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D-Wave Quantum Computing Solution Raises More Questions
benonemusic writes "The commercially available D-Wave computer has demonstrated its ability to perform increasingly complex tasks. But is it a real quantum computer? A new round of research continues the debate over how much its calculations owe to exotic quantum-physics phenomena. 'One side argues there is too much noise in the D-Wave system, which prevents consistent entanglement. But in an adiabatic device, certain types of entanglement are not as vital as they are in the traditional model of a quantum computer. Some researchers are attempting to solve this conundrum by proving the presence or absence of entanglement. If they show entanglement is absent, that would be the end of the discussion. On the other hand, even if some of D-Wave's qubits are entangled, this doesn't mean the device is taking advantage of it. Another way to prove D-Wave's quantumness would be to confirm it is indeed performing quantum, and not classical, annealing. Lidar has published work to this effect, but that triggered opposition, and then a counter-point. The debate continues.'"
how do you show the presence of entanglement without disturbing it?
We have Google.
Can someone explain to me how this chip could be calculating anything unless the quantum part was working?
Isn't it like a car that has an electric motor or a gas one, but not both? How can they be confused which engine is running? Who builds a backup normal processor then what, it fills in if the quantum one doesn't work right, and they have no way to tell if this backup kicked in?
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
Hasn't the benchmarks already placed it above pretty much any computer in the tasks it can do within its full size?
Mind you, I guess even if that were true, if it wasn't quantum entanglement taking place, it would still be pretty big because they still managed to find a way to make a non-quantum computer way ahead of the competition.
If it is a quantum processor, it would be similar to say... the math co-processor, still baby steps towards a full, integrated circuit.
They even say themselves that it is only useful for certain tasks, some which are highly useful to certain people doing largely complicated, inter-connected lookups.
No wonder Google are interested in it, if it worked and they were the ones working on it and helping research it, they'd benefit hugely in their search systems, be it regular old text search of image-matching. That plus their machine-learning systems would be insane. (also very useful for NASA to spy on planets. And NSA to spy on people)
There should be plenty of problems a quantum computer could solve in polynomial time that would take classic computers eons to solve. Start solving those problems and it's a quantum computer. Simple as that.
When the copyright term is "forever minus a day", live every day like it's the last.
This situation is completely reasonable give the current state of the art in quantum computing.
Making accusations of "marketing hype" and unethical behavior are irrelevant. Whatever it's doing, it's not digital computing. Even if it turns out to be classical physics, it is still advancing the state of the art in non-digital computing.
No matter how DWave does in the future, quantum computing is still going to happen in the near term. Dwave is not going to change that under any circumstances.
Getting bent out of shape over this is a waste of effort. Even the experts are not in agreement. This is how progress occurs at the cutting edge.
Why is Snark Required?
In the longterm of things, all proprietory systems will be just noise
This stuff is a bit dense for me (or me for it) but wouldn't this be considered a biological neural net:
http://news.discovery.com/tech/robotics/brain-dish-flies-plane-041022.htm
Or did I completely misinterpret what you were saying in your comparison.
"If any question why we died, Tell them because our fathers lied."
No way I'm gonna try one of these until they get the bugs out. Instead of a blue screen, I'll get a black hole and those Higgs bosons all over the carpet. My wife will kill me. Plus, they probably cost like over a thousand bucks.
But I bet GTA V runs like a banshee on it. No screen tearing, but possibly tearing in the fabric of space and time. As soon as Tiger Direct starts selling them, I'm in for one, but you best believe I'm gonna be wearing my lead codpiece when I sit in front of that thing.
You are welcome on my lawn.
you just went full retard
Answer: It's *SO* quantum that even the issue of whether or not it's quantum exists in a superposition of states!
Measure correlations between the two systems. If you have entangled, oppositely polarized photons and you simultaneously pass them through aligned polarizers then one will always pass through the filter and one will always fail. It is impossible to recreate this in any classical system without communication between the photons.
If you can perform the same type of measurement with entangled qbits in a manner where it is physically impossible for them to communicate (e.g. make the two measurements simultaneously) you can confirm their quantum nature.
