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Scott’s Supreme Quantum Supremacy FAQ

scottaaronson.com

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Re: Scott’s Supreme Quantum Supremacy FAQ

#141

Post by AndrewKemendo »

galonk wrote: post #98
outworlder wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Holy hell. > > In a superconducting circuit, conduction electrons condense into a macroscopic quantum state, such that currents and voltages behave quantum mechanically [2, 30]. Our processor uses transmon qubits [6], which can be thought of as nonlinear superconducting resonators at 5 to 7 GHz. The qubit is encoded as the two lowest quantum eigenstates of the resonant circuit. Each transmon has two controls: a micro…

"For a number of years now, work has been proceeding in order to bring perfection to the crudely conceived idea of a transmission that would not only supply inverse reactive current for use in unilateral phase detractors, but would also be capable of automatically synchronizing cardinal grammeters..."

Honestly, this is how I read every quantum thing. Not because I don't believe it's real, it's just so far outside of my area of education that it might as well be describing the turbo encabulator.

Re: Scott’s Supreme Quantum Supremacy FAQ

#142

Post by braindead_in »

whatshisface wrote: post #4

If it goes well, the history of quantum computing will be divided up in to three eras: the era of twisty philosophical arguments that it's working ("the molecule is simulating itself"), the era of academic arguments that it's working ("we can solve this one carefully constructed problem") and the era of practical arguments ("Amazon is selling QC time for $20/kilogate-bit, what do you mean it's not possible?"). Quantu…

If all goes well, Google may be the last company. They'll just gobble up everybody else and become Skynet.

Re: Scott’s Supreme Quantum Supremacy FAQ

#143

Post by westurner »

fastball wrote: post #71
westurner wrote: post #44

Who even asked these questions? I question this. All of this.

Literally people on HN have been asking many of these questions for years whenever QC is discussed.

I believe Feynman originally asked the QC question many many years ago. What an exciting milestone and a great FAQ.

"Always naysaying! Everything I create!"

Re: Scott’s Supreme Quantum Supremacy FAQ

#144

Post by nabla9 »

> But others, including my good friend Gil Kalai, are on record, right here on this blog predicting that even quantum supremacy can never be achieved for fundamental reasons. I won’t let them wiggle out of it now.

Here is Gil Kalai's post from yesterday: "Quantum computers: amazing progress (Google & IBM), and extraordinary but probably false supremacy claims (Google)." https://gilkalai.wordpress.com/2019/09/23/quantum-computers-...

Re: Scott’s Supreme Quantum Supremacy FAQ

#145

Post by OJFord »

hamilyon2 wrote: post #136
whatshisface wrote: post #4

If it goes well, the history of quantum computing will be divided up in to three eras: the era of twisty philosophical arguments that it's working ("the molecule is simulating itself"), the era of academic arguments that it's working ("we can solve this one carefully constructed problem") and the era of practical arguments ("Amazon is selling QC time for $20/kilogate-bit, what do you mean it's not possible?"). Quantu…

There is market for two, maybe three quantum computers on earth.

There was a market for two, maybe three classical computers until they became smaller, cheaper, and more general purpose.

Re: Scott’s Supreme Quantum Supremacy FAQ

#146

Post by tome »

OJFord wrote: post #145
hamilyon2 wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is market for two, maybe three quantum computers on earth.

There was a market for two, maybe three classical computers until they became smaller, cheaper, and more general purpose.

That's the joke.

Re: Scott’s Supreme Quantum Supremacy FAQ

#147

Post by scrollaway »

OJFord wrote: post #145
hamilyon2 wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is market for two, maybe three quantum computers on earth.

There was a market for two, maybe three classical computers until they became smaller, cheaper, and more general purpose.

I believe GP is referring to Thomas Watson's famous quote from the 1940s: "There is a world market for maybe five computers."

Re: Scott’s Supreme Quantum Supremacy FAQ

#148

Post by OscarCunningham »

AgentME wrote: post #134
diegoperini wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What exactly is a qubit? A bit is like a boolean type, has the values of true and false. Or you treat those values as 0 or 1, then gather a bunch of bits to build useful numbers. A qubit is like a pair such that these numbers MUST satisfy the following constraints: pair.left^2 + pair.right^2 = 1 pair.left and pair.right can be any complex number Why such a composite type with weird constraints you may ask? Because…

>A bit has the storage capacity of 2 distinct bits of information. A qubit has the storage capacity of 2 complex numbers, which corresponds to 4 floats, which is at least 16*8 bits of information if we are conservative about our assumptions. This whole explanation makes qubits sound just like a combo-pack of bits, or like something you'd find in an analog computer. They're much more powerful than that because they ca…

And also, qubits can't be used as compressed data storage. Despite the fact that it takes two real numbers to specify the state of a qubit, you only get one bit out when you measure it, with the rest of the information being destroyed.

Re: Scott’s Supreme Quantum Supremacy FAQ

#149

Post by fizx »

hamilyon2 wrote: post #136
whatshisface wrote: post #4

If it goes well, the history of quantum computing will be divided up in to three eras: the era of twisty philosophical arguments that it's working ("the molecule is simulating itself"), the era of academic arguments that it's working ("we can solve this one carefully constructed problem") and the era of practical arguments ("Amazon is selling QC time for $20/kilogate-bit, what do you mean it's not possible?"). Quantu…

There is market for two, maybe three quantum computers on earth.

There's plenty of active research into quantum computing meets machine learning. Any real progress here would create quite a market.

Re: Scott’s Supreme Quantum Supremacy FAQ

#150

Post by acqq »

ac29 wrote: post #96
sanxiyn wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it is analogous to fusion. Fusion definitely works (the Sun and hydrogen bomb) and power generation is a predicted use of fusion in the future. That doesn't mean we have known path to fusion for power generation. To extend the analogy, quantum supremacy is like fusion for neutron source. There are commercial fusion devices to be used as neutron source.

> That doesn't mean we have known path to fusion for power generation. Perhaps this was just a poor example, but we absolutely have a path to fusion power generation. ITER [0][2] is under construction now, and is expected to be capable of 10x power returns. DEMO [1] should have 25x. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ITER [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DEMOnstration_Power_Station [2] https://media4.s-nbcnews.com/j/…

Directly from ITER page:

https://www.iter.org/proj/inafewlines#2

"ITER will not capture the energy it produces as electricity, but—as first of all fusion experiments in history to produce net energy gain—it will prepare the way for the machine that can."

Let me repeat, the project will not produce any usable electricity. It's still an experiment.

And the start of the experiment is at the moment planned for 2025. The ITER project started in 2007. That's how much the preparations "just" for the experiment take, even if the previous experiments were done for decades.

Also from their FAQ:

https://www.iter.org/FAQ#collapsible_2

"one of the missions for the later stages of ITER operation is to demonstrate the feasibility of one or more concepts of tritium production through the Test Blanket Module (TBM) program."

Namely, it's an experiment that "in the later stages" should manage to give results that would allow the development of the technology for tritium breeding. Without tritium breeding fusion can't be used commercially.

The path for experiments is known, but it's still far from confirmed that the desired results are achievable, as we'll need a lot of new developments which we don't have at the moment for that.

Also DEMO can be fully developed only once ITER succeeds, it needs the results from ITER.

It's simply very hard, and achievable as an experiment. The still open question is if its really commercially viable, in the sense, if the "hard" stuff can become manageable enough to be useful.

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