Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Google Buys a Quantum Computer

bits.blogs.nytimes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 60 posts

Re: Google Buys a Quantum Computer

#31

Post by Retric »

cantos wrote: post #28
Retric wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quantum computers can't solve arbitrarily large factirisation problems. The signal gets weaker the largers the numbers get to the point where factoring a 4096 bit number is not going to happen.

Real quantum computers don't exist. If one did exist it would need to factor numbers much larger than 4096 bits efficiently for it to be considered a real quantum computer.

And all true scotsman wear kilts. We consider 8bit computers real computers even though they can't run windows 8. The same can be said for quantum computers, a 64qubit quibit quantum CPU could be vary useful even if it can't factor 4096bit numbers.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qubit

PS: We have solid state 4bit quantum computers right now. They may not be useful for much, but that's in part because we have spent hundreds of billions of dollars perfecting classical computers.

Re: Google Buys a Quantum Computer

#32

Post by goatforce5 »

prawks wrote: post #27
michaelochurch wrote: post #23

Whenever I hear about Google doing some genuine technology, it just makes me a million times more fucking angry to compare what Google must be like if you're a Real Googler (machine learning projects, basic research, quantum computing, meaningful work) to the misery that the other 90% endure. I feel like this should be much more of an HR problem than it seems to be. Whenever it comes out that Google's real members ar…

So who works on the rest of the existing Google systems once everyone just up and switches to doing research and "meaningful work"?

Right... And someone needs to maintain the boring systems so Google can operate their core services (search and ad sales, say) to pay for the neat stuff that the (ahem) 'real' Googlers do.

Some employees may be more easily replaced than others, but those dull jobs are often equally important.

Re: Google Buys a Quantum Computer

#33

Post by sp332 »

cantos wrote: post #28
Retric wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quantum computers can't solve arbitrarily large factirisation problems. The signal gets weaker the largers the numbers get to the point where factoring a 4096 bit number is not going to happen.

Real quantum computers don't exist. If one did exist it would need to factor numbers much larger than 4096 bits efficiently for it to be considered a real quantum computer.

Quantum computers do exist. But it's hard to build large ones. The largest one so far was able to factor 143=11x13. http://phys.org/news/2012-04-largest-factored-quantum-algori...

Re: Google Buys a Quantum Computer

#35

Post by sp332 »

greenmountin wrote: post #25
i_am_dead wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

D-Wave does have a factoring algorithm. See the comments from D-Wave here: http://dwave.wordpress.com/2011/05/11/learning-to-program-th... "We do have a factoring algorithm that I’m going to do a series of blog posts on"

This is absurd. That's a comment on a blog post, proposing a bombastic title, "Better than Shor". I'm pretty sure if they could get anywhere near Shor using their architecture they'd get more than a sympathy Nature paper. The truth is, D-Wave has done nothing to foster the coherence of their "qubits", and so they have built a very expensive, superconducting, classical computer. There is no quantum trick, actually. Yo…

There is an adiabatic factoring algorithm. http://phys.org/news/2012-04-largest-factored-quantum-algori...

Re: Google Buys a Quantum Computer

#37

Post by stablepeak »

oneofthose wrote: post #20
lmm wrote: post #3

Have D-Wave demonstrated any actual quantum behaviour yet? I had them down as a scam prior to the google involvement; now I'm not sure what to think.

They did demonstrate quantum behavior in a Nature paper [0] they published in 2011. [0] http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v473/n7346/full/nature1...

So in the end it is something like a Hopfield Network implemented in a physical system?

Re: Google Buys a Quantum Computer

#38

Post by kolbe »

While I loathe Ayn Rand I have to give her some credit for capturing accurate human behavior in Atlas Shrugged: the D-Wave skeptics seem to behave exactly like Rearden's detractors.

But in the face of it all, D-Wave keeps plugging along, landing larger contracts, and hitting more impressive benchmarks. They may fizzle out in a flame of failure in the end, but as it stands, they seem like they're doing a great job.

Re: Google Buys a Quantum Computer

#39

Post by michaelochurch »

prawks wrote: post #27
michaelochurch wrote: post #23

Whenever I hear about Google doing some genuine technology, it just makes me a million times more fucking angry to compare what Google must be like if you're a Real Googler (machine learning projects, basic research, quantum computing, meaningful work) to the misery that the other 90% endure. I feel like this should be much more of an HR problem than it seems to be. Whenever it comes out that Google's real members ar…

So who works on the rest of the existing Google systems once everyone just up and switches to doing research and "meaningful work"?

Well, here's how I think about it.

If you have an open allocation system where people are free to work directly for the company, then people spend some time on the research work that interests them, and some on the maintenance and upkeep of critical systems. Why do they volunteer for less attractive projects? Because they actually care, because the company is (imagine this) worth caring about. Once the maintenance work is done by volunteers rather than extortion victims, it starts getting a lot of respect and people to do it to be "heroes". So yes, it still gets done.

On the other hand, if you work in a careerist closed-allocation hellhole where your boss has unilateral authority to whip it out and flow a shot on your performance reviews/"calibration score" (i.e. managerial extortion) then, obviously people are going to look out only for themselves and the maintenance won't get done unless someone's forced to do it (in which case, it's done very badly). People will not freely participate in a closed allocation company's upkeep because the work culture of a closed-allocation firm is not worth caring about or protecting.

They're both equilibrium states. In one (open allocation) people see themselves as citizens and do the full mix of the work: the important and fun stuff, but also the less-fun but critical "hero" work. In the other (closed allocation/extortion economy) people realize that the company has no consideration for them and that no one's looking out for their careers, so they take anything that's not nailed down and the critical upkeep work doesn't get done.

Post reply on HN