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Willow, Our Quantum Chip

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Re: Willow, Our Quantum Chip

#261

Post by RossBencina »

potsandpans wrote: post #80
goatking wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How can I, a regular software engineer, learn about quantum computing without having to learn quantum theory? > Worth spending a little time doing some long tail strategizing I’d say any tips for starters?

Start here: https://youtu.be/F_Riqjdh2oM You don't need to know quantum theory necessarily, but you will need to know some maths. Specifically linear algebra. There are a few youtube courses on linear algebra For a casual set of video: - https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLZHQObOWTQDPD3MizzM2xVFit... For a more formal approach: - https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL49CF3715CB9EF31D And the corresponding open coursewa…

+1 for 18-06 and Axler. Another, more concrete, option (not sure how much it will help with quantum theory) is Stephen Boyd's "Introduction to Applied Linear Algebra" available online here:

https://web.stanford.edu/~boyd/vmls/

Re: Willow, Our Quantum Chip

#262

Post by taf2 »

xnx wrote: post #98

Is anyone else even close to Google in this space? (e.g. on the "System Metrics" the blog defines)

IonQ - they are powering AWS solution here: https://aws.amazon.com/braket/quantum-computers/ionq/

Not sure if they are close in terms of specs but looks like they are a viable solution and seeing an increase in utilization over the last year... Seems both are pretty interesting to keep an eye on.

Re: Willow, Our Quantum Chip

#263

Post by gloriousduke »

djoldman wrote: post #215

I wonder if anyone else will be forced to wait on https://scottaaronson.blog/ to tell us if this is significant.

I was about to add a similar comment. Definitely interested to read his evaluation and whether there is more hype than substance here, though I'm guessing it may take some time.

Re: Willow, Our Quantum Chip

#264

Post by IanCal »

adastra22 wrote: post #248
cwillu wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

O(sqrt(N)) is easily dominated by the relative ease of constructing much bigger classical computers though.

Uh, no? Not for large N. There are about 2^152 possible legal chess states. You cannot build a classical computer large enough to compute that many states. Cryptography is generally considered secure when it involves a search space of only 2^100 states. But you could build a computer to search though sqrt(2^152) = 2^76 states. I mean it'd be big--that's on the order of total global storage capacity. But not "bigger t…

Doing 2^76 iterations is huge. That's a trillion operations a second for two and a half thousand years if I've not slipped up and missed a power of ten.

Re: Willow, Our Quantum Chip

#265

Post by varjag »

jawns wrote: post #8

> It lends credence to the notion that quantum computation occurs in many parallel universes, in line with the idea that we live in a multiverse I see the evidence, and I see the conclusion, but there's a lot of ellipses between the evidence and the conclusion. Do quantum computing folks really think that we are borrowing capacity from other universes for these calculations?

Yes this is deeply unserious tangent in supposedly landmark technology announcement.

Re: Willow, Our Quantum Chip

#266

Post by nadahalli »

sekai wrote: post #226
npalli wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Worth spending a little time doing some long tail strategizing I’d say. Yup, like Bitcoin going to zero.

> Yup, like Bitcoin going to zero. If the encryption on Bitcoin is broken, say goodbye to the banking system.

[pedantic hat on] Bitcoin doesn't use encryption.

You mean digital signatures - and yes, we use signatures everywhere in public key cryptography.

Re: Willow, Our Quantum Chip

#267

Post by notarealllama »

adastra22 wrote: post #240
pclmulqdq wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1024 is for RSA-1024, which is believed to be broken by classical means at this point. Everyone doing anything with RSA is on 4k or larger.

I took this conversation to be about ECC, not RSA.

My completely unfounded tin foil hat at the moment is that ECC was pushed as a standard not because it was faster/ smaller, but the smaller bit size makes it less quantum resistant and is more prone to be broken first (if not already) via quantum supremacy.

Re: Willow, Our Quantum Chip

#269

Post by qnleigh »

jawns wrote: post #8

> It lends credence to the notion that quantum computation occurs in many parallel universes, in line with the idea that we live in a multiverse I see the evidence, and I see the conclusion, but there's a lot of ellipses between the evidence and the conclusion. Do quantum computing folks really think that we are borrowing capacity from other universes for these calculations?

This is a viable interpretation of quantum mechanics, but currently there is no way to scientifically falsify or confirm any particular interpretation. The boundary between philosophy and science is fuzzy at times, but this question is solidly on the side of philosophy.

That being said, I think the two most commonly preferred interpretations of quantum mechanics among physicists are 'Many Worlds' and 'I try not to think about it too hard.'

Re: Willow, Our Quantum Chip

#270

Post by [deleted] »

melvinmelih wrote: post #100
jawns wrote: post #8

> It lends credence to the notion that quantum computation occurs in many parallel universes, in line with the idea that we live in a multiverse I see the evidence, and I see the conclusion, but there's a lot of ellipses between the evidence and the conclusion. Do quantum computing folks really think that we are borrowing capacity from other universes for these calculations?

> It performed a computation in under five minutes that would take one of today’s fastest supercomputers 1025 or 10 septillion years. If you want to write it out, it’s 10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 years. If it's not, what would be your explanation for this significant improvement then?

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