Reinventing through Research: Physics Professor Helps Create Supercomputer

By Zach Parks

The CIA intercepts the coded enemy message and sends it to a supercomputer
operating at inconceivable speeds; the message that would take any other
computer months to decode is decoded in a matter of seconds. Moments
later a completely secure, hack-proof message is sent to the president,
who gives the order to stop the enemy attack before it’s even started.
This computer doesn’t exist yet, at least not physically, anyway.

It does exist in the form of equations scribbled onto a dry erase board
behind stacks of books and papers in a dark cluttered office in the
basement of Culler Hall. The numbers and figures that physics professor
Perry Rice scribbled down hope to forever change the way information is
processed.

Rice has worked with a Nobel Prize winner and physicists from
universities across the country in hope that their collective research and
experiments will eventually create a quantum computer.

As a quantum theorist, Rice consults with these experimentalists from other
universities and helps to solve the problems and inconsistencies in their
experiments.

Rice said by 2010 the current technology for building computers would
reach its peak.

“If you try to make computers any smaller they stop working. Our
grandchildren’s computers will be much similar to yours.”

The aim of quantum computers is to reinvent the way
information is processed.

A portion of the research for quantum computers is funded by government
organizations like the CIA and National Security Agency. Once the
technology becomes practical the computers would allow these agencies to
send, receive and break top-secret messages better than ever before.
Rice explained that traditional computers process information as a series
of units called bits. Computers read information in a series of zeros and
ones with each bit representing either a zero or a one.

Quantum computers utilize the laws and principles of quantum physics to
manipulate the direction of subatomic particles. These subatomic particles
can be manipulated in such a way that each particle can exist in two
places at once. This allows the computer to process information not as a
zero or one, but as both simultaneously.

“It’s exponentially faster than regular computers,” Rice said. “If you
wanted to crack the code of a credit card it would take 100 computers a
year to do it. A quantum computer could do it in 20 minutes.”
In 2004-05 Rice’s work in quantum physics has been published twice in
the American Physical Society’s Physical Review Letters, a publication
Rice said is the most prestigious in physics.

While he is a theorist, Rice colaborates with experimentalists often.
“These people are doing good experiments,” Rice said. “They’re famous, not
in a Michael Jackson sense, but in a physics sense.”

According to physics department chair Michael Pechan, the primary focus of
physics at Miami is undergraduate education. Research from Miami is rarely
published in Physical Review Letters. Until now, no one had ever published
twice in one year.

Rice was a little more modest about his accomplishments.
“We’ve had a couple good years,” he said of his published research. “It’s
hard to tell whether they’ll mean something or it’s like ‘Well, you killed
a tree.’”

Rice said most physicists published in Physical Review Letters come from
research-oriented universities. These schools utilize Ph.D students as
assistants in conducting experiments.

Rice must rely entirely on master’s and undergraduate students. He
wouldn’t have it any other way.

“I like the teaching aspect and the excitement of training new students,”
he said.

Working at Miami allows Rice to mix teaching and research, which helps him
formulate ideas.

“Teaching gets you thinking about things and then something falls out,” he
said.

Rice’s approach allows students to learn quantum physics by participating
in research firsthand.

Staff courtesy Mambwe Mumba has worked extensively with Rice since they
began their research together in January 2004.

Mumba worked with Rice to create mathematical models to predict the
behavior of atomic particles. Mumba said knowing how these particles react
helps experimentalists build working models of quantum computers.
Rice said he enjoys his interaction with graduate and undergraduate
students in his research.

“It’s fun to see how well people do when they leave here,” Rice said.
Many go on to follow in Rice’s footsteps. He estimates that nearly half
of his assistants go on to get a Ph.D in physics.

Mumba said Rice’s combination of teaching and research gave him the
freedom to explore his own ideas while being able to consult and work
directly with Rice.

“He basically gave me the whole lab, anything I need. That was what I
loved most, the freedom.”

This laid-back approach allowed Mumba to learn more than he had learned
with any other researcher.

“The interaction you get from him is worth a hell of a lot more than any
other professor.”

The practical impact of Rice’s research isn’t too far away. Optimists
predict the arrival of the first quantum computer within the next decade.
Rice is slightly more skeptical.

“I wouldn’t bet my house on it but I’d bet 100 bucks,” he said. “It’s not
going to replace the home computer anytime soon.”

Although the technological possibilities behind Rice’s ideas are endless,
he’s more excited about conducting the research than with the finished
product.

“I’m not interested in the device per se, just in the quantum physics
aspect.”

Unlike other theorists Rice limits his research to things that can someday
serve a practical purpose.

“Theorists tend to do wacky crazy stuff,” he said. “I put limitations on
what I look at. People actually do this in the lab. It’s not just science
fiction crap.”

Read more of Zach Park's articles:

Books published in 2004 and early 2005 by College of Arts and Science faculty