PSA on Quantum Computing

[todofwar]

http://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/the-talk-4

Talk to your kids about quantum computing, before someone else does. 

[wumpus]

Except that what he was reading was a general problem.  Formal logic was founded with the inclusion of "reductio ad absurdum".  Unfortunately for the EPR paper, while they successfully argued the quantum mechanics issues that quantum computing were indeed absurd (to humans at least), nature disagreed and most experiments went along with the absurdity Einstein, Podolsky, and Rosen railed against.

A strong first strategy would be to teach formal logic earlier.  This is a relatively strong trick as nearly all usages of "since x is weird, y must be true" are so incredibly botched that you need not understand the background issues the EPR paper "disproved".  Unfortunately, evolution working as it does, once this becomes a wider solution the few correctly argued cases that break the "reductio ad absurdum" argument will be more wildly published (at the price of a signficant amount of the population being able to think better.  It would certainly be worth dealing with more "logical" propaganda/fake news).

To complete the step, you would need to teach the full blown nature of quantum issues (and presumably have a non-toy quantum computer working).  Yea, right.  And Santa Kerbin can bring me my own rocket.

- near as I can tell, the fact that even the "toy quantum-computers" work pretty much proves hat quantum mechanics more or less works they way it says in the books (as far as I know, the "pilot wave" theory doesn't change anything in the comic).

[TheSaint]

That was hilarious. I really like the little throw down for XKCD at the end. (Click on the red button.)

[Bill Phil]

Saturday morning breakfast cereal is pretty funny. That comic in particular was quite long.

[Jonfliesgoats]

Cute

[PB666]

I think the major point was missed.

Let me state it like this Quantum Mechanics creates many caveats most are unexplored. In that context scientist designed quantum computers which with two cubits showed creates great promise, theoretically and disregarding the unexplored caveats issue. Adding more cubits revealed that quantum decoherence is progressively more disruptive, which wipes out theory and now places quantum computing back in the situation that they need to explore more caveats to deal with quantum decoherence.

In its current state a perfectly acting quantum computer would be very good at calculating an actual probability distribution given a two state outcome p and q, calculating all probabilities, it would not be very good as a your video graphics processor machine and/or single core CPU playing WoW for 3AM 35-man city raids on a 1080p monitor (which, comparably, is what 99% of the planet really needs there new faster computer for). Theoretically, however, some other QM discovery might allow us to make in-line processing faster, allowing you to say run a raid on 75 inch monitor at 2400 DPI resolution, testing the absolute limits of peripheral vision at say 133 frames per second.

For example, some of the new atomic isomers can allow flipping states which might make faster memories or registers. Doubtful but proposed. The creation of single molecule transitors built with scanning tunneling technology may allow single electron processing, which decreases the size, voltage and amperage in CPU (although you still have to find a way to wire it). In space were space flight may take generation and were cosmic radiation is really destructive to electrons, and shielding is quite expensive, and power does not last a long time . . .  atomic isomers that very long decay life's are the solution, the problem is that electronics need to operate at critically low temperatures, and to save electricity at very low power usage. So modern low amperage, low voltage devices could provide a solution for the deep space probing.  Communication still remains an issue, but provided the ship makes it with some sort of solar panel (again questionable longevity in space) ..  of course quantum entanglement allows communication  and entangled pairs could be stabilized for say 4000 years (a rather large if and if then) we could have in some future tiny little probes flying out into space radiating back to home the location of habitable planets, which we have no means to ever reach.

[wumpus]

55 minutes ago, PB666 said:

I think the major point was missed.

A quantum computer *might* be able to compute ray traced graphics wildly faster than current tech.  Don't be too surprised if this doesn't improve WoW or any other AAA graphics game.  It probably would improve KSP.  Unfortunately, I suspect ray-tracing takes a *ton* of qubits, wildly more than imaginable and presumably enough to make cryptography impossible.

A quantum computer *might* be able to optimize maneuver nodes in n-body gravity, including gravity assists and likely "fuzzy boundary tricks".  This would be nearer and dearer to KSP players, and probably require a lot less qubits (but still enough to do Shor's algorithm and break computer security as we know it).

I still think the major point that was the punchline at the end.  Teach your kids about logic and you don't have to worry that they followed your explanation about Hilbert Space.

PS: http://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/quantum-computer

[a better use of quantum computers]

Edited December 16, 2016 by wumpus
double posting would be rude.