Quantum Computers Check Each Other's Work

Posted by samzenpus on Monday September 30, 2013 @08:32AM from the steel-sharpens-steel dept.

sciencehabit writes "Quantum computers can solve problems far too complex for normal computers, at least in theory. That's why research teams around the globe have strived to build them for decades. But this extraordinary power raises a troubling question: How will we know whether a quantum computer's results are true if there is no way to check them? The answer, scientists now reveal, is that a simple quantum computer—whose results humans can verify—can in turn check the results of other dramatically more powerful quantum machines."

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Age old question by Dishwasha · 2013-09-30 08:42 · Score: 5, Funny

If a quantum computer makes a calculation in a forest and no one is around to verify it, does it solve the problem?
Answer: use a classical computer by zoffdino · 2013-09-30 08:52 · Score: 5, Insightful

Many problems are NP-hard in one direction, but not the other way around. Use a quantum computer to find a solution, then use a classical computer/supercomputer to verify its results. Case in point: brute-forcing a hash function is hard, but computing the hash from a known value is easy; factoring large integers are hard, but multiplying two numbers are easily done.