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One thing to note is while there are not a lot of quantum algorithms (though wikipedia's list is very incomplete!), some of them are massively useful. Grover's
by bodhiandphysics 4y ago
One thing to note is while there are not a lot of quantum algorithms (though wikipedia's list is very incomplete!), some of them are massively useful. Grover's algorithm provides a quadratic improvement in black box search (which is a subroutine in many many many many algorithms). Solving a system of sparse linear equations can be solved log(n) time on a quantum computer, compared to n on a classical computer. This is the single most important problem in scientific computing.
- lisper 4y ago> Solving a system of sparse linear equations ... is the single most important problem in scientific computing. I think this is arguable. To be sure, a lot of linear-system solving goes on in science, but you cannot conclude from this that it is the "single most important problem", it's just the one that we happen to know how to solve, and so that's where the compute power goes. It's like looking for your keys under the street light because it's easier to see rather than because it's where you lost your keys. Protein folding and the Navier-Stokes equation are arguably "more important", we just have no idea how to solve those problems.
- bodhiandphysics 4y agoThe navier stokes equation is quite literally solved using the diagonalization of large matrixes!
- lisper 4y agoAs an approximation, because we don't know how to find exact solutions.