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Do you have any references I / others could take a look at? Ive heard such skepticism but maybe not from the most reputable sources. Thanks!

xutopia 8y ago
I've heard a documentary about some physicists saying that quantum hasn't provided anything substantial yet and is hard to prove and often explainable without quantum theory. That said here is a starting point: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_supremacy#Skepticism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_supremacy#Skepticism
- isolli 8y ago
  > quantum hasn't provided anything substantial yet I believe you meant "quantum computing hasn't provided anything substantial yet". I first read it as "quantum theory hasn't provided anything substantial yet", and I was a bit shocked!
nickbauman 8y ago
Oded Goldreich, Stephen Wolfram, Leonid A. Levin and Gil Kalai are skeptics I know about.
- throwawaymath 8y ago
  While I'm similarly bearish on quantum computing, in fairness Oded Goldreich is actually a complexity theorist and cryptographer, not a physicist. He works on fundamental things like theory of computing, so his view is applicable. But Gil Kalai is a much stronger reference (and frankly the only one you really need to cite, since if you follow his arguments you've followed all of them more or less).
miltondts 8y ago
From [0] "If engineers ever succeed in making such quantum computers, it seems to me that the CAT is falsified; no classical theory can explain quantum mechanics." By "such quantum computers" he means computers that can run Shor's algorithm. "...but factoring a number with millions of digits into its prime factors will not be possible – unless fundamentally improved classical algorithms turn out to exist." by Gerard 't Hooft - Nobel Prize in Physics [0] - https://arxiv.org/abs/1405.1548 https://arxiv.org/abs/1405.1548 EDIT: See page 79 of the referenced paper for the detailed argument.

xutopia 8y ago

I've heard a documentary about some physicists saying that quantum hasn't provided anything substantial yet and is hard to prove and often explainable without quantum theory. That said here is a starting point: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_supremacy#Skepticism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_supremacy#Skepticism

isolli 8y ago
> quantum hasn't provided anything substantial yet I believe you meant "quantum computing hasn't provided anything substantial yet". I first read it as "quantum theory hasn't provided anything substantial yet", and I was a bit shocked!

nickbauman 8y ago

Oded Goldreich, Stephen Wolfram, Leonid A. Levin and Gil Kalai are skeptics I know about.

throwawaymath 8y ago
While I'm similarly bearish on quantum computing, in fairness Oded Goldreich is actually a complexity theorist and cryptographer, not a physicist. He works on fundamental things like theory of computing, so his view is applicable. But Gil Kalai is a much stronger reference (and frankly the only one you really need to cite, since if you follow his arguments you've followed all of them more or less).

miltondts 8y ago

From [0] "If engineers ever succeed in making such quantum computers, it seems to me that the CAT is falsified; no classical theory can explain quantum mechanics." By "such quantum computers" he means computers that can run Shor's algorithm. "...but factoring a number with millions of digits into its prime factors will not be possible – unless fundamentally improved classical algorithms turn out to exist." by Gerard 't Hooft - Nobel Prize in Physics [0] - https://arxiv.org/abs/1405.1548 https://arxiv.org/abs/1405.1548 EDIT: See page 79 of the referenced paper for the detailed argument.