Access

News and Views

Nature 436, 633-634 (4 August 2005) | doi:10.1038/436633a; Published online 3 August 2005

Open Innovation Challenges

  • Optimizing Sub-cellular Localization Tags

    • Deadline: Nov 29 2009
    • Reward: $20,000 USD

    The Seeker is looking for methods to optimize sub-cellular localization tags for protein expression....

  • Single-cell Analysis Platform

    • Deadline: Dec 02 2009
    • Reward: $5,000 USD

    This Challenge is looking for novel approaches to analyzing changes at a single-cell level. This is...

naturejobs

Quantum Information:  Putting certainty in the bank

Patrick Hayden1

Top

A new way to manipulate quantum states resolves a long-standing conundrum about who knows what, and when and how, in the quantum world. The result is, as one has come to expect, startling and counterintuitive.

Claude Shannon's landmark 1948 theory of communication1 tackles a nuts-and-bolts question: how do we find the best way to communicate using a given resource, such as a telegraph line or a satellite antenna? To answer that question, Shannon first took a detour into more philosophical territory by working out how to quantify the elusive concepts 'uncertainty' and 'information'.

  1. Patrick Hayden is in the School of Computer Science, McGill University, 3480 University Street, Montreal, Quebec H3A 2A7, Canada.
    Email: patrick@cs.mcgill.ca