Page 72 - Lighting Magazine December 2019

The Lightification of Things
Left: Intel’s 49 qubit quantum computing chip.
right: Neutrogena offers a variety
of light therapy products, including this Light Therapy Acne Spot Treatment.
“The field of light therapy is likely to grow very quickly and can potentially replace many medications.”
David Shiller is a Technical Contributor to enLIGHTenment Magazine and President of Lighting Solution Development, a leading consulting firm to lighting manufacturers.
David has two decades of technical marketing and business development experience in the advanced lighting industry. david@bravobusiness media.com
can be thought of as 0, 1, or both. This is the foun- dation of the “Qubit,” the fundamental unit of data in a quantum computer. By contrast, our current computers use the on and off of electrical circuits to represent the 0 and 1 of a “bit” of data. This is why we measure data and network speed in kilobits, megabits, gigabits, etc.
In a quantum computer processing chip, Qubits of light/photons store and represent data. The 0, 1, or both, for each Qubit is then processed using algorithms analogous to conventional computers processing bits (0s or 1s). However, the “both” state of qubits gives quantum computing an exponen- tially larger computing power.
The bottom line is that quantum computers use photons of light instead of electricity to define the basic units of data (qubits instead of bits). Quantum computers are probably about 10 years away, but progress is being made every year by companies such as Intel, IBM, Microsoft, Google, and others.
aLternative to Drugs?
It’s hard not to come across articles about circadian
lighting these days. The idea is that light intensity at the eye, spectral content, duration, time of day, and a person’s age combine to impact their circadian system, sleep, and overall health.
This is just one aspect of light and health, howev- er. Many researchers around the world are studying other non-circadian ways that light can be used to directly treat a long list of health concerns, includ- ing: migraines, chronic depression, chronic ulcers, hair loss, constipation, acne, pain relief, high blood pressure, PTSD, and sensory-processing disorders. The field of light therapy is likely to grow very quickly and can potentially replace many medica- tions, thereby avoiding the undesirable side effects of pharmaceuticals.
In all of the cases above, light is being used to re- place older technologies. Lightification often comes with tremendous improvements in performance, such as LiFi’s order of magnitude better data rates, or quantum computers’ exponentially higher com- puting power. As our knowledge and capabilities with light advance, expect to see light used to re- place more types of traditional technology. 
68 enLIGHTenment Magazine | DeceMber 2019
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