Is there a definitive book explaining Quantum Computing from the ground up?
I have heard good things about Quantum Computing Since Democritus, by Scott Aaronson. I'm not sure how rigorous it is, though.
Google plans to reach a Quantum Computing milestone before the year is out
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Re: Google plans to reach a Quantum Computing milestone before the year is out
#42I was excited to read this article up to the last sentence, a quote from the program manager “We’re trying to get support within Google, and this experiment has been very good to get other engineers talking to us.” to me, this statement negates much of the positive spin of the article. That said, the title does say 'stepping stone.' My primary professional interest is AI and quantum computing to pushing the field for…
I did not bother to read the article. The title looks suspicious to me. For a scientific breakthrough, you don't plan it ahead. Instead, you work hard for a long time and all in a sudden you hit that milestone. It is unpredictable and certainly cannot be planned easily.
Thinking about this demonstration as an experiment could be a little misleading. It's somewhere between an experiment and a benchmark. Nobody has any reason to expect new physics between 10 and 50 qubits, but actually building and controlling the system is complicated. Quantum computing is in an interesting place right now where engineering milestones and scientific milestones are happening together because the technology is so fundamental.
That doesn't happen that often and it's one of the most exciting things to be about being in the field. If that interest you, then you might want to come work at Rigetti Computing: "The Tiny Startup Racing Google to Build a Quantum Computing Chip" https://www.technologyreview.com/s/600711/the-tiny-startup-r... We're hiring.
Re: Google plans to reach a Quantum Computing milestone before the year is out
#43Re: Google plans to reach a Quantum Computing milestone before the year is out
#44Earlier quoted context omitted.
I did not bother to read the article. The title looks suspicious to me. For a scientific breakthrough, you don't plan it ahead. Instead, you work hard for a long time and all in a sudden you hit that milestone. It is unpredictable and certainly cannot be planned easily.
The LHC was planned 25 years before it was a reality. In fact, one of the first pictures put on the WWW when it was created at CERN was a schematic of the LHC: https://home.cern/sites/home.web.cern.ch/files/image/update-...
The LHC wasn't a scientific milestone, it was an engineering one. Using the LHC has led to milestones.
Re: Google plans to reach a Quantum Computing milestone before the year is out
#45I'm happy that this project is coming along. I never had any contact with the physical/chip team but I did attempt to contribute something to the theory group in a 20% project. It was absolutely the best and most challenging work I had during my stint at Google, and I can definitely say the quantum theory group were the brightest minds I met there.
I think they could be on to something with their approaches, both physical and theoretical. I could definitely see a QPU in a few years serving a role in Google Cloud for specific computations. But I don't think that the groups are currently getting the headcount and engineering power that they need, I think the worst bottleneck I saw on the theoretical side was a lack of fulltime engineers to test and implement the researcher's awesome ideas. I'm hoping that gets more attention and resources, because I think Google might actually be sitting on another goldmine here.
Re: Google plans to reach a Quantum Computing milestone before the year is out
#46All wasted on finding the best advert to match to your search terms....
Re: Google plans to reach a Quantum Computing milestone before the year is out
#47Are quantum chips supposed to replace the current CPUs and GPUs? Or are they supposed to be "just" another component that we connect to the CPU, the same way we connect GPUs?
Only a handful of useful algorithms (currently) that exploit quantum computers (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_algorithm). Shor's algorithm for integer factorization is the one that would radically change the current crypto situation (goodbye RSA).
Re: Google plans to reach a Quantum Computing milestone before the year is out
#48Is there a definitive book explaining Quantum Computing from the ground up?
"Algorithms" by Sanjoy Dasgupta has a fantastic description of Shor's algorithm that uses a quantum Fourier transform to factor integers. I love this book. A great place to start.
Re: Google plans to reach a Quantum Computing milestone before the year is out
#49Earlier quoted context omitted.
The LHC was planned 25 years before it was a reality. In fact, one of the first pictures put on the WWW when it was created at CERN was a schematic of the LHC: https://home.cern/sites/home.web.cern.ch/files/image/update-...
The LHC wasn't a scientific milestone, it was an engineering one. Using the LHC has led to milestones.
But this article also talks about an engineering milestone, there is no scientific milestone in going from a 6 qubit computer or a 49 qubit one.
Re: Google plans to reach a Quantum Computing milestone before the year is out
#50Earlier quoted context omitted.
The LHC was planned 25 years before it was a reality. In fact, one of the first pictures put on the WWW when it was created at CERN was a schematic of the LHC: https://home.cern/sites/home.web.cern.ch/files/image/update-...
The LHC wasn't a scientific milestone, it was an engineering one. Using the LHC has led to milestones.
In many fields, for the past several decades, scientific progress has been inextricably bound with technical progress. New tools yield new experiments/discoveries.