4 ms·

Quantum computing as a field is obvious bullshit

14 points by J253 8y ago

toufiqbarhamov 8y ago
The good points being made about the tenuous link between current quantum computing theory and anything like reality is consistently undermined by his “old man shouts at clouds” attitude. Physicists used to be serious and bloody minded people who understood reality by doing experiments. Somehow this sort of bloody minded seriousness has faded out into a tower of wanking theorists who only occasionally have anything to do with actual matter. I trace the disease to the rise of the “meritocracy” out of cow colleges in the 1960s. The post WW-2 neoliberal idea was that geniuses like Einstein could be mass produced out of peasants using agricultural schools. The reality is, the peasants are still peasants, and the total number of Einsteins in the world, or even merely serious thinkers about physics is probably something like a fixed number. It’s really easy, though, to create a bunch of crackpot narcissists who have the egos of Einstein without the exceptional work output. All you need to do there is teach them how to do some impressive looking mathematical Cargo Cult science, and keep their “results” away from any practical men doing experiments. Yeeeaaaah... I’m wildly skeptical of the state of so-called quantum computing, but what does this ranting have to do with anything? Pissing on theorists can be fun, especially in physics where whole fields divorced from anything like a feasible experiment exist (I’m looking at you M-Theory), but dismissing the exercise is downright silly. It wasn’t that long ago that the Higgs Mechanism moved from completely untested theory to observed reality. I’d love to hear a brutally honest assessment of the field in question without it rapidly degenerating into pissing and moaning from an irredeemable ass.
- mxfh 8y ago
  Also funny, that the orginal Eidgenössische Polytechnische Schule now ETH Zürich during Einstein's student time was probably much closer, as a european Polytechnicum in the (not-neo-yet-) liberal french tradition, to an agricultural school (with forestry being one of the six faculties at the time) than OP is aware of.
- scottlocklin 8y ago
  Higgs-Anderson "discovery" was done in 1973 with discovery of weak current, and again in 1982. It was a great piece of experimental particle physics, but it was also not necessary for our understanding of how the world works. The point of all this is pretty simple: people are play acting instead of doing useful work. Higgs-Anderson mechanism is a great example of this. 73 we were done, but had this huge staff of experimental particle physics guys with nothing to do, so we do it again. And again. Until you end up with a "science" paper with hundreds of "coauthors" and a huge racket of people wasting their lives verifying something that was already done in the 70s. Maybe it serves some higher purpose, like international relations, but even if it didn't, I'm pretty sure some bozos will be requesting an even bigger particle accelerator in 20 years to do 1970s physics again.
kamilner 8y ago
Further discussion here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18958321 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18958321

14 points by J253 8y ago

The good points being made about the tenuous link between current quantum computing theory and anything like reality is consistently undermined by his “old man shouts at clouds” attitude. Physicists used to be serious and bloody minded people who understood reality by doing experiments. Somehow this sort of bloody minded seriousness has faded out into a tower of wanking theorists who only occasionally have anything to do with actual matter. I trace the disease to the rise of the “meritocracy” out of cow colleges in the 1960s. The post WW-2 neoliberal idea was that geniuses like Einstein could be mass produced out of peasants using agricultural schools. The reality is, the peasants are still peasants, and the total number of Einsteins in the world, or even merely serious thinkers about physics is probably something like a fixed number. It’s really easy, though, to create a bunch of crackpot narcissists who have the egos of Einstein without the exceptional work output. All you need to do there is teach them how to do some impressive looking mathematical Cargo Cult science, and keep their “results” away from any practical men doing experiments. Yeeeaaaah... I’m wildly skeptical of the state of so-called quantum computing, but what does this ranting have to do with anything? Pissing on theorists can be fun, especially in physics where whole fields divorced from anything like a feasible experiment exist (I’m looking at you M-Theory), but dismissing the exercise is downright silly. It wasn’t that long ago that the Higgs Mechanism moved from completely untested theory to observed reality. I’d love to hear a brutally honest assessment of the field in question without it rapidly degenerating into pissing and moaning from an irredeemable ass.

mxfh 8y ago
Also funny, that the orginal Eidgenössische Polytechnische Schule now ETH Zürich during Einstein's student time was probably much closer, as a european Polytechnicum in the (not-neo-yet-) liberal french tradition, to an agricultural school (with forestry being one of the six faculties at the time) than OP is aware of.
scottlocklin 8y ago
Higgs-Anderson "discovery" was done in 1973 with discovery of weak current, and again in 1982. It was a great piece of experimental particle physics, but it was also not necessary for our understanding of how the world works. The point of all this is pretty simple: people are play acting instead of doing useful work. Higgs-Anderson mechanism is a great example of this. 73 we were done, but had this huge staff of experimental particle physics guys with nothing to do, so we do it again. And again. Until you end up with a "science" paper with hundreds of "coauthors" and a huge racket of people wasting their lives verifying something that was already done in the 70s. Maybe it serves some higher purpose, like international relations, but even if it didn't, I'm pretty sure some bozos will be requesting an even bigger particle accelerator in 20 years to do 1970s physics again.

kamilner 8y ago

Further discussion here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18958321 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18958321