... 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).
properly understood, Quantum Entanglement is at the core of all Quantum Physics [wikipedia.org]
No it is not. It is one of the features of quantum physics which is the hardest to understand and, arguably, we still do not have a good grip on it. However that by no means puts it at the core of all quantum physics: there is far more to QM than quantum entanglement e.g. tunnelling, self interference etc.
Because *IF* it can be developed, someone will eventually develop it, and probably sooner rather than later. Technological advances depend less on creative genius and more on previous technological advances. It's like how radar was developed simultaneously by about a half-dozen different nations, but they were all trying to keep this supposed strategic advantage secret from one another. It's not that it was a coincidence, but rather that the time was right, and the pieces were all in place.
Isn't it better to develop a quantum computer first, so that you know to stop using vulnerable forms of cryptography? Anything else is just sticking your head in the sand. Failing to develop it yourself will not stop the other guy from doing it.
The secrecy pretty much went away when they came out stealth mode.
Now they published several papers in Nature and are quite open.
When I visited them I was surprised that there were no restrictions on taking pictures and nothing was off limits.
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.
Ahem ... the central claim that their chip is a true quantum chip leveraging qubit entanglement has been demonstrated i.e. this paper.
Matthias Troyer, one of the co-authors, expressed in an email to me, that he was surprised to see this evidence, but that the chip seems indeed to perform some sort of quantum annealing.
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.
Controversial for a while? Yes. Fundamental? Yes, At the core? Not necessarily. QM involves a lot of things and entanglement is only part of that.
Would anyone in their sane state want this:
"This ability would allow a quantum computer to decrypt many of the cryptographic systems in use today."
Nobody sane, no, but the NSA and GCHQ would love that. While lighting a cigar under the "no smoking next to the nuclear weapons" sign in the pool of suspicious green ooze at the abandoned military experiment base codenamed Icarus 13 that was formerly the Lovecraft House for Angry Psychic Orphans built on top of a desecrated Indian burial ground.
You are not a brain: http://books.google.com/books?id=2oV61CeDx-YC
did you check the source of my claim?
Yes, but do you understand it? There is a huge difference between being a "feature of QM" (as your source accurately states) and being "at the core of QM" as you incorrectly state. Entanglement is a feature of QM but there are many other features of QM that have nothing to do with entanglement.
There are two options: Reality has refuted the literature. Or D-Wave did not engineer their system in accordance with the literature. That last is, or should be, trivial to rule in or out.
well, what dwave did was build what they could and called it quantum computing.
and sell it for big bucks to organizations which hope the next generation will have practical use.
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
To a US English speaker, this phrase can generally be translated to mean "All quantum mechanical reasoning relies on quantum entanglement" which is false. But the phrase you state leaves room for interpretation and can certainly mean "quantum entanglement is one of the basic features of quantum mechanics" or even "quantum mechanics requires quantum entanglement to be true". It's just that the standard way the phrase is parsed makes it seem you're saying entanglement is the most important or most fundamental feature of quantum mechanics. You aren't wrong, but the way you expressed yourself can be a little confusing.
Hectice, baby, Mercator says hello to you
So you might want to take a deep breath and calm down a little. Trying to claim that there are multiple "cores", when core is generally taken to mean "centre", sounds like you are desperately flailing around trying to justify yourself. Massive use of asterisks coupled with claiming that discovery of quantum teleportation of information (which has already been shown) would be "single greatest physics accomplishment of all human history" isn't exactly helping your case either.
I'm letting the community handle this from here (cant mod on my own discussion of course)
No, but going on past experience with comments like this undoubtedly your friends and/or secondary accounts can unfortunately.
Eventually, there will be one that can.
I wouldn't be surprised if there already is, somewhere. The NSA is certainly reading every journal in the field, looking out for the elusive breakthrough. If they saw one being made they would likely surpress it for a few years, so they could take advantage of that window of opportunity before someone else invented it or at the very least have time to quantum-proof the US military and diplomatic communications before the tech went public. Their counterparts in other countries would doubtless have the same plan.
