6 ms·

Relevant tweet thread: https://twitter.com/condensed_the/status/1361018841724256267 https://twitter.com/condensed_the/status/1361018841724256267

DebtDeflation 6y ago
That's a surprisingly good tweet thread that does an excellent job of pragmatically walking the line between "quantum computing is impossible" and "real quantum computers are only 2-3 years away". Advances are being made, but we're still very much in the primitive science experiment stage.
alisonkisk 6y ago
I can scarcely imagine a worse concept to try to explain in tweet form.
- LudwigNagasena 6y ago
  I can hardly imagine a concept that would benefit from an explanation in tweet form.
  - airstrike 6y ago
    "The challenge in conveying complex topics in 140^W280 characters"
- mathgenius 6y ago
  It's "quantum computing twitter", so mainly experts twittering to each other. If you're interested, I made a video about these "anyons" [1]. Or, more briefly there's this [2]. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y0mn7UBonSs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y0mn7UBonSs [2] https://quantumcomputing.stackexchange.com/questions/2030/what-exactly-are-anyons-and-how-are-they-relevant-to-topological-quantum-computi/2039#2039 https://quantumcomputing.stackexchange.com/questions/2030/wh...
- alpaca128 6y ago
  I never visit Twitter normally, so when I actually click an interesting link I always land in a 5-10 tweet chain that should have been a short blog post. But somehow people put up with it and rather use external web services that automatically compile tweets into continuous text.
ArtWomb 6y ago
I feel like you can replace "quantum computing" in this rant with almost any other major gov science initiative and it would still have relevance. Lunar colonization. Nuclear fusion. Genome therapy. All 5 years away since 2000. All require major materials breakthroughs. All hyped in the glossy popular media ;)
- hprotagonist 6y ago
  Genome therapy is here, and has been for a while if you count car-t. the other two are pipe dreams though.
  - ampdepolymerase 6y ago
    Lunar colonization is a economic and political challenge, not (really) a scientific one.
    - CyberRabbi 6y ago
      I would even say that underneath the political and economic challenges is a lack of will in the first place.
    - nradov 6y ago
      Establishing an actual colony on the moon instead of just a temporary outpost will require a huge amount of basic scientific research. This goes way beyond just economics and politics? For example how do we keep people healthy and prevent bone mineral loss and muscle wasting in low gravity? How do we mitigate the effects of increased background radiation? Any real sustainable colony will need people working out on the surface so they can't just hide in underground tunnels.
      - ampdepolymerase 6y ago
        We could easily have done that research in the 20 years after the cold war. These are not research that requires state of the art technology (except for radiation shielding which requires good materials science). But we didn't, because there was no immediate demand.

DebtDeflation 6y ago

That's a surprisingly good tweet thread that does an excellent job of pragmatically walking the line between "quantum computing is impossible" and "real quantum computers are only 2-3 years away". Advances are being made, but we're still very much in the primitive science experiment stage.

alisonkisk 6y ago

I can scarcely imagine a worse concept to try to explain in tweet form.

LudwigNagasena 6y ago
I can hardly imagine a concept that would benefit from an explanation in tweet form.
- airstrike 6y ago
  "The challenge in conveying complex topics in 140^W280 characters"
mathgenius 6y ago
It's "quantum computing twitter", so mainly experts twittering to each other. If you're interested, I made a video about these "anyons" [1]. Or, more briefly there's this [2]. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y0mn7UBonSs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y0mn7UBonSs [2] https://quantumcomputing.stackexchange.com/questions/2030/what-exactly-are-anyons-and-how-are-they-relevant-to-topological-quantum-computi/2039#2039 https://quantumcomputing.stackexchange.com/questions/2030/wh...
alpaca128 6y ago
I never visit Twitter normally, so when I actually click an interesting link I always land in a 5-10 tweet chain that should have been a short blog post. But somehow people put up with it and rather use external web services that automatically compile tweets into continuous text.

ArtWomb 6y ago

I feel like you can replace "quantum computing" in this rant with almost any other major gov science initiative and it would still have relevance. Lunar colonization. Nuclear fusion. Genome therapy. All 5 years away since 2000. All require major materials breakthroughs. All hyped in the glossy popular media ;)

hprotagonist 6y ago
Genome therapy is here, and has been for a while if you count car-t. the other two are pipe dreams though.
- ampdepolymerase 6y ago
  Lunar colonization is a economic and political challenge, not (really) a scientific one.
  - CyberRabbi 6y ago
    I would even say that underneath the political and economic challenges is a lack of will in the first place.
  - nradov 6y ago
    Establishing an actual colony on the moon instead of just a temporary outpost will require a huge amount of basic scientific research. This goes way beyond just economics and politics? For example how do we keep people healthy and prevent bone mineral loss and muscle wasting in low gravity? How do we mitigate the effects of increased background radiation? Any real sustainable colony will need people working out on the surface so they can't just hide in underground tunnels.
    - ampdepolymerase 6y ago
      We could easily have done that research in the 20 years after the cold war. These are not research that requires state of the art technology (except for radiation shielding which requires good materials science). But we didn't, because there was no immediate demand.