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Currently Quantum Computers Might Be Where Rockets Were At the Time of Goddard
schwit1 writes: If quantum computing is at the Goddard level that would be a good thing for quantum computing. This means that the major fundamental breakthrough that would put them over the top was in hand and merely a lot of investment, engineering and scaling was needed. The goal of being able to solve NP-hard or NP-Complete problems with quantum computers is similar to being able to travel to the moon, mars or deeper into space with rockets. Conventional flight could not achieve those goals because of the lack of atmosphere in space. Current computing seems like they are very limited in being able to tackle NP-hard and NP Complete problems. Although clever work in advanced mathematics and approximations can give answers that are close on a case by case basis.
You know, if we could look at them.
Give something a fancy name and by-God it has to be a world-changing technology, right? I just don't see it. The hardware is difficult to build / maintain, doesn't scale, and so far nobody is quite sure what to even do with it.
It's just a way to suck money out of venture capitalists and keep people busy in ivory towers. There's a reason that so many companies have the word 'quantum' in their name. It's all marketing hype.
So what you're saying is we need Nazis.
If half of the people that read pop-culture science actually worked in the field, think of how much further along we would be....
This is Slashdot. As we all know Slashdot explanations must adhere to car comparisons. If you cant get it together and start comparing quantum computing to an old ford then I dont know what I come here for.
Good people go to bed earlier.
... that would be a good thing for my grandma.
Because rockets were actually working at that point, maybe not refined, but still useful. Quantum computer is not useful in any way at this time.
Quantum computing is still at the mumbo jumbo stage where they make really bold claims about what it can do in 1 or 2 really specific instances that all of 8 people on the planet care about, but then never follow through with a quantum machine that out performs a classical one in any way.
Oh, and the answer(s) may not even be right and has to be checked using classical methods anyway.
Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
Quantum computers cannot solve NP-Hard or NP-Complete problems -- at least, no faster than a classical computer. This is one of the most basic results in the field, and the author keeps on making hash of it. This article should not be taken seriously if it's rife with such basic errors.
Goddard was the father of modern rocketry (perhaps 5000 years of Chinese fireworks aside ;-), so really any fundamentally new technology is at it's "Goddard level". But it is amazing to think about what Robert Goddard was doing compared to a truly modern launch system, and apply that to what researchers are doing with quantum computing. Where will that be in 80 years? I wish I could be alive to see it.
I'm sorry, but your opinion seems to be wrong.
If the person who wrote the article understood the first slide they included, it even shows that the class polynomial time quantum algorithms (BQP) probably don't include NP-complete problems and it says something to that affect. Wiki is better:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_computing#Relation_to_computational_complexity_theory
Stripping off the D-Wave Quantum nonsense:
http://phys.org/news/2014-06-independent-group-d-wave-quantum-speedup.html
"(Phys.org) —An independent research team with members affiliated with several universities in the U.S. and Switzerland has concluded that the D-Wave Two computer shows no signs of quantum speedup"
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It does a calculation known as 'constrained minimization'. so for a function f(x1,x2,x3....) where x1 has limits on acceptable values (constraints), x2 has limits, x2,...and so on, calculate a minimum value of f(x1,x2,x3...) and say at what x1,x2,x3,.... those values occur.
In theory you could brute force this with noise (which would randomly change x1, x2 and x3, x4..., trying all possible values and filtering for ones that are within the constraints. D Wave claim to do it in quantum way, i.e. all possible values simultaneously being tested by the magic of Quantum Annealing. However their kit doesn't show that, and the results it generates under tests are often wrong, indicating all possible values have not been tested.
So we have a problem here. It behaves like a noisy system being used to brute force a calculation, and like that system it generates wrong results because noise is random and spread across time, and you cannot know if you've given it enough time to get the optimal solution. And since we can run classical techniques for constrained minimization, we can find *better* solutions, and this prove it has not actually done the task!
It also means it cannot possibly be doing Quantum Annealing because it has not tested all solutions. No amount of money will turn a brute force noise machine into a Quantum computer.
