4 ms·
To me this reads a lot like “quantum computer faster than a classical computer at ‘simulating’ itself”. Constructing a physical experiment where it would take a
by bjornsing 7y ago
To me this reads a lot like “quantum computer faster than a classical computer at ‘simulating’ itself”. Constructing a physical experiment where it would take a classical computer 10000+ years to simulate the outcome is trivial. I don’t see how this is very different.
- orbifold 7y agoTo call these things computers is a stretch anyways. So far they are simply very regularly arranged controllable quantum widgets.
- monocasa 7y agoThey're as much of computers as analog computers are.
- krastanov 7y agoThere is a slight difference, that really matters to theoretical computer scientists (as in complexity theory) and physicists working on quantum computing: The challenge is to construct a physical experiment that consists of only 50ish "elementary" and "programmable" building blocks that is infeasible to simulate on a classical computer. This "universality" and small number of elements is what is exciting and what makes the task quite nontrivial. However, you are right that the only thing this device does is "perform something difficult to simulate". The technology still needs a few more generations before that "something" is useful. Given the consistent progress since 1995, I am fairly optimistic that within 10 years we can do that.
- bjornsing 7y agoI get that its cool that it’s quantum and that the circuits are programmable, sure. My point was that the comparison to the classical computer makes little sense.
- abdullahkhalids 7y agoYou can read Feynman's original paper about quantum computers, which is easy to read and makes clear why programmability is important https://catonmat.net/ftp/simulating-physics-with-computers-richard-feynman.pdf https://catonmat.net/ftp/simulating-physics-with-computers-r...
- 6gvONxR4sf7o 7y agoThe difference seems to be that if it's just 'simulating itself' as the top level comment described, then it is a really bad demo of the universality that would be so exciting.
- united893 7y agoThis is not a one-off. This is a general purpose computer with general purpose gates. Verifying the correctness of the RCS is nontrivial.