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When I read about quantum computing the impression I get is that quantum computers are more similar to analog computers than to classical computers. That is, th
by marcodiego 6y ago
When I read about quantum computing the impression I get is that quantum computers are more similar to analog computers than to classical computers. That is, there are a problems where they are better/faster than classical computer and problems where classical are better/faster than quantum computers.
Having a "100-GHz Single-Flux-Quantum Bit-Serial Adder" means we can finally have hope for classical computations at hundreds of GigaHertz?
- packetlost 6y ago> quantum computers are more similar to analog computers I can't speak for all architectures, but the ones I'm aware of absolutely are analog computers.
- Robotbeat 6y agoQuantum computers use qubits, which doesn’t really have an analogue in analog computers.
- packetlost 6y agoNot directly, but the problems and engineering that go into building one are very similar. Qubits are analogous to regular bits, at least on 'measure'. They're either in 1 state or another, and all the interesting stuff is in how you get to that state. Source: building a quantum computer.
- Robotbeat 6y agoYes, that’s my point! The person I’m responding to is saying they’re like analog computers, which don’t use bits. Quantum computers are a bit more like digital computers.
- packetlost 6y agoI am the person who said that :) I guess what I really meant was I agree with your original statement. They're closer to analog computers than digital, but really they're neither and share some similarities of both. In the sense that the qubits usually only have 2 measurable states in computation, they're similar to digital computers, but that only goes for when you measure. On the other side, the 'programs' going in are not really digital information (though they can be represented as such), and because qubits are not only in one of 2 states (unlike bits) the way in which you interact/program them is definitely not digital, it is analog. If you're interested in learning about writing quantum programs, I recommend checking out IBM's Qiskit toolkit[0]. I found the tutorials to be helpful for helping grasp the fundamentals of quantum programming. [0]: https://qiskit.org/documentation/getting_started.html https://qiskit.org/documentation/getting_started.html
- M277 6y agoOff-topic, very sorry: Are there any resources you particularly recommend if I wanted to learn more about quantum computing and how quantum computers work on the hardware level?
- IlliOnato 6y agoPerhaps not exactly what you ask for, i.e. not that much on hardware/engineering, rather on physics and mathematics the quantum computing is built on: https://www.amazon.com/Quantum-Computing-since-Democritus-Aaronson/dp/0521199565 https://www.amazon.com/Quantum-Computing-since-Democritus-Aa...
- M277 6y agoIt does look like an interesting read. Thank you :)
- Robotbeat 6y agoTo be clear, this is just a classical computer component but leveraging a quantum effect (Josephson junction, which can be sensitive to a single quantum of magnetic flux) for its operation. Quantum computers are very different in that they maintain a non-classical state throughout many components, allowing certain kinds of matrix calculations to be solved significantly faster than is possible for any classical machine, analog or digital. (Although quantum solutions have a stochastic nature and there are other caveats to quantumness that potentially stand in the way of actually exceeding classical computers).