Currently EM Propulsion is also in early development like Quantum Computers, so EM Drives Might Be Where Rockets Were At the Time of Goddard, but we currently use rockets instead of EM drives, so... umm... the Time of Goddard is now?
"Currently Quantum Computers Might Be Where Rockets Were At the Time of Goddard"
Designed on totally incorrect physics?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
The true revolutionaries of rocket propulsion all have German last names.
To be fair, no one apart from a few vested interests are claiming that quantum computers are some sort of magical panacea. But just like modern graphics GPUs, they could be built into ordinary computers and used when the problem domain suits their capabilities.
It is not an article, it is advertisement. There is absolutely no news content, just some stuff to make people discuss around it as if something new has happened.
Achille Talon
Hop!
I know quantum stuff is hard to pin down, but not knowing where Qumputing is by a century-wide error band is pretty bad.
/ streeeeeeeeetch
You're looking for quotes? See my journal.
OP writes: "The goal of being able to solve NP-hard or NP-Complete problems with quantum computers is similar to being able to travel to the moon, mars or deeper into space with rockets."
Not even close. There was never any reason to believe that traveling to the moon was fundamentally impossible. That was an engineering problem, and no known nor suspected laws of physics prohibited it.
Solving NP-complete problems efficiently (polynomial time) with quantum computers may is a mathematical problem, however -- it amounts to finding a quantum algorithm for any one NP-complete problem -- and it may prove to be truly impossible, that is, it may be that no such algorithm exists. In fact, most experts in the field would say that the evidence so far strongly suggests that this is the case, that BQP (the set of problems you can solve in polynomial time on a quantum computer) does not include the NP-complete problems.
It will only be after that when some commercial outfits start to get their hands on QC, that we'll start to see some innovation, progress and actual low-cost applications.
Or maybe it'll be like planes: 60 years from wooden biplanes to the Jumbo Jet and a few more to Concorde. Then it'll grind to a halt.
politicians are like babies' nappies: they should both be changed regularly and for the same reasons
Give something a fancy name and by-God it has to be a world-changing technology, right? I just don't see it.
So because you can't understand it, it must not be of any consequence? I think that says more about you than it does about the technology.
The hardware is difficult to build / maintain, doesn't scale, and so far nobody is quite sure what to even do with it.
That sounds like pretty much every new technology ever. The first computers were difficult to build and maintain, didn't scale well and people weren't entirely sure what to do with them outside of a few narrow use cases. The first airplanes were difficult to build and maintain, didn't scale well, and... etc. We figured it out eventually. Probably will with quantum computing too in due time.
...but a research paper. And a BADLY written one at that. One that, if submitted by one of my freshmen students, I'd probably assign a D+ if I was feeling generous.
Even after parsing the confusing sentence structure in the first couple paragraphs, I gave up before figuring out exactly how the figures (which look like snapshots of some PowerPoint lecture or presentation? What's the source??) tie in with their overall thesis - which seems to be some poorly formed analogy between the history of flight and quantum computing.
And they cited Wikipedia... ugh.
Micron Automata can solve NP-hard programs very quickly, and it's not quantum computer.
It abandons the Von Neumann model we have been using or last 60 years and can achieve very high parallelism.
And it requires a very different style of programming.
But it's not quantum computer. And it's actually working, running in Micron's labs and very soon coming to market.
Quantum computers are hype that's not really working, Micron automata is the real thing achieving mostly the same benefits.
I thought this "article" contained little more than wishful thinking, and voted it down, but it still got through anyways.
Big breakthrough just around the corner!
SJW's don't eliminate discrimination. They just expropriate it for themselves.
Built the wrong way around? Yup.
Do not waste your time reading this. The moron who wrote that "article" is full of shit. Quantum computers can only efficiently solve (i.e. <= polynomial time) a specific class of problems called BQP. NP-hard and NP-complete problems would remain totally unfazed by quantum machines.
