NASA Backs Quantum Computing Claim

narramissic writes "Canadian startup D-Wave's demonstration via Web link of a prototype quantum computer in mid-February was met with skepticism in the academic community, but NASA has confirmed that it did, in fact, build a special chip used in the disputed demonstration. According to an article on ITworld, D-Wave designed the quantum chip and then contracted with NASA to build it."

Comments

How can we trust NASA?

[simdan]

After all, aren't they the ones that filmed a moon landing in some studio?

Sorry to bring out all the conspiracy nuts, couldn't resist. :-P

Re:How can we trust NASA?

[ndansmith]

I believe NASA's various wolf-cries about life on Mars over the years are a much more compelling reason to be skeptical when they announce something.

contracted NASA??

[paranoid123]

Since when was NASA in the contracting-to-manufacture-computer business? NASA is more of a bureaucracy with a collection of labs all over the nation. They usually hand out the contracts. When they need computers they usually contract IBM or Silicon Graphics (maybe not lately) to do so.

Re:contracted NASA??

[Anonymous Coward]

RTFA

Re:contracted NASA??

[Seumas]

How else is NASA supposed to afford diapers?!

Re:contracted NASA??

[dattaway]

NASA developed this chip on their first Apollo mission to the moon. I saw it myself on television as they recorded one of their monitors and they took many pictures to prove it was real.

Re:contracted NASA??

[bugnuts]

Several government agencies, especially national labs, do lots of civilian work. Often the labs do the basic research, and companies turn it into products at affordable prices.

If you read TFA, it stated that only certain agencies had the equipment to make and run the chips in the first place.

Re:contracted NASA??

[TopSpin]

NASA leases facilities and performs contract work routinely. This is how they keep valuable people and justify maintaining plant and equipment for which they have no immediate need. The classic case is wind tunnel time; both the facility and the staff can be leased by private parties.

Griffen was recently lobbying Congress (see pages 7-8) about this; apparently he would like some red tape cut to permit NASA to do this with certain Shuttle facilities where it currently isn't allowed.

Re:contracted NASA??

[Deliveranc3]

This is a little more public than Exxon having the CIA on speed dial.

Existence does not imply functionality.

[Dan Slotman]

The existence of a chip does not imply that said chip actually works.

Re:Existence does not imply functionality.

[IthnkImParanoid]

Or maybe it does work, with the unfortunate side effect of the computers constantly crashing into Mars.

Re:Existence does not imply functionality.

[Bobzibub]

No, it would simultaniously crash into Mars and not.

Go Team Canada!

Re:Existence does not imply functionality.

[kabocox]

The existence of a chip does not imply that said chip actually works.

But, it's NASA! Come on, they've had enough bad press lately.

Re:Existence does not imply functionality.

[Dan Slotman]

Imply means "To involve by logical necessity; entail: Life implies growth and death." It is what I meant, but please play again!

Re:Existence does not imply functionality.

[Dan Slotman]

I know nothing about quantum computing—I can't comment on whether it is likely that the chip performs. I do think it is likely that NASA delivered a chip that does exactly what the specifications say it is to do. The question is whether the specifications describe a functional quantum chip. If I recall the original article correctly, there were questions about whether the demo computer worked at all, much less scaled to a useful level.

Re:Existence does not imply functionality.

[jesdynf]

Maybe not, but I have a hard time imagining that NASA would've cashed the check without enquantifying something first. Be pretty embarassing if they had to give the money /back/.

Re:Existence does not imply functionality.

[TapeCutter]

Why do you hate NASA? /sarcasm

Re:Existence does not imply functionality.

[PenGun]

Nasa has a fab ???

Re:Existence does not imply functionality.

[Esion Modnar]

If it's a quantum chip, maybe it exists and doesn't exist.

Re:Existence does not imply functionality.

[Mr Abstracto]

Thats the beauty of a quantum chip! You can't observe it working or you effect the results.

Does that NASA built a chip mean anything?

[stratjakt]

Does it mean the chip works, and it actually performs quantum calculations? I see nothing in the TFA where NASA confirms or denys the actual function of the chip, just that they made it based on D-Wave's design.

I still don't see any proof that anyone computed anything quantumly. How hard is this to prove, anyways, to all the quantum physicists in the house?

Re:Does that NASA built a chip mean anything?

[Anonymous Coward]

Does it mean the chip works, and it actually performs quantum calculations?

It worked in one universe anyway

Re:Does that NASA built a chip mean anything?

[Xoltri]

The first rule of quantum computing is don't ask questions.

Re:Does that NASA built a chip mean anything?

[cytg.net]

no, but it does build up to be pretty extensive and expensive scam if that indeed is what it is!

Re:Does that NASA built a chip mean anything?

[MayonakaHa]

I thought the first rule of quantum computing is you may or may not be talking about quantum computing.

Re:Does that NASA built a chip mean anything?

[ToxicBanjo]

How hard is this to prove, anyways, to all the quantum physicists in the house?

Very hard, seeing as at anyone time it both does and doesn't work.

Re:Does that NASA built a chip mean anything?

[sco08y]

How hard is this to prove, anyways, to all the quantum physicists in the house?

IANAQP, but I think it's pretty hard to prove given that you can simulate a quantum computer with a classical computer. (Source.)

But, if you have lots of qbits then you can simply argue that it's running too fast to be a simulation:

"Take for example a system of only a few hundred qubits, this exists in a Hilbert space of dimension ~1090 that in simulation would require a classical computer to work with exponentially large matrices (to perform calculations on each individual state, which is also represented as a matrix), meaning it would take an exponentially longer time than even a primitive quantum computer." (ibid)

So I'm thinking that when they get to their 64 or 128 qbit device that we know for certain that it's genuine.

I wonder how long it'll be before Intel and Motorola are selling quantum computers and arguing about the qbit myth?

Re:Does that NASA built a chip mean anything?

[tbo]

Disclaimer: IAAPRQC (I Am A Physicist Researching Quantum Computing).

