3 ms·

That does make sense, but given that the task is not solving anything "outside" the physical process itself, it still feels unfulfilling. Using my (maybe wrongh

by OskarS 7y ago

That does make sense, but given that the task is not solving anything "outside" the physical process itself, it still feels unfulfilling. Using my (maybe wrongheaded) analogy: it feels like "we built a lamp to simulate what happens when we turn on a lamp". Quantum "supremacy" only feels like a real thing when a quantum computer can solve a problem that isn't directly tied to the simulation of itself. That's my feeling, anyway. BTW: this is not to disparage the work itself. This seems like great research, and great progress in this field. Good on Google and the researchers!

dragontamer 7y ago
> That does make sense, but given that the task is not solving anything "outside" the physical process itself, it still feels unfulfilling. Using my (maybe wrongheaded) analogy: it feels like "we built a lamp to simulate what happens when we turn on a lamp". While that's true, there are a great many physics researchers who are extremely interested in quantum effects. A computer that quickly simulates quantum circuitry, if only for study / practice, is still extremely useful. In effect: a lamp isn't very important because most engineers and researchers already knows how a lamp works. But quantum circuits are itself an interesting, barely-studied, field with few experts truly understanding it yet.
taejo 7y ago
I agree that the term "quantum supremacy" is overly grandiose, but it was clearly defined before Google published this work. I just want to emphasise that there were people who believed that even this small step was impossible. Prominent quantum-computing skeptic Gil Kalai believes that scalable quantum computing is impossible in principle, and believes that this paper didn't achieve what it claims, but he says that his view would be refuted if they did! (This is in contrast to IBM, who isn't criticizing the quantum side of the experiment, but the comparison to classical computing; and to the Internet commentariat who are saying that even if they did everything they claim, it's not interesting).

by OskarS 7y ago

dragontamer 7y ago

> That does make sense, but given that the task is not solving anything "outside" the physical process itself, it still feels unfulfilling. Using my (maybe wrongheaded) analogy: it feels like "we built a lamp to simulate what happens when we turn on a lamp". While that's true, there are a great many physics researchers who are extremely interested in quantum effects. A computer that quickly simulates quantum circuitry, if only for study / practice, is still extremely useful. In effect: a lamp isn't very important because most engineers and researchers already knows how a lamp works. But quantum circuits are itself an interesting, barely-studied, field with few experts truly understanding it yet.

taejo 7y ago

I agree that the term "quantum supremacy" is overly grandiose, but it was clearly defined before Google published this work. I just want to emphasise that there were people who believed that even this small step was impossible. Prominent quantum-computing skeptic Gil Kalai believes that scalable quantum computing is impossible in principle, and believes that this paper didn't achieve what it claims, but he says that his view would be refuted if they did! (This is in contrast to IBM, who isn't criticizing the quantum side of the experiment, but the comparison to classical computing; and to the Internet commentariat who are saying that even if they did everything they claim, it's not interesting).