I think that comparing "being able to solve NP-hard or NP-Complete problems" to "travel to the moon, mars or deeper into space with rockets" is a much worse offender, since the latter clearly doesn't violate the laws of physics whereas the former probably might.
Ezekiel 23:20
Eh, Goddard quickly learned that didn't work and went on to make this:
http://i.space.com/images/i/00...
Where Goddard failed apparently was in his paranoid insistence on secrecy.
Well, that's an ignorant comment of yours. The mods need to do a little checking before modding up. ... may have been rather crude by present-day standards, but they blazed the trail and incorporated many features used in our most modern rockets and space vehicles". He once recalled that "Goddard's experiments in liquid fuel saved us years of work, and enabled us to perfect the V-2 years before it would have been possible."
Here (http://airandspace.si.edu/explore-and-learn/multimedia/detail.cfm?id=2888) is a picture from the mid-30's of Goddard with one of his rockets which was equivalent or better than the Germans' at the time.
Here (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_H._Goddard) is a statement by von Braun himself about Goddard's work:
"Nevertheless, in 1963, von Braun, reflecting on the history of rocketry, said of Goddard: "His rockets
And from the same wiki article:
Three features developed by Goddard appeared in the V-2: (1) turbopumps were used to inject fuel into the combustion chamber; (2) gyroscopically controlled vanes in the nozzle stabilized the rocket until external vanes in the air could do so; and (3) excess alcohol was fed in around the combustion chamber walls, so that a blanket of evaporating gas protected the engine walls from the combustion heat."
If you're spouting such straw man platitudes, then you don't know enough about quantum computers to condemn someone else.
You might have a point if his argument was something more nuanced than "it's hard and I don't understand how it will ever work" with a few marketing = boogeyman slams thrown in for good measure. Maybe quantum computers will be a thing and maybe they won't but he sure as hell doesn't know. If you want to claim quantum computers will never work then present some compelling technical evidence to support that position. Otherwise shut up and let the researchers do their job.
In the defense of the previous poster, I'll note that there are a number of phenomena that permeate all of the Solar System (gravity, neutrinos, and thermal radiation) that may place an upper bound on the reliability of quantum computing no matter how magical your technology is.
"May place an upper bound"? Sounds like you don't really know much about quantum computers yourself there my friend. Come back when you have some specific physics to discuss beyond some vague hand waiving about gravity and neutrinos.
Currently Quantum Computers Might Be Where Rockets Were At the Time of Goddard
So the New York Times thinks it's a bunch of bunk, then...
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
Quantum computing is about where teleportation, strong AI, a perfect cure for cancer, etc. is, namely it is completely unclear whether it will ever work. All this bullshit about Quantum Computing is just that: Bullshit. We do not even know whether the physics allows it, all we know is that the current theory (which we know is incomplete and inaccurate) would allow it if it was accurate.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
I thought it just functionally added massive parallelism, and didn't really solve this, by offloading the calculations into the quantum path space.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
Currently Quantum Computers Might Be Where Rockets Were At the Time of Goddard
I'm not sure stacking computers on make-shift launch pads in the middle of the desert would be helpful. Or did I misread that?
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
Wow, it's so amazing you know all about physics from stuff we've already learned.
That Goddard sure was a dummy, what with not having knowledge from 20 years after he did his work!
so for quantum computing, it's going to take about 30 years for its rocket to be nuclear fission powered?
or will it require shielding and ANOTHER quantum computer to figure out that that stuff is bad?
The burden of proof is on you to explain how it DOES work.
No it isn't. I'm not trying to prove or disprove them and never claimed otherwise. If you want to claim that they cannot work then you need to provide a testable theorem to back that up. If you want to claim that they can work same thing applies. If you are merely trying to refute claims that someone has developed a quantum computer when they haven't then you merely need to clarify your position.
Here is what I think we know right now. Some scientists apparently have created functional quantum computers with small numbers of qubits in labs. These lack sufficient qubits to be generally useful but do appear to indicate that useful quantum computers are likely to be possible. If there is a quantum computer with enough qubits to be generally useful I am not aware of it and there is no public indication of any breakthrough at this time. There appear to be substantial technical and theoretical problems to be worked out before quantum computers become a reality.