I have no doubt their chip actually exists. That's not what people are skeptical of. There are more fundamental questions, a few of which I'll list below, along with my guesses as to the answers:

1) Does their chip demonstrate global coherence?
Maybe.

2) If yes to (1), can they maintain that when scaling up to larger numbers of qubits?
Almost certainly not with anything like their present design, unless they move to implement quantum error correction and the massive amounts of overhead that entails.

3) If no to either (1) or (2), can they implement a practical algorithm that gives at least a sqrt(N) speed-up over classical computers without global coherence?
Possible, but would be surprising if true. This is probably the main thing the academic community is skeptical about--we want to see some peer-reviewed research from D-Wave on this.

4) Why is all the press coverage so horribly wrong and misinformative?
Because it's more fun to make jokes and stupid statements about quantum mechanics than it is to actually write a clear and well-researched article. Also, talking to an actual physicist is far too scary for your typical J-school grad.

See this post on Scott Aaronson's blog for a much more informative and detailed analysis of D-Wave's claims.

Re:Does that NASA built a chip mean anything?

[ColdWetDog]

Thank you. Maybe.

Re:Does that NASA built a chip mean anything?

[alienmole]

The first rule of quantum computing on Slashdot is that most of the moderators won't know what you're talking about.

Re:Does that NASA built a chip mean anything?

[rmckeethen]

Also, talking to an actual physicist is far too scary for your typical J-school grad.

As it happens, I am a J-school graduate, and I work with a real-life physicist. We talk almost every day, and I don't find him scary at all. Granted, we don't talk about quantum physics on a daily basis, but we do talk about other highly-technical subjects. Still, perhaps I'm just not your typical J-school student -- my very first published story was on extra-solar planet detection, a subject I find fascinating.

During my time in school, I met a number of science writers who appeared to know their subject very well. In my own experience, it was most often my editors who were responsible for sensationalizing and distorting the science stories I wrote. Hell, before I left school, I was thankful simply to have an editor who could add two numbers together reliably, much less comprehend the mysteries of leading-edge science. Sadly, while reporters may spend weeks researching a story, their editors don't usually have that luxury, and they're working under a whole different set of guidelines. Typically, once I turned in my copy, my editors pretty much did whatever they wanted with it, with results that were sometimes strange, sometimes funny and sometimes completely maddening.

The moral of this story, as you may have guessed, is that not everyone in the media is as ignorant as you may think on science and technology issues. Science is hard work -- is it really surprising that interpreting scientific research, and translating results into layman's terms, is in some ways almost as hard? In any case, thanks for the summary. If more people in your profession could write in such concise and eloquent terms, I think the public would be much better informed.

Re:Does that NASA built a chip mean anything?

[Breakfast Pants]

If they solve something that they couldn't have within the lifetime of the universe with a classical computer, it doesn't matter, because we can't verify that their solution was correct without a quantum computer of our own.

Re:Does that NASA built a chip mean anything?

[tbo]

It's good to hear that there are at least some journalists with an interest and an aptitude for science. I think the entire quantum computing academic community has been a bit bummed out about the quality of media coverage lately. Scott Aaronson's blog has a number of posts discussing this issue, including a letter that he wrote to The Economist about its particularly bad D-Wave coverage. There is also some good news--Scott got asked by Scientific American to write a summary of Shor's algorithm--but mostly reading press coverage of our field is just maddening.

Science is hard work -- is it really surprising that interpreting scientific research, and translating results into layman's terms, is in some ways almost as hard?

No, it's certainly not surprising. I get a reminder of how hard it is to explain this stuff every time I try to tell someone what I do and their eyes glaze over. I don't claim to be good at explaining it, whereas science journalists seem to be quite good at making stuff entertaining and bringing it down to a layman's level. The problem is the completely uncritical coverage of miraculous claims, and the glaring technical errors that horribly distort the science. Is it common for journalists/editors to run a draft of their article past an actual scientist in the field? If not, why doesn't this happen? Pride? Deadlines? Journalism guidelines?

After being burned on a previous interview, I'd now be very reluctant to give an interview about my work without the reporter agreeing to run a draft past me for me to check for technical accuracy. Do science journalists honor that kind of request? If not, can you give me a journalist's perspective on what I can do to ensure the resulting article is accurate? I ask because I've got a paper coming out soon that might attract a bit of media interest.

Re:Does that NASA built a chip mean anything?

[tftp]

If they can routinely discover RSA secret keys then you probably don't need a quantum computer to verify that. An Intel 386 box would be enough.

Re:Does that NASA built a chip mean anything?

[MrNormS]

Actually, the first rule of quantum computing is you do not talk about Fight Club. Duh.

Re:Does that NASA built a chip mean anything?

[rbarreira]

Read this.

Rough summary: There are many problems for which a purported solution can be checked quickly, but which are thought to take a long time to solve with classical computers.

Re:Does that NASA built a chip mean anything?

[raddan]

The problem is the completely uncritical coverage of miraculous claims, and the glaring technical errors that horribly distort the science. Is it common for journalists/editors to run a draft of their article past an actual scientist in the field? If not, why doesn't this happen? Pride? Deadlines? Journalism guidelines? Because there are no repercussions for being wrong. The only people who care are the small number of scientists who know the difference. Your average casual science reader mentions a "breakthrough" to his wife over his Sunday morning bacon and toast who replies "What will they think of next?" Science reporting is essentially for shits and giggles, since most experts get their "news" through conference talks, mailing lists, or peer-reviewed journals. Science reporting is good filler and it sells papers.

Contrast this with political reporting, where printing false or misleading statements can, at the very least, put you in trouble with your paper's management, and at the worst can put you in front of a grand jury. Note that journalists are much more careful with their facts in this case.

Re:Does that NASA built a chip mean anything?

[rbarreira]

Actually, a 386 is overkill. Pen and paper may be enough :)

Re:Does that NASA built a chip mean anything?

[delong]

Note that journalists are much more careful with their facts in this case

No they aren't, unfortunately. Most of the time it is painful to read political, and particularly foreign affairs related, articles. It is usually 10% fact, 20% misinterpretation, 70% editorializing.

