Newly discovered Majorana particles are scientists’ best chance to create subatomic supercomputers that could store as many pieces of information as there are particles in the universe. The discovery was made by researchers in the Netherlands who say it could be applied to make today’s computer technology obsolete.
“The goal is actually to develop those nano-scale devices into little circuits and actually make something like a quantum computer out of it, so they have special properties that could be very useful for computation, a particural kind of computation which we call quantum computation, which would replace actually our current computers by computers that are much more efficient than what we have now.”
The Majorana fermion’s existence was first predicted 75 years ago by Italian Ettore Majorana. Probing the Majorana’s particles could allow scientists to understand better the mysterious realm of quantum mechanics. Other groups working in solid state physics are thought to be close to making similar announcements….heralding a new era in super-powerful computer technology. Were he alive today Majorana may well be amazed at the sophisticated computer technology available to ordinary people in every day life. But compared to the revolution his particle may be about to spark, it will seem old fashioned in the not too distant future.
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