Hominids Read Online Free PDF Page B

chamber, which had both a higher ceiling and a lower floor than the other rooms.
    They’d already had considerable success with their quantum computer. Last tenmonth, they had factored a number that required 10^73 hydrogen atoms as registers—a quantity vastly greater than all the hydrogen in all the stars in this entire galaxy, and sixty-odd orders of magnitude greater than the capacity of the entire computing chamber, even if it had been filled entirely with hydrogen. The only way they could have succeeded was if they really were getting true quantum-computing effects—having their limited number of physical registers existing simultaneously in multiple states superimposed one upon the other.
    In a way, this next experiment was merely incremental: it was an attempt to factor an even bigger number. But the number in question was one of the vastly huge ones that Digandal’s Theorem said should be prime. No conventional computer could test that, but their quantum computer should be able to do so.
    Ponter checked a few more pages of the printout, then went over to another control cluster and pulled some operational buds, adjusting parts of the recording system. He wanted to make sure that every facet of the run would be recorded, so that there could be no doubt afterward about the result. If they could just—
    “Ready,” said Adikor.
    Ponter felt his heart begin to race. He so much wanted it to work—both for his own sake, and for Adikor’s, too. Ponter had had much luck early in his career; his was a respected name in physics circles. Even if he were to die today, he would be long remembered. Adikor hadn’t been as successful, Ponter knew, although he surely deserved to be. How wonderful it would be for both of them if they could prove—or disprove; either result would be significant—Digandal’s Theorem.
    There were two control clusters to be operated, one on each side of the small room. Ponter stayed at the one he was now at, next to the arch leading to the eating room; Adikor moved over to the other one on the opposite side of the room. All the controls should have been localized in one place, but this setup had saved almost thirty armspans’ worth of the expensive quantally transductive cable used to link the registers. Each control cluster was mounted on a wall. Adikor stood next to his and pulled the buds that needed pulling. Ponter, meanwhile, was operating the appropriate controls on his own cluster.
    “All set?” asked Adikor.
    Ponter looked at the series of indicator lights on his board; they were all red, the color of blood, the color of health. “Yes.”
    Adikor nodded. “Ten beats,” he said, starting the countdown. “Nine. Eight. Seven. Six. Five. Four. Three. Two. One. Zero.”
    Several lights flashed on Ponter’s board, showing that the registers were working. In theory, over the span of a fraction of a beat, all the possible factors had been tried, and the results had already been received as a series of interference patterns on photographic film. It would take the conventional computer that decoded the interference patterns a while to compose the list of factors—which, if Digandal was wrong and this number wasn’t prime, could be a very large list indeed.
    Ponter left his console and moved to sit down. Adikor paced back and forth, looking out the window at the rows of register tanks, each a sealed glass-and-steel column containing a specific amount of hydrogen.
    Finally, the conventional computer made a plunk sound, signaling that it had finished.
    There was a monitor square in the center of Ponter’s control cluster; the results appeared on it in black glyphs on a yellow background. And the results were—
    “Gristle!” swore Adikor, standing behind Ponter, a hand on his shoulder.
    The display read: “Error in register 69; factoring aborted.”
    “We have got to get that one replaced,” said Ponter. “It’s given us nothing but trouble.”
    “It’s not the register,” said