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$100,000 Prize: Prove Quantum Computers Impossible
mikejuk writes "Quantum computing is currently a major area of research — but is this all a waste of effort? Now Scott Aaronson, a well-known MIT computer scientist, has offered a prize of $100,000 for any proof that quantum computers are impossible: 'I'm now offering a US$100,000 award for a demonstration, convincing to me, that scalable quantum computing is impossible in the physical world.' Notice the two important conditions — 'physical world' and 'scalable.' The proof doesn't have to rule out tiny 'toy' quantum computers, only those that could do any useful work."
Just point a gun at his head and ask him "Convinced?"
Err, uh,
Didn't D-Wave sell a commercial Quantum computer to Locheed Martin in 2010? Almost a year to the day?
Someone explain to me the difference between this quantum computer and the one they're trying to prove doesn't exist, please.
moox. for a new generation.
I will prove Quantum Computers both possible AND impossible at the SAME TIME!
So I guess the proof would be that they do exist, but only if you don't observe one.
Never answer an anonymous letter. - Yogi Berra
D-Wave uses quantum annealing. This works for minimization problems, although it's unclear whether it's better than "simulated annealing". This does not work for problems like factoring integers, which "real" quantum computers can do.
(T>t && O(n)--) == sqrt(666)
A similar question could've been asked years ago, back when transistors didn't exist: 'I'm now offering a US$100,000 award for a demonstration, convincing to me, that scalable personal computing is impossible in the physical world.'
Using only technology available then, the answer would've to scale down tubes to the minimal size and go "well this computer's too weak to do anything useful, ergo it's impossible to have a personal computer that isn't just a toy computer." Then transistors happened.
These kinds of things are stupid, because you're asking for a demonstration to an engineering problem, when engineering is always capped by scientific research. You could have a perfectly "convincing" proof today and tomorrow a new discovery crumbles it all to the ground.
Unless a theoretical and fundamental proof can be made that quantum computing is impossible, there's no reason to say that it is, and I have serious doubts such a proof can be made considering what has been accomplished thus far. Current limitations are engineering issues, but nothing fundamental is stopping a useful and practical quantum computer from existing.
This is not true in mathematics and physics. Lots of things have been proved to be impossible. One can prove, without leaving room for doubt, that the halting problem is undecidable, that no arithmetic theory can be consistent and complete, that the universe cannot allow FTL propagation while obeying both causality and relativity, etc.
The physics of oscillating crystals, such as those used in microphones and phonograph needles as well as radio transmitters, indicates that quantum computing could never not exist. Matched oscillating crystals have been in use for thousands of years and the mathematical model is proven by hundreds of different laboratory and home appliances; eg. an infrared spectrophotometric detector. The emission and absorption frequencies predicted by the mathematical model of the particle in a box (the basis for calculating electron dispersion around the nucleus and the fundamental beginning for subatomic calculations).
Particle in a box model translates into equations known as the Hamiltonian and, in combination with Eigenvalues calculated from the variables used in particle in a box modeling, generates the Schroedinger equation. Quantum computing could never be nonexistent because the mathematics of matched oscillating subatomic particles already has been proven millions of times over.
The marathon runner was not reporting a successful war campaign. The marathon runner was part of a system proving that those crystals do indeed oscillate, matched, from across the universe (at least 26.2 miles), in real time. Begin counting, begin running, when you arrive, repeat what they said back to them and report your current number. They will determine if your number matches theirs and if you repeat the exact words they said.
One aspect of the inside joke is that, when the marathon runner arrived and made his report, the response from the priests was,"That's _NOT_ what we said!" and they promptly hit him over the head with a baseball bat in frustration over the not completely failed experiment. "Don't tell anyone that he made it."
the NPG electrode was replaced with carbon blac
The lions in your refrigerator are microscopic. The elephants hiding behind your couch are invisible, and you actually are a dead zombie. You just don't realize it, because of a psychological hallucination that you are not actually dead.
In which case you actually can't prove anything at all... ever. For instance, the entire world (yourself included) could be figments of my imagination. Or maybe we're both characters in a book, and just don't know it.
If you can prove anything, you can prove some negatives. Of course, you do need to accept some axioms on faith, or you'll be checked into a mental institution. (no offence intended)
I won't join Slashcott. OTOH, If Beta goes live, I just won't be back until it's fixed. Sorry Dice.
In which case you actually can't prove anything at all... ever. For instance, the entire world (yourself included) could be figments of my imagination. Or maybe we're both characters in a book, and just don't know it.
For the strictest definition of "prove", indeed we cannot. As Decartes so eloquently stated, the only thing I can be sure of is my own mind. (After all, if my mind didn't exist in some form, then I wouldn't be able to even contemplate not-existing.) But just because I am sure of my own mind's existence, does not mean that I can definitively extend that to other people.
"Truth" is commonly accepted to be something that is so likely that to withhold provisional belief would be irrational. Sure everything (with a single exception) cannot be proven definitively, but at some point things are so likely true that not believing in them just makes you crazy.
So, proving this whole issue and claiming the prize money would involve demonstrating that believing in practical quantum computers would be unreasonable. And that is perfectly reasonably possible.
But one has to realize the ambiguity of the word "prove" here. There is absolute proof of certainty (for instance most mathematical proofs), while just about everything else lies in a range of "yeah, probably." Newton's Laws of Motion were proven correct time and time again, until we eventually started noticing very small errors, and even yet today, while we know that Newton's Laws of Motion aren't the most accurate model, we still know that it's often "good enough".
WARNING! This girl exceeds the MAXIMUM SAFE standards established by the FDA for BRATTINESS
Science isnt about being right or wrong, its about looking for the answer, whatever it may be. Schroedinger posed a fantastic, perspective-altering question, and you dismiss it as 'pseudo-science'
Good-bye
This is a gross misunderstanding of the Schrodinger's cat thought experiment, and something of a fallacious presentation of it.
I don't think there was ever any doubt that a cat locked in a box for a sufficient length of time would expire. That is neither in doubt nor interesting.
The formulation deals with the status of a cat in a box present with some measuring apparatus capable of detecting decay of some isotope, linked to a sealed capsule of some poison, in a sealed container with a cat. Supposing the isotope has a roughly 50% chance of decaying in the next five minutes, and iff it decays the poison is released (killing the cat), after five minutes is the cat alive or dead?
The "collapse the waveform pseudo-science b***s***" here is simply translating the simultaneous probabilistic states into a single actual one. The reason this is relevant is in quantum mechanics there are real, measurable effects that occur as a result of the probabilistic waveform that differ from the effects of the collapsed state -- once you know whether the cat is alive or dead, in other words, you have a fundamentally different system than before it was observed.