4 ms·

> Note that I’ve not said — as it often is said — that a quantum computer has an advantage because the availability of superpositions hugely increases the numbe

> Note that I’ve not said — as it often is said — that a quantum computer has an advantage because the availability of superpositions hugely increases the number of states it can encode, relative to classical bits. Nor have I said that entanglement permits many calculations to be carried out in parallel. I'm really glad to find they did not go for these usual pieces of pop-explanations, and even called them out as not really capturing the essence of quantum computing. It takes courage to not hide behind these inaccurate descriptions, and instead just give the unsatisfying truth that there's no simple layman level description beyond "quantum mechanics somehow creates a “resource” for computation that is unavailable to classical devices"; at least not with today's easily available mental models[1] we have from classical computing. [1] http://lesswrong.com/lw/kg/expecting_short_inferential_distances/ http://lesswrong.com/lw/kg/expecting_short_inferential_dista...

Klathmon 9y ago
I'm also glad they didn't fallback on the "easy" explanation. Funnily enough, an SMBC comic [0] is what made quantum computing "click" for me, and how it's not really easily mappable back to classical ideas. The comic was a joint effort with Scott Aaronson and SMBC creator Zach Weinersmith, and as far as I can tell is pretty close to a faithful explanation of the basics without diving into the technical details. [0] https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/the-talk-3 https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/the-talk-3
- sundarurfriend 9y ago
  Thanks a lot for that link. That comic was a ton of fun (as one would expect from SMBC).
- connorelsea 9y ago
  If this comic isn't diving into technical details then I must be an idiot
  - Klathmon 9y ago
    I meant more that it's not trying to act like a whitepaper and "prove" the concepts it's explaining, which I think a lot of explanations of really complex topics end up spending way too much time on and lose the reader. There are parts of the comic that I don't even begin to understand (I honestly couldn't tell you if hilbert space is even a real thing, and I don't even want to being to think about how or why amplitudes can be complex, and what you would possibly do with a complex probability...), but the whole idea of amplitudes being loosely analogous to probabilities,and how interference is the real "secret sauce" that allows quantum computers to gain a big advantage in some problems is what it finally made click for me. And it kind of got across the point that the real difficulty with quantum computing is going to be in isolating these "qbits" from the world (which made the originally linked article much easier to read). I've also attempted to read a bunch about it from many different sources before this, so I had some primer on some of the ideas behind it, but couldn't understand how the parts fit together, or why they were such a big deal (often flip-flopping between the 2 feelings depending on the metaphors the last thing I read used).
    - connorelsea 9y ago
      Yeah, the comic is probably quite a bit more accessible. Although I'm still left wondering if there is a proper ELI5 for quantum computing somewhere out there
      - Klathmon 9y ago
        I really don't think there is, and I don't think there will be one ever. If quantum computers ever become "mainstream", I think we will need to start teaching the basics behind them in schools, because there isn't an easy way to map the ideas there to classical ones. I think of it like imagine trying to explain how a CPU works to a person that doesn't know basic math. There is no way to even "ELI5" that, there just isn't enough of a foundation to work from, and any attempt to do so would take so many liberties that it wouldn't even really be useful. Right now quantum computing seems extremely difficult to even understand the basics because 99.99%+ of us are missing those foundations.
- jakeinspace 9y ago
  The general idea I've had is that a quantum computer will be much more similar to a classical analog computer than digital. It requires setting up a quantum system which models the problem physically, and relies on quantum properties (interference i suppose) to descend on the correct solution without doing any sort of brute-forcing. Thanks for the comic link, really helpful.
- jeffwass 9y ago
  LOL. From your link : The Kid : Wait, you guys put complex numbers in your ontologies? The Mom: We do and we enjoy it. The Kid : Ewww
thingification 9y ago
I don't know much about quantum computation, but David Deutsch does say something along those lines. In particular, that the superiority of quantum computation for certain problems is explained by computation taking place in multiple universes. He also rejects the idea that there's something ineffable about quantum mechanics, or that the reason quantum computation works can't be explained using ordinary logic and reasoning that is accessible in principle to everybody (I don't know for sure that's what is meant here by "somehow creates a “resource”": but I'm triggered a bit by those words because people often do essentially mean that). Of course he would (correctly) say that one shouldn't treat him as being an infallible source of truth on the matter. But he does believe that the purpose of science is to explain the world, which puts him in a different class from apologists for quantum mysticism, strict empiricism and other believers in explanation-free knowledge.
deleted 9y ago
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Klathmon 9y ago

