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Seth Lloyd references an earlier paper by Scott Aaronson but not the excellent, recent one, that tackled this subject heads-on.

I've been following the Rossi story as well and agree that it is a fraud, but the comparisons to the ecat are only superficial.

The contraptions Rossi builds are cheap and look like a plumber put them together. On the other hand D-Wave has chips samples on display that are produced by a special purpose foundry that can produce Niobium SC circuitry. That took some serious investments.

Rossi supposedly sold his house to finance his venture, D-Wave is backed by the likes of Steve Jurvetson and Jeff Bezos. Rossi has phantom customers who don't talk to the public, D-Wave has Google, NASA and Lockheed Martin.

Frankly, after they started publishing in Nature it's ludicrous to hang on to the idea that this is just an elaborate fraud. Then again conspiracy theories are a dim dozen on the Internet, and you are free to believe whatever you want.

Yes, the quantum bitcoin miner thought occurred to me too :-)

There are good reasons people were suspicious of D-Wave, the way they first made a splash and overpromised delivery pushed all the right buttons.

But to hang on to this stance after the amount of scrutiny that the D-Wave machine received is about as rational a climate change denial.

It's one thing to argue that they have not proven a quantum speed-up, but they clearly build an quantum annealing device that you can use to perform calculations.

Given the recent NSA revelations I think that our security in mostly illusional anyway, but if it makes you sleep better, the D-Wave machine cannot implement Shor's algorithm.

The thing is operating close to absolute zero, and indeed the increase in noise with temperature severely degrades the machine's performance, but this is exactly as you'd expect, so I fail to see your point.

I recently visited D-Wave looked at their chips and deep freeze containment. Shot a snapshot of Geordie Rose standing in one of the open boxes.

You may think they are misguided, but their tech is for real. Even Scott Aaronson doesn't deny that.

There is no classical computer hidden inside, but there is still reasonable doubt as to exactly how quantum the device is, and if it will ever deliver clear cut quantum speed-up.

... I got the impression that he is not overtly concerned about this ongoing controversy, although he did mention he prepared another paper to demonstrate entanglement on the chip.

But his focus is clearly on tackling hard tasks with immediate applicability (for instance in deep learning).

If it was only shoddy experiments that'll be one thing. But some theoretical physics has gotten so used to divorcing itself from experimental verification it's turning into fairytale science.

Maybe that'll throw a monkeywrench into the viral notion that we are living in a simulated universe.

Not holding my breath though.

Reputable journals are only marginally better. Just witnessed a back and forth where some research was attacked by a prominent scientist. The assumptions the latter made weren't quite on target, so the attacked researchers submitted a paper pointing this out. This passed anonymous peer review but then the paper solicited the opinion of this star scientists. He dismisses the paper with the most bizarre arguments that give the impression that he didn't even read it. Then the prestigious journal turns around and endorses this position and rejects the paper.

Absolute astounding and sobering.

Disclaimer: I am not a party or author in this but covered the controversy on my blog, and hence have been shown the rejection email.

Flat earthers, creationists and climate change deniers are immensely annoying but this is still a terrible decision. Trolls will never go away, but they are only kept in check by challenging them.

On the other hand science can benefit from intelligent and and well informed commentary and like any other human activity benefits from critical, constructive media coverage and public debate.

In the final analysis science is too important to just leave it to the scientists.

You can already buy commercial quantum encryption devices. That was the point of the hacking to begin with. Only caveat: The existing tech is point to point protocol. That's why this was such big news earlier this year.

Is quantum entanglement the only physical resource that allows for such strong encryption?

I.e. does exploiting thermodynamic properties already suffice as claimed in the Kish cypher?

Can it outperform classical computers?

This remains to be seen for the time being, although early benchmarking was enough to convince Google to shell out some cash.

Nevertheless, there is another set of benchmark results to be released soon, and those may spell a different picture. Unfortunately, I am not at all convinced that I can already win my bet on D-Wave with the current chip generation.

Of course 'hardliners' like Scott Aaronson maintain that quantum annealing will never get there in the first place.

At any rate a fascinating story to follow.

Can it outperform classical computers?

This remains to be seen for the time being, although early benchmarking was enough to convince Google to shell out some cash.

Nevertheless, there is another set of benchmark results to be released soon, and those may spell a different picture. Unfortunately, I am not at all convinced that I can already win my bet on D-Wave with the current chip generation.