So what

[kmac06]

This is irrelevant. DWave claimed to have the first commercial quantum computer. And then the details are its only a few bits (nothing new), can't come close to matching the performance of a classical computer (obvious), and then a complete absence of any indicators that the design will scale other than "we plan to have 1000 bits in a year".

What they claimed is trivial, the problem academics have is that they claimed it wasn't and that it will scale.

Re:So what

[Panaflex]

Yeah.. Marconi had the same problem.

Really though - I've been wondering if there's just a tad bit of "professional jealousy" going on here. I don't have the background to prove or not prove any of D-Wave's claims - but I still give them a high chance of success.

They're committed individuals who are sticking their necks on the line. They went from mixing chemicals in a jar and shooting lasers in a lab to a working prototype.

If this venture fails - I don't see those guys making much headway for a number of years. If they're successful - all the naysayers can say is "oops." I'm hoping they are successful - but of course I'm a software guy with lots of uses for such a device.

to all the doubters... the chip works!

[N3wsByt3]

I'm a tenured professor in quantumcomputing and I can assure you the chip works! This is based on a paper I often require for my students, and I would hang my own Ph.D. on it's credibility.

O, wait...

This was meant to be posted here: http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/03/09/145221 9

Sorry, my mistake!

Re:to all the doubters... the chip works!

[codell]

It's a trap! (sorry, couldn't resist)

Big Deal?

[Anonymous Coward]

I still don't understand what all the fuss is about. So there's a computer capable of making really really really small calculations. I need a computer to make BIG calculations for me. Don't sweat the small stuff, I say.

Re:BS

[HardCase]

What? A trick?

First...

[suv4x4]

First they ignore you, then laugh at you, then attack you, then you win.

The bad part is that fakes share the same fate, except the last bit.

Re:First...

[scribblej]

In the same vein...

"They laughed at Galileo! They laughed at the Wright Brothers!"

Yup.

They also laughed at Bozo The Clown.

Re:First...

[zCyl]

The bad part is that fakes share the same fate, except the last bit.

Isn't that more like:

1. They ignore you.
2. They laugh at you.
3. They attack you.
4. ...
5. Profit.
6. Move to a small island.

NASA funds a lot of things..

[giorgosts]

They even fund antigravity research http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-gravity

Re:BS

[llamaxing]

You can't make fun of these people for forgetting their chip. How many times have you done something similar -- ie, you walked to your car but forgot to grab your keys?

It's real!

[Pedrito]

I know it's real. I've actually seen it in action. An unfortunate side-effect is that my cat suddenly died... and didn't.

Not this again...

[posterlogo]

NASA doesn't necessarily "back quantum computing claim" of D-Link. They just confirmed they made a chip for them. Didn't we already find out a month or so ago that, according to their own admission, it's not a true quantum computer, but it MAY use some quantum principles in its design? As far as I care, even that claim hasn't been verified.

Re:Not this again...

[Icarus1919]

Well of course, it both is and isn't a quantum computer at the same time.

D Wave

[lelitsch]

This D-Wave quantum computer seems to be neither here not there.

"backed the claim"

[MaggieL]

Insofar as I can tell, JPL has backed the claim that they made the chip; nothing further.

More eye-rolling than laughing, really

[Bastian]

From what I've seen, the people in the know haven't ignored, laughed, or attacked. They've simply responded with their normal skepticism. Solving Sudoku and throwing around buzzwords like NP-complete is a great way to impress the media and all, but they're waiting for solid proof. They could also improve their case by asking their marketing team to shut up for a while and giving their engineers a chance to say something coherent about the invention.

Quickly producing the prime factors of large arbitrary numbers would probably do much to reduce the level of skepticism - not as much as publishing what they did so someone else can try to reproduce their results, but I doubt they're going to be divulging a trade secret like that anytime soon.

Re:More eye-rolling than laughing, really

[Marcos Eliziario]

Quickly producing the prime factors of large arbitrary numbers would probably do much to reduce the level of skepticism
Nah, that would only attract unwanted nightly visits from some nice folks that happen to work at CIA and NSA.

Re:BS

[svtdragon]

Duke Nukem Forever will almost run on their architecture.

D-Link?

[SethHoyt]

I didn't realize it took quantum computing to power my wireless router...

Re:D-Link?

[bill_mcgonigle]

I didn't realize it took quantum computing to power my wireless router...

Right now each D-Link firmware upgrade fixes some problems and breaks other stuff that was working fine. Maybe with quantum computing they could come up with a superposition where all the advertised features operate at the same time.

Not insightfull, Ignorant.

[geekoid]

NASA has equipement no one else has.
They have the best people at MDL.
NASA takes money from companies to produce chips no one else can.

This, is a good thing.

"I've seen firsthand how easy it is to get miilions of dollars out of government agencies for cockamamy schemes."

Doubtfull at best.

Re:Not insightfull, Ignorant.

[exp(pi*sqrt(163))]

"I've seen firsthand how easy it is to get miilions of dollars out of government agencies for cockamamy schemes."

The CEO of my second last employer set up a fake company into which was sunk 3 or 4 million dollars of grants from the city. They had no employees but used the reputations of people who had previously worked for this guy. For example, in one press release they quoted me as if I worked for him (because I have a good reputation in the niche I work in). They were just this empty shell that the city trumpeted as this amazing new company all over the newspapers. Eventually really caught up with them, but not before the ex-CEO was off working his next scam. All of this guy's ex-employees knew it was a scam, and one friend informed the local newspaper, but the city turned a blind eye. Now there are all these news stories about how sad it was that it didn't work out, as if it wasn't a scam in the first place. All you had to do was a web search to find out about this guy's previous companies.

So I have no doubt that if you schmooze with the right people it's trivial to redirect millions of dollars into your pocket.

Scientists Develop First Irish Computer

[mrbluze]

Well, you see me boy, they did and they didn't. Or, t'was and 'twasn't, or, to be sure, to be sure, they might've but they mightn't've.

