliably dissect the days into ever finer portions. This is a feat the researchers say will become increasingly more challenging.
Whether you’re counting the seconds with whispers of Mississippi or dividing them up with the pendulum-swing of an electron in atomic confinement, the measure of time is bound by the limits of physics itself.
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