If someone has invented a true quantum computer, we'd find out eventually. But possibly not right away.
FTA: "The strong correlations between the device and a simulated quantum annealer ... demonstrate that the device performs quantum annealing"
That's a great example of bad science. Good experiments, solid results, bad conclusions.
A strong correlation between a simulated quantum annealer and between D-Wave points to a device that performs simulated quantum annealing.
The problem is mostly on the engineering side, it'll be hard to build up industrial capabilities of the scope needed for a useful universal gate based QC and conceal if from the rest of the world. It's not like coming up with a code cracking algorithm, the latter could be kept classified quite easily.
Sorry to blow your bubble, but you can actually look at the chip that's inside D-Wave's boxes. It doesn't have transistors, it has Josephson junctions. Tell me how you can get any calculations out of those unless you do physical annealing with them.
just ask such questions - but be prepared for 42 :)
Maybe you should spend some more time on the D-Wave site and actually read it?
On the page you link to under the "What you will learn" section:
How to use the D-Wave OneTM System as a co-processor to a conventional computer in a scalable way.
The D-Wave chip is a special purpose solver, it relies on a classical processor for loading and pre-processing, that is where this python code gets executed.
Anyhow, if you want to learn what's on the chip check out this section.
Programming the D-Wave chip is nothing but initialising the spin states of the qubits, it has nothing to do with classical transistor logic. And no, it is not alien technology, although apparently pretty foreign to you.
Yet, you write like somebody who already made up his mind, and I doubt you're willing to learn anything that contradicts your preconceived notion.
I think you will find that it's the other way around...or do you really have trouble comprehending the spoken word and pictures to give but two examples. Sorry but it is clear from this that you do not understand what 'fundamental' actually means so your confusion with quantum physics, which is tricky at the best of times, is understandable.
you are just being pedantic w/ language
No, if I am being pedantic it is about the science. "Fundamental feature" and "at the core" do not mean exactly the same thing in a physics context. One means a behaviour that occurs under certain circumstances and the other means central to the explanation of the physical laws. For example the electron-positron annihilation a (fundamental) feature of QED but the fermion-photon vertex is at the core of QED. The first is a result of QED that occurs under the right circumstances the latter is something that pretty much any QED calculation will require.
Since we are using a written language to describe precise scientific concepts you have to be careful. Brushing this off as some minor language disagreement results in sloppy, inaccurate and incorrect scientific understanding. You may be quite happy with that but if you are going to start posting to a scientifically literate audience expect to get corrected and educated. There is a big difference between saying that entanglement is just one phenomenon that results from the laws of quantum mechanics under certain circumstances and saying that it is "at the core" of QM.
Finally I should point out that if I were to be pedantic I would point out that the paper you cite does not actually support your point at all. In fact Einstein was an opponent of QM and the EPR paradox paper was designed to poke a hole in it and that actually you should be citing the experimental paper that verified it and not some random comment from Wikipedia that was written by some random internet person and is hardly a reliable source.
you are simply perturbed i am right
It's not often I get to see such a well reasoned, evidence based scientific argument. Might I suggest you publish this in a journal? The scientific world clearly needs to see the article "You are perturbed I am ****right****" by G. Justin (I hope you don't mind the addition of asterisks but I think that really adds a little more credibility and you do use them to such good effect almost everywhere else).
the EPR Paradox was a criticism of a **factual inaccuracy** which was proven right via the sources cited...
I also apologize for clearly completely misunderstanding the EPR paradox. I, like the rest of the scientific community, understood it to be a gedanken experiment (that was what Einstein called a thought experiment) which is understandable since Einstein was renowned as a theorist. I had no idea that he did experiment too and had actually proven a factual inaccuracy, apologies I mean a "**factual inaccuracy**" (wow those asterisks really make a difference!). This is a major revelation and you clearly need to write up the details in another paper. In keeping with Einstein's german naming might I suggest "Ich bin ein Dummkopf" by G. Justin would be an excellent and accurate title for it?
deal with it...i know my shit...