Re:So D-Wave managed to con a...

[Goaway]

Perhaps you missed the part where they paid NASA to do this. That's not how a scam usually works.

Re:mod do3n

[PenGun]

Straight up copy and paste from modern e-mail spam. I do like the modern spam filter training effort ... most entertaining.

Huh

[PenGun]

See the thing is a real quantum chip will have already been working for some randomish while.

Not Worried Aboot NASA

[BaldingByMicrosoft]

...But I will worry when they have their chips built by Setec Astronomy, instead.

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sneakers_(film))

Re:BS

[bryxal]

The corect phrase would of been: Duke Nukem Forever will simultaneously Run and Not Run on their architecture.

Re:Not good for security

[jacks0n]

Maybe it worked really, really well.

Then some guys in black suits came around and hushed the whole thing up, and a little later a weakly godlike intelligence woke up down in the depths of the puzzle palace.

Infocalypse or Singularity? Fire or Ice?

Either way, what is certain is that the end is near, and it is definitly time to panic.

its about time!

[stim216]

Finally! A computer that can run vista!

Re:BS

[Loadmaster]

Speaking of Daikatana, if I run it on this new fangled contraption will it both suck and blow at the same time?

Swi

Quantum CPU Music Video!

[Adeptus_Luminati]

Seeing as NASA has confirmed this CHIP is real, I think it's time for Weird Al Yankovic to come up with a sequel to his 1999 killer music video titled "It's all about the Pentiums Baby!"

The hilarious video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2vaNeaWQoHI

Some video sequel suggestions for Mr. Yankovic:
1) New title might be "It's all about the Qubits, baby!"
2) Any references to Y2K should be updated to reference DST in 2007 & UNIX date issues in 2038
3) The T1 at his house needs to be upgraded to quad OC768 SONET fiber rings hosting Torrent servers and at least 1/3rd of Youtube.
4) References to newbies might include "Trying to upgrade to Vista on a single core CPU, 256 MB of RAM & single square 15" monitor"
5) Video dance moves should be upgraded to Popping moves (search "popping" on Youtube).
6) Floppy disks in video & references to storing "your entire hard drive data" should be upgraded to USB sticks.
7) Babes in video need less clothing (less is more right?)
8) Chorus update: "What'chu wanna do? Wanna be torrent leechers, MySpace peepers? Wasting time with all the Google seekers? 9-5 chillin' with all the Vonage Phreakers? Working at a cubicle, with some lame little speakers? Yeah payin' the bills with my mad zero-down mortgaging skills!... etc"
9) & 10) you fill in the blanks.

Adeptus

Privateered NASA

[Doc Ruby]

I'm pissed that my lifetime financing NASA, which is usually the government expense of which I'm most proud, is subsidizing some foreign corporation's R&D pulling it ahead of American business. America isn't necessarily any better or more deserving of first place, but it's my country, the one I'm paying for, the one I'm living in, the one NASA exists to serve. I'm perfectly happy with all the returns from NASA's American research investments into the world's benefit. But directing NASA's limited operations to benefit a single corporation, a foreign one, is unacceptable.

Funny how this happens after Bush puts a Star Wars scientist in charge of NASA. I guess when your entire career is spent ripping off NASA's space research for a bogus military contract, you don't even notice when you sell out the rest of NASA on your watch.

Re:Privateered NASA

[Doc Ruby]

If the answer was "you can pay the extremely high cost without the subsidies Americans paid to produce this unique fab", then that might be OK. But they didn't. They're not "devils", they're just foreigners who aren't paying the full cost of that fab, and are outside the mission that Americans are paying NASA for.

Do you have any other gibberish justifications for me to subsidize foreigners to compete with the industry in my own country? What country are you paying taxes in?

Re:Privateered NASA

[Doc Ruby]

Because NASA already has the factory and the people with the expertise. It's not just that the US is rich, it's that we've had the foresight to spend it on the right things. Taking the risk with our money and our national effort that foreign countries don't even bother to take.

That's an American advantage, which I want us to use for Americans.

So fuck you, fucking Anonymous thief Coward. You're probably a foreigner, given your demands to cherry pick my country's success without taking the risks or paying the costs yourself. It's not being foreign that matters - it's being a foreign ripoff. Fuck you and your delusions of entitlement to my national tech investment. Get your own scientific socialism, and then you turn it into a global grab bag. Looter pussy.

Re:Privateered NASA

[mikkelm]

Apparently you didn't have the foresight to predict that this would happen. Surely you would have some sort of law against this if you did. Ultimately, what you're complaining about is your own doing.

If you flaunt your successes, you should live up to your failures.

There are no delusions of entitlement to anything here. It's business working as business does. Don't like it? Tough luck. Should have had more foresight.

Re:Privateered NASA

[shaitand]

It doesn't matter if the benefactor is public or private, foreign or domestic; just so long as they line the right political pockets.
That's the American way my friend. After all any republican will tell you that any business move is ethical so long as it isn't illegal or the business is willing to pay the cost of its actions.

Re:Privateered NASA

[Doc Ruby]

Another part of the American way is to stand against those abuses. To publicly denounce them. To demand accountability. America's is the interactive citizen/government model. Your post is part of it, but would be more effective if pointing out how to fix it despite its propensity for breaking.

Re:Privateered NASA

[Doc Ruby]

What the hell are you talking about? The political problems that allow NASA to work against American interest is OK, because our tech foresight is more reliable than the integrity of our political process?

The people posting that this is OK, that my criticism is somehow merely xenophobia, are those undeniably deluded into entitlement.

So I dismiss your fatalism. Where do you live and pay your taxes?

Re:Privateered NASA

[mikkelm]

I don't believe you were able to understand my comment.

The political "problems" allowing NASA to take foreign contracts have obviously not been concerncs of the lawmakers. The US government have decided that it is okay for NASA to take foreign contracts. If you want to bitch, bitch at the people responsible for these decisions. Not at the businesses conducting their business like businesses do.