Is it possible that someone, somewhere has actually constructed a useful QC in defiance of all the skeptics
As far as I know they are all in the proof of concept stage in physics laboratories with very modest numbers of qubits. Never claimed otherwise. It does not follow however that quantum computers are an impossibility. Based on my understanding of the work accomplished thus far I suspect they probably can become a reality eventually but I make no claims regarding when that may be.
But quantum computers are not that special or are they? What I learned from quantum computers is that they just enable another wave of miniaturizations until manufacturers are able to fit the power of the modern large super computers in a smart phone. Quantum computer theoretically enables storage in electrons, where normal computers can only store information by letting electrons change the state of a component.
So in stead of 0 or 1, you will have 0, 1, 3, or 4 (or whatever the amount of states they can give to a qbit). This also means that the answer of a computation can be 0, 1, 2 or 3. But this means you need a completely different style of programming and that style of programming will probably so complex that nobody except a few talented mathematicians are able to get everything out of a quantum computer.
A simple if (variable == 1) will give a result of yes or no or maybe or probably. What can you do with such answer as a programmer? Sorting can be made faster, because you could condense 'if (var == 1) else if (var >1) else if (var 1) else error:undefined' in one test on a quantum computer which only takes one clock cycle versus 4 on a normal computer. Thus some of the exponential problems on a normal computer seem to be able to be done in a non exponential quantum program. But who will write that kind of program if quantum computers will ever become available?
Isn't there a corollary to Betteridge's Law about headlines stated as questions for headlines stated as speculations such as:
"Currently Quantum Computers Might Be Where Rockets Were At the Time of Goddard"
Basically, when a headline is stated as a speculation, the answer is still no ;)
This is the worst and most shoddy logic i have ever seen. This isn't a comic book, trends in one completely different tech do not correspond to other trends in other techs, or for anything, really.
Is france going to invade russia in the winter again? It'll be winter soon, the trends say it must happen because it has happened once before!
Humans are just not cut out for reason, it would seem.
If entanglement is not real, quantum computing will not work:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loopholes_in_Bell_test_experiments
And then again, might not.
What a hopeless article. Yes, real quantum computing would be cool, and D-Wave has been doing quantum-y things with investor money for a decade or so, and scientists have developed improved more standard kinds of quantum computers to the point that they can now factor 21, surpassing the record of factoring 15 that held for a few years, and maybe sometime in the future quantum computers will be as far advanced beyond that as today's rockets are beyond the ones Goddard had on paper a century ago or his early flying models 90 years ago, or maybe not (or maybe both at once, because YOU CAN DO THAT with quantum.)
But like most articles about quantum stuff in the popular press, and 99.9999% of content about it in the New Age business, it follows the paradigm of
Quantum physics isn't a Simple Matter Of Engineering like rocketry (and there are reasons for the phrase "Rocket Scientist" - rocketry's also more than just a S.M.o.E, no matter what you remember from those Heinlein stories you read as a kid about building spaceships in your back yard.) Mathematics and physics breakthroughs don't just happen because you really really want them to or because you pour lots of money into the engineering (though especially for the physics, that really helps.)
And yes, D-Wave might be on to something, or they might be pursuing a dead end, and we'd learn valuable things by helping them do either one, if they publish enough detail about their work, and maybe they can build quantumy computers that are useful for real-world problems even if you can't use them to run Shor's Algorithm to crack factoring-based crypto. But just because rocketry was at sort of a cusp a century ago, and lots of other technologies have gone from "not ready/usable yet" to "useful" that doesn't mean that quantum computing is one of them; lots of other technologies have gone from "not ready/usable yet" to "old obsolete dead ends."
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
German names? Like Tsiolkovsky?
You are probably tight but for the wrong reasons. I have worked developing a Strong AI algorithm for over twenty years, and have developed a basic quantum model of quantum computation in the brain. From this perspective q-bits are a big part of the problem, created with insufficient lateral thinking and an insufficient grasp of the problems of quantum coherence above the quantum limit.