I am sure that studying your own faeces is something that you find really fascinating and clearly pervades your thinking and reasoning. However I'd strongly suggest that you refrain from announcing it in public. This tends to be the sort of thing that crazy people do and I'm sure you would hate for all your erudite and valuable arguments to be dismissed as the ravings of some internet lunatic.
No the problem is that you believe that you are correct and nothing and nobody will persuade you that you are wrong. In your previous post you literally said so. You keep coming back to the same argument again and again which basically boils down to "I am right and you are wrong". Anyone who is older than 5 and not mentally unbalanced should not need to be told that this is massively unconvincing because, whether you can conceive of it or not, there is always the chance that you might be wrong.
I have repeatedly explained that the EPR paradox is a result of the fundamental nature of QM being applied to a particular situation and not a core principle of QM. You have offered not one jot of evidence against this - indeed the one wikipedia comment on a reference that you keep pointing to literally says it is a feature and not a core principle which supports my view. Indeed far from addressing my correction to your original post you have switched between arguing it was just a point of language rather then scientific understanding, that I had to be wrong because you were right and ad hominem attacks.
Far from "demonstrating a grasp of the concepts" you have repeatedly shown that you do not really understand them and that you are incapable of making any sort of rational, scientific conversation. Any sensible discussion starts from the premise that there is a chance that you may be wrong and if you believe that there is zero possibility of this then, not only are you delusional, but nobody will learn much from the conversation. Rather than angry at you I was more curious to see whether there was any way to reach you and perhaps, if not educate you, then at least make you see that there is the slightest possibility you might be wrong. I've met people like you and always had trouble getting them to accept basic scientific concepts which contradict their beliefs so I like to take the practice when I can get it.
I expect journals or widely accepted books...copy/paste of the wikipedia (including the sources on the wiki of course) will do just fine
I won't respond if you just post links to arvix...you have to go aaaaalllll the way back and identify where we disagree on the EPR Paradox and **how** your evidence counters what I've shown (the einstien/shrodinger info)
I'll accept the same stuff I have used...you quote a wiki with proper sources and I'll go to the wiki and check the sources..
put up or shut up
Thank you Dave Raggett
No, you offered one link to Wikipedia where there was a comment mentioning that the EPR paradox is a feature of QM. You then completely misinterpret that and come to the conclusion that it is at the core of QM which means that it is related to the explanation of al quantum phenomena. Worse you seem to think that Wikipedia is a better reference source than arXiv. This would be laughable if it were not so sad.
As for me providing evidence you are the one making the claim so the onus is on you to prove what you are claiming. In addition it is very hard to prove a negative, especially one that everyone (well apart from you) thinks is wrong. You will note that there are no papers claiming that there are no flying giraffes but I hope that does not lead you to believe that they exist!
However I can try so If you want a reference then just pick up practically any QM textbook (I'd recommend Griffiths) and read the chapter on the hydrogen atom orbital derivation. This will require understanding basic differential equations but this is needed to understand QM so if you can't do this that alone should tell you that you don't know what you are talking about. Now point to the part related to entanglement and get back to me.
Sorry - I did not realize that you did not possess any QM text book. If you are going to comment on QM you really ought to get one and read it - you might learn something. If the problem is that I dared to suggest a textbook as a reference instead of Wikipedia then you really ought to think things through a little deeper. I can easily write, or edit, a Wikipedia article to support my point of view, post a link to it. If you really want me to go to that trouble I suppose I could but honestly a text book is a far better reference source.
put yourself in the other situation...what if *you* made a claim, with evidence (the wiki i linked to used Einstein as a source for the claim quoted...i have never just linked to a wiki and called it good...it's the **sources the wiki uses**)
would you just change your mind b/c some random /.'er said "no, you are wrong"
You'd want evidence of some sort for something as complex as QM...not just some guys damn word...
Post the link
I wrote it in all caps 3x....i made a separate post about what I would accept...
If it is in 'any QM textbook' then it should be easy to link to...
remember...you cant just post the link and say "there"....you have to show where your ideas about EPR Paradox differ from the stuff I quoted...
