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...massive information-storage capacity. One of the marvelous little wrinkles of the quantum world is a condition known as superposition, in which a particle can occupy two states at the same time. (Don't ask; it just can.) For this reason, a quantum bit, or qubit, can store two numbers at once. Each qubit added to a quantum computer doubles the size of the system, so if you want to know the capacity of a computer that contains 300 qubits, take the number 2 and multiply it by itself 300 times. "That's more than the number of particles...
...nuances and idiosyncrasies of an adopted language, migrant writers can help create, in Ha Jin's view, a common lexis in which their "real passport" is their art. "I share Salman Rushdie's conviction that something can be gained in translation," says Ha Jin. So do a growing number of readers in an increasingly borderless world...
...Congo is the size of Western Europe, without roads," Doss says. Before he received his reinforcements, Doss had 10,000 soldiers in North and South Kivu protecting a combined population of 10 million from 40,000 to 50,000 armed men. In all of Congo, he had the same number of soldiers he had in 2003 as the U.N. special representative to Liberia, a country less than one-hundredth the size...
...troubling is a mandate requiring MONUC to reinforce state authority. That means MONUC trains former militiamen and introduces them to the ranks of the same Congolese army that lives by looting and commits war crimes on a daily basis. Crippling its ability to rise above this behavior, a small number of MONUC soldiers have engaged in the same kinds of sexual assaults practiced by the nastiest of Congo's armed groups, resulting in 40 being sent home, nine civilian staff members being charged and one more being sacked. MONUC is also investigating possible arms- and gold-trafficking by Pakistani soldiers...
...measure the destruction in Gaza by the number of bombs dropped or buildings flattened or the price to rebuild it all, but the real cost lies within people like Abed Rabu, whose pain and sense of loss are apparent from the moment you meet him. Two weeks after the end of Israel's 22-day operation against Hamas militants, the battle to control the story of what happened in Gaza continues. The U.N. and human-rights groups accuse the Israeli military of using disproportionate force and even of committing war crimes. The Israeli government has responded to such charges...