Maybe relevant: https://www.scottaaronson.com/blog/?p=208
An Explanation of Shor's Quantum Factoring Algorithm
11–19 of 19 posts
Re: An Explanation of Shor's Quantum Factoring Algorithm
#12Earlier quoted context omitted.
I have to disagree. I don't like making people have to choose between the superficial "explains nothing" article and the "extremely opaque, academic" one. It's one of my biggest pet peeves, in fact, and adds an unnecessary barrier to onboarding people to new topics. I see it everywhere. If you genuinely understand a topic, you can produce an explanation anywhere an between, and achieve any compromise between hand-wav…
I don't think we are in disagreement. >Don't get me wrong, analogies and novel perspectives can be invaluable learning tools. But they can never be a substitute for the fundamentals, only supplement them.
You are disagreeing, with this insistence that they should just take the hard slog through the ultra opaque academic paper, when a friendlier one can provide can communicate the critical parts of the model and the dynamics that drive the result.
You're disagreeing that the dynamics communicated by the intermediate paper can accomplish any relevant (thing that can be called) understanding because it's not "the fundamentals". In contrast, I insist that there are "blurrier" models that communicate something substantive without going all the way to the academic model.
Re: An Explanation of Shor's Quantum Factoring Algorithm
#13Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't think we are in disagreement. >Don't get me wrong, analogies and novel perspectives can be invaluable learning tools. But they can never be a substitute for the fundamentals, only supplement them.
You are disagreeing, with this insistence that they should just take the hard slog through the ultra opaque academic paper, when a friendlier one can provide can communicate the critical parts of the model and the dynamics that drive the result. You're disagreeing that the dynamics communicated by the intermediate paper can accomplish any relevant (thing that can be called) understanding because it's not "the fundame…
Read the article and tell me specifically which parts of it communicate something substantive and critical that is also correct. Substantive communication of ideas or dynamics doesn't mean a thing if they are not accurate.
Propagation of false or incomplete ideas is more harmful than no communication at all (IMO).
It's no use to talk of all "intermediate" papers in general, as they are all different. Some are wildly successful at what you describe. I'm only talking about this one.
Re: An Explanation of Shor's Quantum Factoring Algorithm
#14Earlier quoted context omitted.
You are disagreeing, with this insistence that they should just take the hard slog through the ultra opaque academic paper, when a friendlier one can provide can communicate the critical parts of the model and the dynamics that drive the result. You're disagreeing that the dynamics communicated by the intermediate paper can accomplish any relevant (thing that can be called) understanding because it's not "the fundame…
Read the article and tell me specifically which parts of it communicate something substantive and critical that is also correct. Substantive communication of ideas or dynamics doesn't mean a thing if they are not accurate. Propagation of false or incomplete ideas is more harmful than no communication at all (IMO). It's no use to talk of all "intermediate" papers in general, as they are all different. Some are wildly…
Your original comment was categorically objecting to blurrier, intermediate pop-sci articles, not citing a problem with this specific one's failure to clarify the core dynamics driving the result. That all-or-nothing attitude is what I was objecting to.
I don't claim that this one succeeds at being a good intermediate paper, only that you shouldn't dismiss all such articles in preference for the ultra-rigorous one, as your original comment was suggesting.
If you think this one is failing to convey the key insights and/or worsens someone's understanding, then I would agree you should raise and elaborate on that point.
Re: An Explanation of Shor's Quantum Factoring Algorithm
#15Earlier quoted context omitted.
You are disagreeing, with this insistence that they should just take the hard slog through the ultra opaque academic paper, when a friendlier one can provide can communicate the critical parts of the model and the dynamics that drive the result. You're disagreeing that the dynamics communicated by the intermediate paper can accomplish any relevant (thing that can be called) understanding because it's not "the fundame…
Read the article and tell me specifically which parts of it communicate something substantive and critical that is also correct. Substantive communication of ideas or dynamics doesn't mean a thing if they are not accurate. Propagation of false or incomplete ideas is more harmful than no communication at all (IMO). It's no use to talk of all "intermediate" papers in general, as they are all different. Some are wildly…
The article explains in substantive detail...
- How quadratic residues can factor a modulus.
- How to take a signal with peaks at k/P and derive P from a single sample.
- The general flow of modular-exponentiation to period-finding to quadratic residues to factoring.
But that's all mostly classical stuff that programmers would be expected to be able to follow in full detail. You're right that there is no focus on the fundamentals behind the QFT. Instead, there's a focus on concrete "if you do this, you get that" examples with links to a simulator to back up those assertions.
Some people learn best by starting with fundamentals. Others learn best by starting with examples. Most do a bit of both. It's inaccurate to call something "pop science" because it did some concrete-example-first explanation. Pop science articles don't have fundamentals or concrete examples. They just make joke analogies to Doctor Who or whatever and call it a day.
Re: An Explanation of Shor's Quantum Factoring Algorithm
#16I get that these kind of posts can seem interesting to the software engineers that are predominant on HN, but these kind of articles are ultimately "popular science" articles. They only give the illusion of understanding. I'm tired of people trying to find or make shortcuts to advanced topics. If you want to truly understanding something, put in the work. Shor's actual paper for this is only 25 pages. You need a stro…
You don't have to understand the math to understand the product and what its applicable to. Visuals completely change what it means to 'understand' something. You actually can understand compound interest with a stack of dollar bills that increase over time. You may not know what multiplication is, but you can see how its increasing over time, therefore giving you a better understand of multiplication even.
Re: An Explanation of Shor's Quantum Factoring Algorithm
#17I get that these kind of posts can seem interesting to the software engineers that are predominant on HN, but these kind of articles are ultimately "popular science" articles. They only give the illusion of understanding. I'm tired of people trying to find or make shortcuts to advanced topics. If you want to truly understanding something, put in the work. Shor's actual paper for this is only 25 pages. You need a stro…
You must be fun at parties.
I think we've all heard this one once or a million times too many, and personal attacks are not OK on Hacker News in any case. Please don't post like this.
Re: An Explanation of Shor's Quantum Factoring Algorithm
#18Earlier quoted context omitted.
OP mentions on the post how it's a simplified explanation. I don't think he's trying to write a textbook on Shor's algorithm here. Also, a subject's complexity is no excuse to not try and explain it in an accessible way. I find it far-fetched that someone would read a blog post on QC and then assume they're a specialist; and if they do it's not the author's fault. Articles like this help present the field to non-spec…
I agree with your general sentiment regarding making advanced topics accessible. But since you proof-read the article, I hope you are not suggesting that knowledge of Hadamard gates should be considered as "accessible." In any case, the main reason why I think of this article as "popular science" is because it fails to even attempt to explain quantum fourier transforms in layman's terms. The author even admits that s…
>Show me a macroscopic system that exhibits true wave-particle duality and can be used as an analogy for quantum systems, then I'll take it seriously.
With the "true" in that sentence, we might be dealing with some moving goalposts, but this[0] is a well-known classical system which behaves similarly to a Bohmian description of QM and also exhibits interference, etc, on double-slit experiments.
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Re: An Explanation of Shor's Quantum Factoring Algorithm
#19Earlier quoted context omitted.
You must be fun at parties.
I think we've all heard this one once or a million times too many, and personal attacks are not OK on Hacker News in any case. Please don't post like this.
As far as personal attacks go, that was pretty mild IMHO, especially after he just finished an inflammatory rant insulting both the author and the readers of this article. Buy hey, go ahead and take my Internet points, I don't care about them.