I live in Denmark, and this is where I pay my taxes. We're allowing the US to have a base at Thule, integrating with the infrastructure that is built and maintained with the taxes I pay. To their benefit. We have a strategically important island, and the US has a desire for a missile defence system. As long as they pay for the privilege, I certainly don't mind allowing them to use our infrastructure to further their plans. Even if I did, I would blame the Danish government, not blame the US government of having "delusions of entitlement".

All that your kicking and screaming seems to amount to is arrogantly criticising businesses for conducting themselves in the manner deemed appropriate by the government that your country has elected.

Re:Privateered NASA

[mikkelm]

I don't know where to start here, because frankly, your comment has absolutely no relevance to anything I said. It doesn't cover any part of what I said, it doesn't address anything, it's just more screaming and kicking using wildly unsubstantiated and incorrect claims that have nothing to do with anything I said.

Instead, you seem to be telling me what my opinions are, and, in what I can only assume is a mistake brought on by your hissy fit, you're validating my reasons for why your critique has no place in reality.

If you're going to rant, rant somewhere else. I'm not one to get into discussions with extremists who make up "facts" to benefit their ridiculous arguments.

Re:Privateered NASA

[Dogtanian]

To make matters worse, that missile defense system you're collaborating with is part of a giant system, Star Wars, to defraud Americans of $TRILLIONS more in insecurity extortion, and generations of counterproductive fearmongering to grease its wheels. My God, what a rant. I could barely follow your point, much less its relevance to the post you were replying to, but to whine at Denmark for their involvement in a scheme created by *your* fearmongering government is pretty lame. They're your fucking politicians, supposedly democratically elected, and the Danish didn't concoct the scheme to defraud you. If anyone did that, it was your own people.

By the way, you're whining that NASA are offering the dirty foreigners facilities that it would have cost them more to create and manufacture themselves. Well, duh; that's how business works. Why would they pay NASA if they could do it cheaper themselves?

Re:Privateered NASA

[shaitand]

'Another part of the American way is to stand against those abuses. To publicly denounce them. To demand accountability.'

Perhaps during the lifetime of some previous generation. The generation before my own did something like that with Vietnam. The government ignored the people and continued to slaughter American children until it had shown the people it wouldn't cow on their say so before opting to pull out on its own.

This is seen again with Iraq. The people opposed the so called 'war' in Iraq from the start and the popularity has only continued to decline and yet the government persists despite them. The government will pull out when they feel like it and a few fools will believe they bowed to the public pressure they have somehow ignored for years now.

The reality is that the people have no power in our government anymore. Public outcry lost its thunder when the politicians realized that the attention span of the people is short and they lose focus when the next issue arises.

'America's is the interactive citizen/government model.'

What interaction? Voting in rigged elections for candidates you didn't pick in the first place? The power to vote is meaningless if the powers at be select the candidates.

'but would be more effective if pointing out how to fix it despite its propensity for breaking'

I never claimed there was a fix. Only that the system is broken. I have come up with a skeleton for a new system of democracy where the candidates we vote on reach that potential status by merit in previous positions but that isn't a patch for the existing US system. It is a replacement.

Re:Privateered NASA

[Doc Ruby]

Yeah yeah yeah. You tried that "kicking and screaming" line on me a couple of posts ago. While strawmanning me on "the US government is deluded into entitlement", which you want to say, but I never said. Meanwhile you're demanding I subsidize Canada because you like returning a tiny bit of the huge US subsidy of Denmark. All of which is correct, all of which makes you look like either a fool or a liar or both, none of which you've got an argument for. So you just deny it and say childish bad things about me that aren't even true.

When it destroys both your points and even devastates your sense of logic, then somehow my argument has no place in reality.

You're so deluded that you can't distinguish your projections from the realty I'm forcing down your throat.

Have a nice day.

Re:Privateered NASA

[Doc Ruby]

No, I'm doing what I can to stop the people who hijacked my country with Star Wars schemes (among many others), and the Dane is defending that particular fraud against me (and them, too, unless they're getting a check) as if that requires that I do what they do by subsidizing this Canadian company. Which I pointed out isn't nearly symmetrical as their example would require. I didn't say the Danes concocted the scheme, just that their government, and this particular Dane, is complicit in it. Which doesn't require my complicity in either that scheme, or another one to subsidize Canadians.

Meanwhile, I don't blame the Canadians or anyone else, though I don't have to like it and they're responsible. I criticized NASA, Griffin and the US government, which I expect to serve US interests better on my dime without spending it on foreigners. Not "dirty" foreigners, which I never said - your strawman.

So just because you can't follow the less than reflex logic of my completely legitimate dislike of subsidizing foreign corporations with my NASA budget, doesn't make that my limitation. It's yours. Just because you rehash the arguments I've already defeated in previous posts doesn't make mine less powerful, it just further attests your poor reading comprehension. Surely a convenient defect: in what country do you live and pay taxes? Like the rest of those insisting I pay to subsidize foreigners as if it's an absolute entitlement of the rest of the world, I expect you're not in the States. Just because you want to preserve your place in line for your own US subsidy doesn't mean I have to like it, even if it's "business as usual".

Re:Privateered NASA

[Doc Ruby]

The generation before our own volunteered for Vietnam in greater numbers and percentages than the generation before theirs did for WWII. Only because of the draft and the eventual overreaching of Nixon without a compliant partisan Congress did the Vietnam War end, after at least 4 years of both reasonable Americans and the Nixon administration knowing it was hopeless.

People have almost as much power in our government, especially over big, black/white issues like fighting the Iraq War, as we exercise. The sure way to have no power is to decide you have no power. American politics is a giant, expensive, complex system. But like any other, actions have reactions. We are now entering the beginning of a countercycle to the cycle that peaked in the last 6 years. If it doesn't completely cycle contrary to the old one, that's mainly because people don't interact enough. If, instead of just turning their backs on voting, 60% of eligible voters voted for candidates outside the duopoly, or for candidates entering the parties outside the channels of their governing powers, there would be a revolution, the kind Jefferson and his generation designed for every 2-4 years. If every House rep were fired every 2 years until things changed, instead of a 98% reelection rate simultaneous with a 35% approval rate, that would change things pretty fast. The rigged elections and synthetic choices are possible only with the majority turned off. You can claim that the apathy is part of the party duopoly programme, but it's not enforced by anyone but our fellow citizens. In the phase of the interactivity in which they must act, they don't. That of course has its damaging effect on the interactive system.