Thank you Dave Raggett
hey, since you obviously must have at least one QM textbook around, cite that...
just make sure to note the **page number** of course...and I still need you to **identify where your and my ideas of the EPR Paradox diverge...**
i'll go to my local library or the technical bookstore downtown or the university library ;)
let's see it!
Thank you Dave Raggett
why did you refer me to a source that doesn't support your claim?
you claimed that your point about EPR Paradox was **so fucking obvious** and I was an idiot who apparently couldn't understand the simplest concpets of QM & was dumb for not having my own text
i presented actual evidence...you presented a link to a book that **by your own admission** does not support your claim
Thank you Dave Raggett
you can't present evidence for you claim...
except 'because I say so'
that's all you've ever done...
I said "X"
you just keep restating "not X"
you have used NOTHING but rhetoric this whole time
rhetoric troll
Thank you Dave Raggett
why did you refer me to a source that doesn't support your claim?
It does but you have to read through and understand a quantum phenomenon in order to know that you can explain it without any reference to entanglement. Here's a fun fact, I checked and I do actually have the second edition (although certainly an earlier reprinting) and if you go to page 421 it describes the EPR paradox as a theoretical exercise which attempted to prove the realist position. Happy? Of course if you had actually read Einstein's paper directly (the one you keep indirectly citing) you would have learnt that as well but hey why would you want to read your own references? ;-)
There is more information on p 427 to support my claim that the EPR paradox is a feature of the fundamental nature of QM where, when discussing Bell's inequality, the author states that the EPR paradox is a result of the nonlocal nature of QM. So there you go in back and white - the EPR paradox is a result of the nature of QM applied to a particular situation. Really this is just a phase velocity effect though like the transmission of a wave in a waveguide where the phase velocity can become anything up to infinite.
By the way if you are interested the hydrogen atom description starts on page 131 (Solving the Schrodinger equation in 3D) so now you don't even have to read the table of contents to find the page. Good luck!
but you didn't, jerk off...you're a troll
why didn't you respond this way before? you obviously feel motivated to continue the conversation, but yet you wasted so much of **your own time**
my goal was to get you to engage or keep asking until comments became disabled...
so, now, after 12 cycles, you make an **attempt** to engage my point...
which was about, originally, Current Quantum Computing Research is mostly hype & only 'Quantum' in the marketing sense of the word
I then stated that, in essence, true 'quantum computing' wouldnt exist until a research team actually dealt with Quantum Entanglement.
I then offered the wikipedia quote, which has **its own citations** in 4 PLACES to support the general concept that, at the current state of research, we understand that **non-local** **quantum teleportation** is theoretically possible
non-local, quantum teleportation-style, fully 'entangled' particles can theoretically exist
that current research proves your p. 427 obsolete...the EPR Paradox is no longer a paradox...true 'spooky action at a distance' can happen
that's my point...okay?
my real point is that non-local, quantum teleportation **can** exist, therefore, for any computing system to be considered 'quantum' it must, by logic, make some use of our current understanding of 'entanglement' or it isn't really 'quantum'
that's my point...
I don't want to hear any shit about 'at the core' vs 'fundamental' b/c that shit isn't...um....'at the core' of the 'fundamental' point I was making...looooong looooong ago up in my first comment...
which was about how 'quantum computing' in TFA is hype
now...if you want to pick this comment apart and have me respond, go right ahead....
Thank you Dave Raggett
glad you agree?
non-local, quantum teleportation-style, fully 'entangled' particles can theoretically exist
They actually exist - check the journals but I seem to remember reading relatively recently that it has been experimentally confirmed.
also, don't try to equivocate...
my point was that to be 'quantum' computing the system had to have some use of entanglement...
you retorted that 'entanglement' is just one of many parts of 'quantum'...therefore, by logical deduction, attempting to refute my point about how 'quantum' computing in TFA was hype
see, if your assertation is right, and I'm wrong, then the research team in TFA can be said to be doing 'true quantum computing' w/o having entanglement be involved at all...no non-locality, no quant. teleportation...but, according to you, still 'quantum'
you are wrong...true non-local, quantum teleportation exists...as you admit ("check the journals")
the research group in TFA is *not* doing Quantum Computing, b/c to do true Quantum Computing current understandings of 'entanglement' must be involved in the system
1. we did have a direct clash on ideas, 2. you knew you were wrong and tried to use rhetoric to "win", 3. I forced you to actually engage the topic, and 4. have proven you wrong (or at least to be a troll)
Thank you Dave Raggett
b/c that's what my post, which you replied to, was about...