Of course 'hardliners' like Scott Aaronson maintain that quantum annealing will never get there in the first place.

At any rate a fascinating story to follow.

Please recreate it if you can find the time. I regularly blog about quantum computing and are happy to feature it, and make sure it doesn't get lost again.

... whatever the thing really is, comes across as one of the oddest, math challenged inventors imaginable.

It's a common misconception that QM as a theory of the microcosm is somehow more general and accurate than SR. Yet, the derivation of SR does not even require the constance of light speed (although that's the route that Einstein oribinally followed), but can be derived from very obvious first principles.

And this is a key difference to QM where this still hasn't been accomplished (despite the theory being such a fantastic empirical success story). Of course as far as empirical evidence goes SR also has a spotless record (which is why the CERN faster than light brewhaha was pretty much a forgone conclusion).

.

No, this does not invalidate the Heisenberg principle because it is done on an ensemble and the measurement is just an average on the statistic that they gather.

This has no bearing on the fundamental validity of the uncertainty principle for a single quantum system. Never quite understood the point of these experiments. But to advertise them in this misleading fashion is just asinine.

Way to go to confuse an already science sceptic pubic.

Two days ago the entry on a physicist, who I thought came accross something pretty profound, was deemed not noteworthy by Wikipedia. I was originally prompted to create a biographical stub on him because they have articles on two rugby players by the same name. But it seems Wikipedia has more in common with highschool than I realized: The jocks get more attention.

Anyhow, this dude from down under found a pretty astounding approach to the correspondence principle (i.e. how QM gives rise) to classical mechanics in a mathematical framework originally developed by Steven Weinberg. Something the latter astoundingly overlooked. The talkback page on this math can be found here. The article itself meanwhile has been deleted. Please note: Not because the math is wrong, but because the citation record has been deemed to be too low by the editors.

There's a blog post with links to his recovered papers (most follow up papers on this were actually lost for a while a never published). So if you have a physics background you can form your own opinion.

To me this is a pretty good example of how really interesting findings can simply be washed away in the avalanche of mediocre papers that get produced every day.

The post loses all credibility when throwing nuclear into the mix as well. Just reads as yet another Malthusian catastrophe forecast.

Especially in light of the fact that there are energy net positive technologies under development to get our nuclear wast problem under control. Nuclear and alternative energies could very well wean us of fossil fuel.

Pebble bed reactors may not be the answer, but they are not the only alternative nuclear designs worth investigating.

For instance using an accelerator as neutron source makes for an inherently save reactor. One that can process Thorium as well as reduce the nuclear waste stockpile.

... efficiently on a classic Turing machine. This has been established since Feynman originally proposed it. So I simply don't understand the premise of this research. Not that this is hasn't come up before with SUSY string theorists.

It simply flies into the face of what these days is known about computational complexity.

Apparently some physicists are completely ignoring this branch of theoretical computer science.

Now if the question was that the universe might be a quantum computing simulation that'll make more sense, as these can also efficiently simulate field theories.

But my understanding is that this is not what they are investigating here.

... efficiently on a classic Turing machine. This has been established since Feynman originally proposed it. So I simply don't understand the premise of this research. Not that this is hasn't come up before with SUSY string theorists.

It simply flies into the face of what these days is known about computational complexity.

Apparently some physicists are completely ignoring this branch of theoretical computer science.

Now if the question was that the universe might be a quantum computing simulation that'll make more sense, as these can also efficiently simulate field theories.

But my understanding is that this is not what they are investigating here.

... efficiently on a classic Turing machine. This has been established since Feynman originally proposed it. So I simply don't understand the premise of this research. Not that this is hasn't come up before with SUSY string theorists.

It simply flies into the face of what these days is known about computational complexity.

Apparently some physicists are completely ignoring this branch of theoretical computer science.

Now if the question was that the universe might be a quantum computing simulation that'll make more sense, as these can also efficiently simulate field theories.

But my understanding is that this is not what they are investigating here.

The article on that can be found here. It is not settled science that this effect is real, and it is a very small effect. That neutrinos may be causing this is conjecture at this point.

What makes the effect exciting is that it'll hint at new physics if confirmed.

I think the problem is that the link is not yet established. What we have is a link between count rates in a detector observing a sample of some isotope and time of year, which no one disputes (we reasonably assume they are not making up their data). The argument is whether you can make the inductive leap to the claim that radioactive decay rates depend on the amount of solar radiation. As shown in some of those papers above, other experiments don't (like the test with the MESSENGER probe) show the effect you would expect if solar radiation were the cause.