There is a fix, many fixes. There are patches to the main diseases, like campaign finance, prohibitions on party conspiracies, and routine investigations of any corruption/malfeasance/incompetence evidence by actually competing powers. Just a few would tip the balance of power into the self-cleansing the actual system, the Constitution, specifies, generating more change and actual representation. But again, it's all based on people's participation. Without the "demos" of "democracy", it's just "cracy", rule, by the people who do work at ruling. Do something to get more people into the "demos", and watch the possibilities for change and equitable power multiply. Give up, and get the government you deserve.

Re:Privateered NASA

[mikkelm]

Listen, if you're going to talk to me about "reality", let's cover a few points here.

Firstly, the premise for your ridiculous rambling is that you somehow think that you're aware of what I think and what I want to say. You're claming that I'm "demanding" things of the US. I'd like for you to point out exactly where I have made any demands. I realise that your xenophobia and arrogance is probably too thick for your deluded mind to seperate what's actually being said, and what you want me to say, because the only way your ridiculous complaining is going to be justified is if I cater to your argument. You can try to force it by claiming to know what I'm thinking, what my intentions are, and that I'm saying things that I am not, but it's clear to see that what you're posting is nothing but paranoid animosity towards anyone not American.

Your arguments have no place in reality because they're based on opposition that doesn't exist. So far, your argument has been fed on assumptions, delusions and even things that you appear to simply make up. None of these things are based in reality, hence your argument isn't based in reality.

I'm sorry, but as eager as you are to "destroy" my arguments, a wording which sets a pretty clear picture of exactly what kind of person you are, you haven't really done it at all. Your incoherent, irrelevant and unsubstantiated rambling is doing nothing but making you look like a right wing extremist with a bad case of rabies.

When you're so deluded that you're making up things just to argue with other people and apply your "justified" xenophobia to situations where there is absolutely no justification, it's time to step back for a second and seriously evaluate yourself.

Re:Privateered NASA

[Dogtanian]

The bit about dirty foreigners wasn't meant as a quote, just a reflection of the underlying vibe. I apologise if it came across as such.

So just because you can't follow the less than reflex logic of my completely legitimate dislike of subsidizing foreign corporations with my NASA budget, doesn't make that my limitation. It's yours. Sure; it's my fault that you're so damn longwinded. For a point supposedly as simple as you imply (you summarise it above in one sentence), you sure as hell took a long time to say it.

And yes, I had noticed the "logic" in your original post. Unfortunately, it's the convoluted pseudo-logic of the angry nerd argument.... and a piss-poor excuse for the inability to structure your endless rant and to make your point clearly.

Oh, and by the way; from your earlier post

the Danish people are accountable for the government you elect Yep. And the Americans are accountable for the government you elect; and it was that government which started the scheme in the first place. Enough said.

Re:Privateered NASA

[Doc Ruby]

No, I dumbed it down when it became clear you couldn't understand the detail.

To repeat myself again, to give you one last chance to get it: I am accountable for the government we elected in the US. Otherwise I wouldn't have spent as much time helping turn it back. ANd I'm not nearly done. Which includes explaining the situation even to intransigent people like you.

Even if you're a foreigner. Which you decline to clarify, though I've asked you straight. So I expect you are. Pretty convenient for you to make demands of the US to give away subsidized tech leadership to other foreigners when you are one. You have no standing to contest my insistence that my government spend my money and my neighbors money on me and my neighbors, not you and yours.

"Enough said"? Yes, you've certainly said at least enough. Enough to make clear that you're just another grabby entitlement freak with your hand out and your ears closed.

Re:Privateered NASA

[Dogtanian]

No, I dumbed it down when it became clear you couldn't understand the detail. Yep; keep telling yourself that. Of course it's my fault and Mikkelm's for not being able to understand you.

Even if you're a foreigner. Yes, I am, I live in the UK.

Pretty convenient for you to make demands of the US to give away subsidized tech leadership to other foreigners when you are one. Where did I demand that? Ah, I didn't.

Enough to make clear that you're just another grabby entitlement freak with your hand out and your ears closed. Even if your ears were open, I suspect all you'd be able to hear would be your own voice. You jump to conclusions and respond based on angry assumptions of what you *expected* the person to say.

Re:Privateered NASA

[Doc Ruby]

Moderation -1
    100% Troll

Foreign looter trollMods hate it when you point out how they're arrogant freeloaders.

Re:Privateered NASA

[Intrinsic]

Really good points, I think the real problem is the media and its grip on the views of the American public. The public is not well enough informed and they are not feeling like they need to be held accountable because they are not being told the truth.

When you know the truth, its much harder to lie to yourself about what is going on around you.

Re:Privateered NASA

[Doc Ruby]

Generally true. Though the public could also demand better reporting from both government and the media. Instead, it votes for American Idols.

Thanks for the agreement. This thread I've spent so much time battling obnoxious arguers that it's easy to get as apathetic as an American is expected to be.

Re:Privateered NASA

[Doc Ruby]

Griffin has been "very good for NASA" only because, as a Star Wars careerist, he is managing its conversion to the Star Wars program. Thereby the target for larger budgets, like the extras Tom Delay pumped in before he went down for livin' the thug life. While shepherding Bush's new NASA mission supporting Pentagon and US intel "space supremacy", Griffin has also overseen Bush's corporate agenda denying Greenhouse research and even mentioning the Big Bang.

The Canadian contract money on top of the NASA budget will surely be used to justify cutting my tax dollars going to NASA science, as "model privatizing". While sending its fruits to a foreign company competing against American companies, subsidized by all the past tax dollars invested into JPL.

