3 ms·

Well there is the salesman example in the article for one, I find the checker board problem much easier to wrap my head around. On a checker board you have 64

Well there is the salesman example in the article for one, I find the checker board problem much easier to wrap my head around. On a checker board you have 64 squares, half are red and half are black, everywhere a red touches a black square is a junction point. How many junction points are there? Now that you know how many junctions there are how many different ways can you lay out those red and black squares to make that same amount of junctions? What if 3/4 of the squares were black? My understanding is that the Dwave system will produce a number of answers that are close to correct, and a majority that are correct (probably). Things start getting really tricky when you make the squares into cubes and run the problem again, or if you want to get really bent add a fourth dimension to the problem.

ThePhysicist 10y ago
Yes but even for the traveling salesman problem (which in most variants is NP-complete) there is -to my knowledge- no experimental or even theoretical proof that an adiabatic quantum computer could outperform a classical one. The fact that the D-Wave computer is a computationally complex quantum system does not automatically imply that the dynamics of the system can be harnessed to solve computationally complex problems, because we usually don't have sufficient control over the system. Given the ability to control individual degrees of freedom of a given system with arbitrary precision almost anything can be turned into an exponentially powerful classical or quantum computer, even a simple hot cup of tea. The problem is that we often don't have the means to exert the required control over the system, and this is the core problem with all current approaches to quantum computing, adiabatic or not. So, yes, you can encode the solution to many problems in the ground state of the Hamiltonian of a coupled qubit system, but reliably keeping the system in this ground state while transforming it into the target state turned out to be impossible in any real-world system so far, as even the tiniest thermal fluctuations will trigger state transitions during the annealing process and ruin the whole thing. So if D-Wave really claims they have a working quantum annealer on their hands I want to see proof, and if they can muster it I'm pretty sure they'll get a nobel prize in return. Show me the data!
- sigmaprimus 10y ago
  Wow, blind me with brilliance or baffle me with bs, you are obviously much smarter than me and I conside to you. All that I ask is that you use your knowledge to help what I feel is a pioneering company with an idea that even the smartest minds...including yours have had to concede that these guys have something. They have pulled up their skirt and offered you an opportunity to make something great and you want to bicker over their har color.
  - sigmaprimus 10y ago
    I must apologize for that last comment as I phrased it in a demeaning context..the truth is we (humanity) need your help and rather than fight over Synaptics I emplore you to focus your valuable experience and knowledge to pursue this area of computer science in the direction of achieving the greater good rather than a geekisH slap fight that gets us nowhere. You seem like a smart guy, fix the issue by creating something great and make america great again.
    - ThePhysicist 10y ago
      No worries, my critique is not aimed at you but at the way D-Wave is doing PR, as I think it does serious damage to all other companies in this field and will hinder progress in quantum computing. I understand that you need to do some marketing as a tech company, but there is a difference between being optimistic and visionary about what you want to do, and simply telling people that you already did it without handing over any proof. After what happened with Theranos I really wish tech journalists would be more careful when reporting about supposedly revolutionary technologies like these, especially if there is no independent evidence available to back any of the claims made.

ThePhysicist 10y ago

Yes but even for the traveling salesman problem (which in most variants is NP-complete) there is -to my knowledge- no experimental or even theoretical proof that an adiabatic quantum computer could outperform a classical one. The fact that the D-Wave computer is a computationally complex quantum system does not automatically imply that the dynamics of the system can be harnessed to solve computationally complex problems, because we usually don't have sufficient control over the system. Given the ability to control individual degrees of freedom of a given system with arbitrary precision almost anything can be turned into an exponentially powerful classical or quantum computer, even a simple hot cup of tea. The problem is that we often don't have the means to exert the required control over the system, and this is the core problem with all current approaches to quantum computing, adiabatic or not. So, yes, you can encode the solution to many problems in the ground state of the Hamiltonian of a coupled qubit system, but reliably keeping the system in this ground state while transforming it into the target state turned out to be impossible in any real-world system so far, as even the tiniest thermal fluctuations will trigger state transitions during the annealing process and ruin the whole thing. So if D-Wave really claims they have a working quantum annealer on their hands I want to see proof, and if they can muster it I'm pretty sure they'll get a nobel prize in return. Show me the data!

sigmaprimus 10y ago
Wow, blind me with brilliance or baffle me with bs, you are obviously much smarter than me and I conside to you. All that I ask is that you use your knowledge to help what I feel is a pioneering company with an idea that even the smartest minds...including yours have had to concede that these guys have something. They have pulled up their skirt and offered you an opportunity to make something great and you want to bicker over their har color.
- sigmaprimus 10y ago
  I must apologize for that last comment as I phrased it in a demeaning context..the truth is we (humanity) need your help and rather than fight over Synaptics I emplore you to focus your valuable experience and knowledge to pursue this area of computer science in the direction of achieving the greater good rather than a geekisH slap fight that gets us nowhere. You seem like a smart guy, fix the issue by creating something great and make america great again.
  - ThePhysicist 10y ago
    No worries, my critique is not aimed at you but at the way D-Wave is doing PR, as I think it does serious damage to all other companies in this field and will hinder progress in quantum computing. I understand that you need to do some marketing as a tech company, but there is a difference between being optimistic and visionary about what you want to do, and simply telling people that you already did it without handing over any proof. After what happened with Theranos I really wish tech journalists would be more careful when reporting about supposedly revolutionary technologies like these, especially if there is no independent evidence available to back any of the claims made.