In the brain the quantum element gives a massive performance boost - so much so that without it complex brains basically wouldn't work. Know how the brain solves the problem of coherency? it doesn't, instead it basically does its quantum calculations at the molecular scale. Nor do brains use q-bits. What they do use is something quite different - unfortunately the answer is still commercially sensitive - and may form part of future patents. Quantum's big trick though ... is that like genetic computing algorithms it can solve problems using 'non-algorithmic' methods - and its extremely good at it. Like a 'magic box' it can solve problems that should be completely insoluble otherwise..
The other point about quantum computing is that brains do their quantum calculations at human body temperature - the big problem with current technology is that it needs liquid nitrogen or even liquid helium temperatures - complex and expensive to maintain.. If we really crack how the brain does it - it leads straight to room temperature super conductors and other completely new technologies...
Below the speed of light Special Relativity is one of the most accurate theories in physics - above the speed of light..
"Run, Forrest: RUN!!!" vs. a fair challenge http://news.slashdot.org/comme...
* I find it UTTERLY HILARIOUS seeing a bullshit artist mere talk TROLLING done zero loser like you has the NERVE to state what you did - especially after you RAN in that link above, gweihir... lol!
You don't HAVE the ability to code & the link above evidences it - you're a bullshit blowhard, nothing more - a MERE TECHIE MENIAL @ best/most!
(FACT: Minus coders like myself, you TECHIE or NETWORK ADMIN MENIALS ARE HELPLESS - just as you've SHOWN yourself to be in that link above!)
APK
P.S.=> Keep on shooting your blowhard done nothing in computing mouth off gweihir - I'll be RIGHT THERE AGAIN to expose your crap yet again (have fun with the shame you'll have to publicly endure here & YOU STARTED IT WITH ME YOU USELESS TROLLING LOSER WITH NO SKILLS BUT LOTS OF MERE "TALK", lmao)... apk
"Run, Forrest: RUN!!!" vs. a fair challenge http://news.slashdot.org/comme...
* I find it UTTERLY HILARIOUS seeing a bullshit artist mere talk TROLLING done zero loser like you has the NERVE to state what you did - especially after you RAN in that link above, gweihir... lol!
You don't HAVE the ability to code & the link above evidences it - you're a bullshit blowhard, nothing more - a MERE TECHIE MENIAL @ best/most!
(FACT: Minus coders like myself, you TECHIE or NETWORK ADMIN MENIALS ARE HELPLESS - just as you've SHOWN yourself to be in that link above!)
APK
P.S.=> Keep on shooting your blowhard done nothing in computing mouth off gweihir - I'll be RIGHT THERE AGAIN to expose your crap yet again (have fun with the shame you'll have to publicly endure here & YOU STARTED IT WITH ME YOU USELESS TROLLING LOSER WITH NO SKILLS BUT LOTS OF MERE "TALK", lmao)... apk
"Run, Forrest: RUN!!!" vs. a fair challenge http://news.slashdot.org/comme...
* I find it UTTERLY HILARIOUS seeing a bullshit artist mere talk TROLLING done zero loser like you has the NERVE to state what you did - especially after you RAN in that link above, gweihir... lol!
You don't HAVE the ability to code & the link above evidences it - you're a bullshit blowhard, nothing more - a MERE TECHIE MENIAL @ best/most!
(FACT: Minus coders like myself, you TECHIE or NETWORK ADMIN MENIALS ARE HELPLESS - just as you've SHOWN yourself to be in that link above!)
APK
P.S.=> Keep on shooting your blowhard done nothing in computing mouth off gweihir - I'll be RIGHT THERE AGAIN to expose your crap yet again (have fun with the shame you'll have to publicly endure here & YOU STARTED IT WITH ME YOU USELESS TROLLING LOSER WITH NO SKILLS BUT LOTS OF MERE "TALK", lmao)... apk