So I've got plenty of complaints with NASA. I've got lots of pride in what NASA has done, still does. Which is why seeing NASA doing it for foreigners on my dime, even if their penny gets their results delivered, makes me mad.

Re:Privateered NASA

[shaitand]

'There are patches to the main diseases, like campaign finance, prohibitions on party conspiracies, and routine investigations of any corruption/malfeasance/incompetence evidence by actually competing powers.'

Nothing you have said changes the core facts. The fact that every American can vote for a third party on a diebold machine and the numbers it spits out will still elect the same candidate that nobody voted for. People can be outraged and demand action but who are they demanding it from? The same corrupt public officials that need ousted? The police don't take orders from the people and neither do the officials they do take orders from. If millions of American voices rise in unison the men with the guns will still ignore them. If those Americans raise guns of their own they will be branded terrorists and their fellow outraged Americans will turn against them with the first innocent collateral damage.

I can only assume that by campaign finance you are referring to reforms since almost all the nations wealth rests with the 5% of the nation that represents the problem. Reforms, Investigations, and prohibitions are not things the people may do under our system of government. Those are things that representatives do and the representatives don't have an interest in reforming the system that gives them power; investigating themselves; or prohibiting their own conspiracies.

Even without rigged elections the rigged candidate system comes into play. Only the two parties get enough press coverage to sway Americans. The rest are excluded by the press. The major parties do not accomplish this through back alley bribes, mass conspiracy, or secret men with guns. It is much more simple. Any media outlet that was denied access to the political candidates of either party would quickly lose its voice with the public. This means that no media outlet dares to anger the entrenched political parties too much and they shut out opposition voluntarily. The parties don't even need to make threats the news outlets will obey their wishes out of fear of the power they wield. Imagine how CNN would view the possibility of NEVER having a representative at another presidential press conference.

Re:Privateered NASA

[Doc Ruby]

Those are facts. But there are so many other facts about the political system that it's far from as simple as you describe. And full of opportunities for constructive change.

For example, look at the new Democratic senators from Montana and Virginia, respectively. They were elected outside the party apparatus, by activist party members. They're both fairly conservative, though delivered by activists more liberal than the Democratic party itself. They are not part of the deterministic system that you describe as if it's the only game going. And a third candidate, in Connecticut, forced another senator out of the party entirely, even though he ran for its presidential candidacy only 2 years prior, and VP 6 years prior. Outsiders managed to send in one third of the 6 new Democrats comprising the new Democratic Senate majority, and almost sent half.

The House election had many other similar campaigns.

Over $2 BILLION was spent in 2006, which wasn't even a presidential year. Next year, probably $4-6 BILLION will be spent. On control of about $4 TRILLION a year, over 10% of the Earth's economy. To convince over 110 million Americans what to think and do on one day in November. That is a very complex system. The major players do indeed control most of America's wealth, and even more of the rest of the world's. So it's pretty impressive that outsiders and activists can create any surprises at all, let alone make any difference, which they often do past controlling thresholds.

But the most essential ingredient is believing that you can do something. Without which the dominant elite doesn't have to spend much money or time controlling even more. If everyone just became fatalistic like you're recommending, then we'd all be doing steadily worse, instead of the gradual improvements punctuated by periodic catastrophes. And it can get a lot worse - a lot worse.

You can be right, if you want, by giving up. You can't be sure you'll be right, or get anywhere, by trying change. But it's the only way you possibly can.

Re:Privateered NASA

[Anonymous Coward]

Sir, your comments clearly indicate you have a serious ax to grind, but more importantly, you don't understand how government science works.

For the record: I work at JPL.

First, JPL (or really Caltech) owns any intellectual property (IP) that they develop on this project. That doesn't mean they have rights on the D-Wave IP, but it does mean that Canadian dollars have enriched Caltech's IP.

Second, no one is leveraging your tax dollars. Superconducting electronics in this country is pretty close to dead. Without D-Wave it's likely the superconducting group at JPL would be smaller than it is. So Canadian dollars are actually keeping a lab and capability together that otherwise would disappear.

If you bothered to learn the facts, you will find out that (a) there are no other companies (in the US or otherwise) trying to build a commercial quantum computer and (b) there have been several major US Venture Capital firms investing in D-wave. (This is information easily gleaned from D-wave's website.)

Bottom line: you are getting a lot for paying nothing. Frankly, given your naive world views, you should be happy that a civilization exists to support you as you would probably not survive too long in the wild on your own.

Unless, of course, you wish your taxes go up and so you can keep funding superconducting efforts in this country.

PS Given your issues on funding, you should be making Griffin your personal hero: he brought a lot of fiscal responsibility back to NASA which is why he was put there in the first place.

Re:Privateered NASA

[Doc Ruby]

Well, at least it's clear that your ax to grind is defending JPL, where you work. You don't say whether you work in the JPL low-temperature fab or other related department, but at least you clarified some details of how the economics of hiring JPL for commercial projects works.

D-Wave's is apparently the first commercial superconducting quantum computer, therefore the only one. But it's not the only such project, just the only commercial one. The distinction between commercial and academic projects is largely bureaucratic, as your mention of CalTech's interest in JPL IP demonstrates, so it's a disingenuous claim. Meanwhile, what difference does it make if D-Wave is the only one? The purpose of government investment in techniques like those at JPL used by D-Wave is to help create projects, create sciences, engineering disciplines and industries. For the benefit of the American people. There are other superconducting projects, or just extremely low temperature engineering, even if not a superconducting quantum computer, including internal to NASA.

Given your claims that CalTech will own the IP developed to complete this project, except the actual chip IP to be retained by D-Wave, I don't see how the public investments in JPL are getting me (or other members of the public) "a lot for paying nothing". Especially since it's possible only because we have paid so much to put this lab in this position.

As to Griffin, as I have mentioned, he's a hero only to Star Wars scammers and the lobbyists/bribees who love them. Including people at CalTech and JPL who have squandered billions of public dollars outside NASA, now eagerly awaiting NASA's descent into the service of this expensive boondoggle.