TFA is not 'Quantum' Computing, b/c Quantum Computing proper must involve true non-local, quant. teleportation...(which has been experimentally verified to exist)...
Thank you Dave Raggett
no you didn't...you responded to selected sections, ignoring the context of the actual greater point
you are *still* trying to use rhetoric to avoid actual debate
since the begining, my *first* post you responded to I have been completely consistent
my point is that TFA is NOT "Quantum Computing" b/c its not using 'entanglement'
Thank you Dave Raggett
is the work in TFA true 'quantum computing'?
you can either answer, or write more rhetorical avoidance....
Thank you Dave Raggett
yes...here on /. it's called an 'off-topic' comment...also often can be a 'troll' comment as well
so you admit, finally, that this has been a rhetorical argument over a part of a sentence which was tangential to central point of my post
Lastly...you tacitly admit that you **AGREE** that TFA is *not* Quantum Computing...b/c true Quantum Computing must involve entanglement as discussed?
Have we reached that stage yet?
You are close to redemption
Thank you Dave Raggett
Quantum computers by their very nature employ quantum physics so I'm at a loss to see how a discussion on the nature of quantum physics can be considered "off-topic". I'm sorry but, other than curiosity to see how far Slashdot can nest comments, I really don't see that there is much point in continuing this.
Any sensible discussion requires two rational people. However it appears that having conceded the claim on quantum physics you are now determined to believe that we were having a conversation about something else entirely. Since facts and reality don't seem to be an obstacle for your belief there is not much to discuss because you are clearly capable of inventing and living in your own version of reality. At this point there is not much I can do because any facts I point out contrary to your imagined series of events are just ignored or denied. All I can suggest is that you seek some professional help.
Answer this:
Is the computing method mentioned in The Fucking Article (TFA) truly 'quantum computing' or not?
I know they say it is 'quantum'....but look at their technique and answer is it truly 'quantum computing'?
also, you said:
I didn't conceed any point. But don't bother pointing out where you think i did b/c it doesn't matter.
I quoted you here to illustrate a point. Your idea and my idea of what we are debating is different.
I said Quantum Computing must use 'entaglement' (as discussed) proper somehow in the system to be truly 'quantum computing'
certainly the nature of what defines 'quantum' is involved in that. but the **central question** of the post you replied to was asking if TFA was truly 'quantum computing'
You said that 'entanglement' (nonlocal, quant. teleportation) is not "at the core" of quantum physics...that's a rhetorical distinction that avoids the question...
whether you use the words 'at teh core' or 'fundament' is not part of my question **to which you responded**
now, either you answer on topic or continue trolling
Thank you Dave Raggett
your facts are wrong
your 'fact 1' is a fragment...it doesn't represent my point
I said that TFA was not truly 'quantum computing' b/c it didn't involve 'entanglement'
Just because you can pull a string of text from my post & make a counterpoint against that **isolated, context free fragment of words** doesn't mean your "Fact 2" refutes anything
You can't refute a **fragment of an argument** and say its a refutation of anything unless you **put in in context of the original statement**
All you've proven, for anyone still reading, is that you have been trolling this whole time...
try again...you can start being untrollface right now and redeem yourself by answering if you think what TFA research team is doing is true 'quantum computing'
so is it?
c'mon...you know I'll read it if you answer...
Thank you Dave Raggett
do you possess links to these open published papers you speak of?
plz specify how they answer parent's questions as well...don't just copy/paste the links and hit 'publish'
Thank you Dave Raggett
couldn't we check a quantum computer's accuracy (probability) or w/e by asking it to solve a problem we know the answer to?
Thank you Dave Raggett