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D-Wave Defies World of Critics With ‘First Quantum Cloud’

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Re: D-Wave Defies World of Critics With ‘First Quantum Cloud’

#21
post #19

It seems that every time I read articles about quantum computing, the increase in computing power is described with gaping hole: 1. Qubits can be 1 and 0 at the same time 2. ... 3. Solve hard problems! Can someone provide a link that fills in the middle somewhat? Preferably, aimed at an audience with something closer to undergrad engineering degree and than a PhD?

http://michaelnielsen.org/blog/quantum-computing-for-the-det...

Re: D-Wave Defies World of Critics With ‘First Quantum Cloud’

#22

"The great mathematician and founding figure of computer science, Alan Turing, showed that it is impossible to eliminate all errors from software." Oh? I thought he only proved that it's impossible for an algorithm to determine whether an arbitrary program will halt -- not whether all errors can be eliminated from software.

Indeed, it was the Curry–Howard correspondence which led to the realisation that software could be proven correct: a function's type can be seen as a proposition, the function itself a proof of that proposition.

Re: D-Wave Defies World of Critics With ‘First Quantum Cloud’

#23
post #19

It seems that every time I read articles about quantum computing, the increase in computing power is described with gaping hole: 1. Qubits can be 1 and 0 at the same time 2. ... 3. Solve hard problems! Can someone provide a link that fills in the middle somewhat? Preferably, aimed at an audience with something closer to undergrad engineering degree and than a PhD?

[deleted]

Re: D-Wave Defies World of Critics With ‘First Quantum Cloud’

#26

> That same month, mega defense contractor Lockheed Martin bought a D-Wave quantum computer and a support contract for $10 million. lol, i used to work at LM advanced research, LM consistently blows 10 mil over 3 ears on stupid dead end projects and nobody even blinks. This is not a criticism of LM so much as it gives us insight into the size of budget and scope of projects the work with. they did 45bn revenue in 201…

I have spoken to a guy who was at one point closely involved with the D-wave people. He suggested that the actual story with the Lockheed purchase was that LM sells an awful lot of gear to Canada, and as part of the contract they are expected to buy some number of million worth of Canadian tech in return. The D-wave purchase was one of these obligated purchases.

Just a comment given in unofficial conversation, take it how you will.

Re: D-Wave Defies World of Critics With ‘First Quantum Cloud’

#27
post #24

Quantum computing is here! No, wait, it's over there! One thing is for sure - we're uncertain where quantum computing is right now. (yes, bad joke. It seems to work on a couple of different levels, though)

But for sure it's moving very fast!

(even worse follow-up on a bad quantum joke)

Re: D-Wave Defies World of Critics With ‘First Quantum Cloud’

#28
post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you saying that Lockheed had 45bn revenue in 2011 from wikipedia? how does that work?

The parent is citing wikipedia. Saying "per wikipedia" is using "per" to mean "according to", not using it to mean "for each" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_martin

Thank you for the clarification. I didn't know that.

Re: D-Wave Defies World of Critics With ‘First Quantum Cloud’

#29
post #6

Scott Aaronson recently wrote an informative article about his trip to D-Wave: http://www.scottaaronson.com/blog/?p=954 Most interesting to me: "Geordie presented graphs that showed D-Wave’s quantum annealer solving its Ising spin problem “faster” than classical simulated annealing and tabu search (where “faster” means ignoring the time for cooling the annealer down, which seemed fair to me). Unfortunately, the data…

for folks in the Boston area, this meetup might be of interest: http://www.meetup.com/Theoretical-Computer-Science-Problem-S...

I went, he is an enthusiastic speaker defiantly worth attending.
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