The following press conference at the American Physical Society (APS) March Meeting will take place in room 516 of the Los Angeles Convention Center. The newsroom itself will be room 517, where the phone numbers are 213-743-6237 and -6238; the fax number is 213-741- 3924.

QUANTUM COMPUTING.

Tuesday, March 17, 9:30 AM. Physicists will discuss the latest efforts towards building advanced versions of quantum computers, devices that use quantum particles (such as ions or photons) to represent the 0s and 1s (the binary digits, or "bits") employed in computations. H. Jeff Kimble of Caltech (818-395-8340) will describe his group's experimental efforts to build a quantum computer using "standing qubits," in which photons bouncing back and forth between two mirrors act as the link between immobile atoms which serve as "quantum bits." In separate experimental efforts employing a string of trapped ions, Richard Hughes at Los Alamos (505-667-3876) and his colleagues have demonstrated that a laser beam can "address" an ion without disturbing its neighbors (the closest of which are 20 microns away). Hughes's team has also determined that computations with up to fifty quantum bits, employing up to one million logic operations, are likely to be possible with trapped ions. Anupam Garg, Northwestern University. (Session I2, Tuesday, 11 AM)