Apparently there are some other papers that cast doubt on the basic finding. See the comment by "AK" at http://wavewatching.net/2012/09/01/from-the-annals-of-the-impossible-experimental-physics-edition/

That comment also points out that this "second study" includes one of the authors of the first study, so it's not really an independent confirmation.

And the first plot at that link (the original study) doesn't - IMO - actually look very supportive: the average period is about right, but the phase isn't very stable. Sometimes the peaks line up almost perfectly, but other times the measured peaks are almost at the zero of the astronomical curve. (The next plot is pretty impressive, though.)

Smart money - IMO - is that this, like the FTL neutrino thingy, will turn out to be in the equipment rather than in the phenomenon being studied.

Not really sure why this is news.

The /. byline is: News for nerds stuff that matters.

I already interpreted this as with an OR condition. I.e. sometimes the stuff that matters doesn't have to be all new to be interesting for the /. crowd.

I think the little known fact that a major insight in physics came from an initial "mistake" is such an interesting morsel.

Especially when contemplating that nowadays physicists are constantly beset by crackpots and have subsequently being conditioned to quickly dismiss information that seems faulty. I am certainly as guilty of this as anybody. If I think I spot an obvious mistake in a paper from a dubious source I don't bother to read the rest.

If Einstein would have operated like this Bose's paper would have never been published.

Anyhow, the newsy aspect of this story is that Einstein's paper on this subject is now available in a new translation. For some reason there was no English version anywhere to be found on the Internets.

Reading comprehension?

"Especially when it seems to contain an obvious glaring mistake."

Bose's paper was rejected because the mainstream opinion was that he didn't count the photons correctly. This was exactly the kind of "mistake" that he made in his lecture that miraculously lead to the correct radiation spectrum formula (Planck's law).

Einstein directly addressed this critique in his follow up paper (paragraph 7 search for "Ehrenfest").

So, I fully stand by my summary.

You can always go to the original articles that are linked on the site if you really want to understand it.

Bose's paper
Einstein's paper

You can always go to the original articles that are linked on the site if you really want to understand it.

Bose's paper
Einstein's paper

... one fundamental aspect, so let's get this out of the way: Yes, information is physical.

At least not unless they are skillfully faking profiles.

Of course my crappy little page plays to a small niche audience just to advertise my blog.

F'book gave me $50 voucher to get to play with ads.I was actually quit impressed with the ad interface. You can chose to pay by result i.e. getting a "Like", rather than for clicks. Don't see how bots would give them any advantage if you chose that paying scheme.

I am really not a huge F'book fan, don't like their laxness with regards to privacy data at all. Don't have a profile other than this page. Nevertheless, I really don't see how this story has legs. Just pay for "Likes" and check on your followers' profiles (random sample will do). It will be hard to build diverse profiles that look real.

Also it doesn't make business sense. Ad revenue is their lifeblood. They really cannot afford to lose trust in the integrity of their ad delivery.

Just noticed for the first time that you left a comment on an old submission of mine pointing to this blog entry. For some reason didn't get a notification on that at the time and now this thing is archived. Hence my abuse of this comment thread.

Anyway, just wanted to let you know that I enjoyed reading the chapter of your SF story that you linked to, and was wondering if you ever completed that story?

As a 41 year old IT consultant I am still interested in learning everything about new technologies.

My current fascination with quantum computing even prompted me to start blogging about it.

So I'd say your co-workers are not typical - or they may be just typical for the industry you're in.

If one views the quantum state as a real physical object, one could get the seemingly paradoxical situation that future actions appear as having an influence on past and already irrevocably recorded events.
However, there is never a paradox if the quantum state is viewed as to be no more than a âoecatalogue of our knowledgeâ. Then the state is a probability list for all possible measurement outcomes, the relative temporal order of the three observerâ(TM)s events is irrelevant and no physical interactions whatsoever between these events, especially into the past, are necessary to explain the delayed-choice entanglement swapping.

The wave-function is nothing but a correlation machinery that organized nature's limited resources to properly fall into place (without upsetting causality as the correlations can only be sorted in hindsight).

This demystified view of QM is still very much overshadowed by the Quantum Hippie version that makes for better headlines. I.e. non of the pop science sites clearly report this tidbit of the authors wisdom. Causality violation draws more web traffic.