3 ms·
Sure. If/when we see anything practical, that’ll be the right moment to pay attention. This is much like “quantum computing” where everyone who doesn’t know wha
by ein0p 2y ago
Sure. If/when we see anything practical, that’ll be the right moment to pay attention. This is much like “quantum computing” where everyone who doesn’t know what it is is excited for some reason, and those that do know can’t even articulate any practical applications
- dekhn 2y agoFeynman already articulated the one practical application for quantum computing: using it to simulate complex systems (https://www.optica-opn.org/home/articles/on/volume_11/issue_2/features/quantum_mechanical_computers/ https://www.optica-opn.org/home/articles/on/volume_11/issue_... and https://calteches.library.caltech.edu/1976/ https://calteches.library.caltech.edu/1976/ and https://s2.smu.edu/~mitch/class/5395/papers/feynman-quantum-1981.pdf https://s2.smu.edu/~mitch/class/5395/papers/feynman-quantum-... These approaches are now being explored but I haven't seen any smoking guns showing a QC-based simulation exceeding the accuracy of a classical computer for a reasonable investment. Folks have suggested other areas, such as logistics, where finding small improvements to the best approximations might give a company a small edge, and crypto-breaking, but there has been not that much progress in this area, and the approximate methods have been improving rapidly.