Why Computer Science has become and will always be the next step in humanity's technological progression

via theverge.com

"Quantum memories capable of storing and retrieving coherent information for extended times at room temperature would enable a host of new technologies." (Science Magazine Research Paper/Journal - link provided below)

My cousin is an Information Technology manager at a somewhat large-scale organization. His office used to be located in a side-closet of the actual closet responsible for housing huge, hot servers. Hot. Servers become very warm since they are being accessed many times in short timespans as well as running nearly nonstop. Because of this, a cooling system is very very necessary in that closet as well as other datacenters. This way systems won't suddenly fry and break down, thereby forcing intensive and important processes offline.

Imagine being able to work alongside these machines in comfort would certainly boost morale at the workplace. What about conforming to more efficient "Green" standards as a result of needing less air conditioning/fans? How to achieve that? Quantum computing seems to be a possible solution. Why merely a possibility? Well, it's still being heavily researched at the time of writing this. The most recent and significant result was being able to store quantum data at room temperature for thirty-nine minutes as opposed to an earlier record of simply two seconds. The data was still stable enough that some of the stored qubits could be read.

Think of the benefits this technological achievement could provide, especially as the intersection between computer technology and the rest of the industrial world continues to occur. For instance, once this technology truly blossoms, more and more servers will be able to remain in close proximity to each other without nearly as much danger of overheating or overuse of power. Clusters of computing machines will be able to run and crunch numbers longer, faster, and safer while remaining much more reliable than ever before.

The old concept of Folding@Home is just one example of what this improved technology could contribute to. Folding@Home (abbreviated FH from now on) basically allows people to set up their computers with a set of software that can use some specified amount of processing power to work with other machines around the world to find cures to health hazards. This short excerpt is taken directly from their website, which is hosted by Stanford University:

"Help Stanford University scientists studying Alzheimer's, Huntington's, Parkinson's, and many cancers by simply running a piece of software on your computer.

The problems we are trying to solve require so many calculations, we ask people to donate their unused computer power to crunch some of the numbers."

Users can set the process to run in the background of their current work or while they're sleeping; all in the name of helping others.

FH isn't the only situation that stands to benefit from this advancement of technology. Professional filmmakers need vast, powerful machines to render the heavy video they produce on a day-to-day basis. But these machines are limited by their weaknesses: running too strongly could cause burnouts and the sizes of the products can be too expansive. Pixar, the famous animation company, often requires extremely effective machines to produce the average feature film that we watch. Monsters University, a recent animated film, is just one example:

In fact, it took Pixar’s server farm about 29 hours to render each frame of Monsters University, the prequel to Monsters Inc., one of the studio’s most beloved films.

Computer Science will always play some significant role in humanity's fight to stay relevant, progressive, and responsible. Quantum computing is only the beginning.

* http://www.sciencemag.org/content/342/6160/830
* http://folding.stanford.edu/
* http://venturebeat.com/2013/04/24/the-making-of-pixars-latest-technological-marvel-monsters-university/