4 ms·
I live/work in Waterloo and regularly ask a favour of the Quantum Nano Centre folks at UWaterloo for a tour. Every time I look at the "computer," housed in a gi
by Hongwei 7y ago
I live/work in Waterloo and regularly ask a favour of the Quantum Nano Centre folks at UWaterloo for a tour. Every time I look at the "computer," housed in a gigantic facility where each qubit has its own liquid nitrogen cooling unit and who knows what else plugged into it, and think to myself - I'm staring at the vacuum tube of quantum computing.
Yes, you can scale up vacuum tube computers to solve meaningful tasks, but it was barely more cost effective than human "calculators" except for specific applications. I think the same analogy applies for modern day quantum computers and classical computers.
- WilliamEdward 7y agoAnd much like vacuum tube computers were, early quantum computers are a necessary step towards the advancement of computing.
- goatlover 7y agoComputing is still advancing with silicon.
- kens 7y agoI think you're being too hard on vacuum tube computers. There were a lot of vacuum tube computers and they were pretty successful. Electromechanical computers like the Harvard Mark I would be a better comparison; they worked, but were too expensive and slow to be more than one-off systems.
- Hongwei 7y agoGreat point, your analogy is better.
- jxramos 7y agoGreat analogy!