Well, a real experimental system is a quantum computer that 'calculates' the emerging behavior in real time. Sorry, that was needlessly sarcastic---actually, you have a good point there: it's ironic that we used digital computers to simulate quantum systems, and now we're beginning to use quantum computers to calculate digital properties (like decryption, etc), whereas it would be interesting to actually use quantum computers to calculate quantum systems such as electronic structure of many body systems. It's just that we're nowhere near that yet.

This was actually the original purpose of quantum computing as proposed by Feynman.

3.15 MJ is equivalent to 1.5 lb TNT, so it was quite a bang in their target chamber. Just for comparison, it's also just short of one kWh, so it would run an electric car for about three-four miles.

If you're using Intel architecture, it needs at least some SMM: it is used on startup (initial hardware configuration) and often during power management events (CPU clock scaling, hibernation, etc). The article mentions that they disable most but not all of SMM, for those reasons.

I don't know the state of the art but I think that we can't even predict the static crystal structure of simple substances---e.g. when iron is BCC vs FCC. The first-principles simulation of dynamic properties of large quantum many body systems is just not feasible. It is possible that this may change dramatically when quantum computers arrive---currently we describe quantum systems by modeling them with discrete, classical computers, and quantum computers might turn out to model the relevant quantum processes directly.

Yes, he eats one. Bag :)

Multiple serial busses, each with its own clocking and buffer, so that the combined data is extracted synchronously at the end. The crosstalk is still a problem but there are ways around that: different twist rates for different pairs for instance.

You have to be careful using these burners in in-building enclosed spaces---they can produce carbon monoxide. They are really designed for open air use.

I had something like that hanging off a parallel port in a PC in 1990; it read the status bits of a printer port and booted accordingly. Could still do it today, via a $1 USB serial port's status bits.

I always clock screws in the electrical wall plates, for a vertical slot.