I'm also glad they didn't fallback on the "easy" explanation. Funnily enough, an SMBC comic [0] is what made quantum computing "click" for me, and how it's not really easily mappable back to classical ideas. The comic was a joint effort with Scott Aaronson and SMBC creator Zach Weinersmith, and as far as I can tell is pretty close to a faithful explanation of the basics without diving into the technical details. [0] https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/the-talk-3 https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/the-talk-3

sundarurfriend 9y ago
Thanks a lot for that link. That comic was a ton of fun (as one would expect from SMBC).
connorelsea 9y ago
If this comic isn't diving into technical details then I must be an idiot
- Klathmon 9y ago
  I meant more that it's not trying to act like a whitepaper and "prove" the concepts it's explaining, which I think a lot of explanations of really complex topics end up spending way too much time on and lose the reader. There are parts of the comic that I don't even begin to understand (I honestly couldn't tell you if hilbert space is even a real thing, and I don't even want to being to think about how or why amplitudes can be complex, and what you would possibly do with a complex probability...), but the whole idea of amplitudes being loosely analogous to probabilities,and how interference is the real "secret sauce" that allows quantum computers to gain a big advantage in some problems is what it finally made click for me. And it kind of got across the point that the real difficulty with quantum computing is going to be in isolating these "qbits" from the world (which made the originally linked article much easier to read). I've also attempted to read a bunch about it from many different sources before this, so I had some primer on some of the ideas behind it, but couldn't understand how the parts fit together, or why they were such a big deal (often flip-flopping between the 2 feelings depending on the metaphors the last thing I read used).
  - connorelsea 9y ago
    Yeah, the comic is probably quite a bit more accessible. Although I'm still left wondering if there is a proper ELI5 for quantum computing somewhere out there
    - Klathmon 9y ago
      I really don't think there is, and I don't think there will be one ever. If quantum computers ever become "mainstream", I think we will need to start teaching the basics behind them in schools, because there isn't an easy way to map the ideas there to classical ones. I think of it like imagine trying to explain how a CPU works to a person that doesn't know basic math. There is no way to even "ELI5" that, there just isn't enough of a foundation to work from, and any attempt to do so would take so many liberties that it wouldn't even really be useful. Right now quantum computing seems extremely difficult to even understand the basics because 99.99%+ of us are missing those foundations.
jakeinspace 9y ago
The general idea I've had is that a quantum computer will be much more similar to a classical analog computer than digital. It requires setting up a quantum system which models the problem physically, and relies on quantum properties (interference i suppose) to descend on the correct solution without doing any sort of brute-forcing. Thanks for the comic link, really helpful.
jeffwass 9y ago
LOL. From your link : The Kid : Wait, you guys put complex numbers in your ontologies? The Mom: We do and we enjoy it. The Kid : Ewww

thingification 9y ago

I don't know much about quantum computation, but David Deutsch does say something along those lines. In particular, that the superiority of quantum computation for certain problems is explained by computation taking place in multiple universes. He also rejects the idea that there's something ineffable about quantum mechanics, or that the reason quantum computation works can't be explained using ordinary logic and reasoning that is accessible in principle to everybody (I don't know for sure that's what is meant here by "somehow creates a “resource”": but I'm triggered a bit by those words because people often do essentially mean that). Of course he would (correctly) say that one shouldn't treat him as being an infallible source of truth on the matter. But he does believe that the purpose of science is to explain the world, which puts him in a different class from apologists for quantum mysticism, strict empiricism and other believers in explanation-free knowledge.

deleted 9y ago

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