So go back to your JPL lab. Don't presume to tell people who actually do survive out here in the real world anything about "the wild", when you're dependent on the Alice in Wonderland world of public funding. I'm not interested in learning the contrived, cherrypicked facts you use to justify sending my tax investments abroad. And I'm certainly not interested in hearing you champion spending my money subsidizing foreign competition, just because it pays your bills, too.

Re:Privateered NASA

[Doc Ruby]

Man, I have spent more on taxes than you will earn at JPL in your life. And I like paying taxes, except the part on waste, including most of the war and intel budgets, as well as the corporate subsidies, and the unnecessary debt that all generates. I'd be happy paying about what I pay, if there were no debt and none of those wastes of my (and my neighbors') money.

I'm a serial entrepreneur, having invented several DSP and Internet technologies through the 1990s. Hell, I read every issue of NASA's technology transfer magazine from 1990-1993. I made a bundle in the 1990s, in both the US and Canada, through a consulting company that developed and deployed from my library and architectures: a businessman, inventor, and creator of jobs - and taxpayer in multiple countries. I paid more taxes personally on that, before I retired, than you will earn income. Plus all the corporate taxes and payroll taxes, mostly in Canada where we incorporated and paid most of our employees. I was happy to pay those taxes, because they didn't include most of the wasted taxes I paid in the US.

Meanwhile I had as clients the Canadian federal government, the Ontario provincial government, the Toronto and Ottawa metro governments, the US Navy, the CIA...

Since I've come out of retirement a few years ago, I've worked with NASA and its Aerospace Corp supplier. As I said, I'm most proud of my taxes paying for NASA of all of what I pay for. I know how the IP gets divided up from all government budgets, including grants, as I also work as the tech advisor to the NYC City Council's tech committee. And therefore I know there is a fair amount of IP returned to the public, as well as way too much that I pay to send to private corporations subsidized by my taxes. But when they're at least US corporations, I'm not as mad as when they're foreign corporations. And when it's not IP, but competitiveness, that's exported on my dime, I'm almost as mad.

I have answered the question of how D-Wave's subsidized project work costs me money without benefit whenever it's asked, including when I first posted in this thread. If D-Wave had to pay the full cost of NASA's fab work without years of taxpaid subsidies to the fab, they couldn't afford it. Simple. Yet you don't seem to be able to understand, or even notice, that simple answer I've given. Maybe JPL should review your competence, instead of paying you with my taxes.

I know all too well from Aerospace's preemtion onto flight exigencies how prioritization works at NASA. Which is exactly how I prefer it. So what? What is that strawman you're offering supposed to mean? Probably about as much as the homesteader red herring you're throwing out. And about as much as your denial that there are other, domestic, jobs for that NASA fab to do, even if they're not superconducting quantum computers - which is what I said, not the strawman you'd prefer to argue about.

I've got all the facts. You've got nothing but contempt for the demands of a taxpayer who's paying for your lab that our money not create foreign competition, even if American competition hasn't yet entered the specific market and phase as the Canadians we're now pushing farther ahead to pioneer the industry. You don't know anything about me, and apparently even less about the economics I'm legitimately complaining about.

The article sucks

[rbarreira]

Both this article and D-wave's PR speak sucks:

"You could characterize our announcement as being met with enthusiasm from industry and skepticism from academia," D-Wave CEO Ed Martin said in an interview Feb. 27. But he said the event served as proof of concept of the technology, and that D-Wave's potential customers are businesses that don't care how the technology works as long as it can solve their complex models. He plans to start renting time on the machine to customers in 2008

Bullshit. Academics aren't just skeptical because they care how the technology works. They're also skeptical because D-wave hasn't proved that their QC design can scale to a larger number of qubits. And that's something that "D-wave's potential customers" do care about, since a QC with 16-qubits can't do anything which classical computers can't solve quickly... A typical PR reality-distortion demonstration...

 

Martin said the back end is a rack-mounted PC with an off-the-shelf processor, but wouldn't cite the specific brand

Who cares about the PC's brand?? Any modern (and even some not-so-modern) PC would even have the capability to simulate 16-qubits if they wanted to fake the demonstration...

A standard digital processor assigns a specific value to each data bit, and handles them one at a time.

I guess they never heard of pipelining...

All crypto is now broken!!

[tkjtkj]

The implications are staggering ... and of course include the fact that ALL encryption schemes are now broken!

This is sO staggering an issue that it just has to be the case that secret projects are involved in the effort. The article states that this company alone has been working on this for 10 years ...

Could it be that their step-wise fashion of 'progress' in their efforts are nothing more than actions taken to give time for the financial community, eg, to find ways to handle the matter, not to say governments?

When we remember that a quantum computer 'forcefully attacks' an encryption scheme by trying all possibilities at once (eg reducing a 10-million year key attack' to 10 minutes, we begin to see the enormity of the matter.

"Just because the 'nuts' out there make fools of themselves does not mean they are wrong" -tkjtkj , {Registered Copywrite)

Re:All crypto is now broken!!

[mark99]

Not all.

I figure one time pads are still safe, as long as the pad is as long as the message. And quantum generated ones should be quite convenient too, and unsniffable.

Think about it, if you tried all decryption possiblities, some should decrypt to an intelligble message that is the wrong one. You need to know the pad to know which message was sent.

Or have I missed something here.

Enough with the jokes already.

[Poromenos1]

Am I the only one who's tired of all the "uncertainty jokes"? (Yes, I know I might or might not be). Too bad you don't really know if a comment is a (bad) joke until you read it.

Re:Enough with the jokes already.

[letchhausen]

I've been waiting for the jokes concerning overclocking this chip on an ubuntu linux box but they haven't been forthcoming.......or maybe they have.....

Re:So D-Wave managed to con a...

[robinvanleeuwen]

1. Receive experimental funding from governmnent
2. Pay off NASA with the money you got for free anyway to gain some publicity.
3. Show people: ?
4. Collect more investment, experimental funding from whoever is now interrested.