Only to a theoretical computer scientist would the difference between a modern Laptop and a marble-run *not* matter:-)
As mentioned in the other thread. Moore's law comes to an end for semiconductors. This machine doesn't use them and the integration density is still low.
Such implementation details may not matter to you, but I think it shouldn't be hard to see why they matter to the industry.
This is exactly the crux of the matter, but how many here on/. do you think can possibly get this from the article and the various opinion spouted here?
On quibble though: I essentially draw the opposite conclusion from the observation in your last sentence. In comparison to classical hardware they developed this on a shoestring budget, yet can already hold their own. Moore's law is ending for silicon based chip's within the decade, the structures are just getting to small. On the other hand their is still lots of room on the bottom for D-Wave, and they've been doubling chip density about every 16 months.
So quantum speed-up or not, I think this technology has a future.
The poster who said that they don't let you look inside the box is full of s***. You can go and take a tour of their campus and they will happily show you the inside of their fridges.
I've been inside one of these boxes myself, and in the D-Wave reception area you can look at the wafers of all the previous chip generations.
Now that they have their patent portfolio D-Wave is not secretive in the least.
DISCLAIMER: I don't work for them, I just occasionally blog about them.
"It is really hard to make large systems show quantum effects."
Well, I guess it depends on your meaning of "hard" and "quantum effect". Too me the Meisner effect is certainly quantum mechanical in nature, and easy to demonstrate with macroscopic superconductors.
The Josephson effect is another poster boy for a macroscopic quantum phenomenon.
So there is little doubt about the quantum nature of D-Wave's Josephson junction circuitry. But you are entirely correct that decoherence is what needs to be prevented by isolating the system. One thing to note though: A quantum annealer is less sensitive to this than a gate based quantum computer.
On one hand decoherence, i.e. the uncontrolled entanglement with the environment, is something you want to minimize, while on the other hand you want the coupled qubits on the chip to be entangled. Arguing that there is no entanglement between the qubits while at the same time suffering bad decoherence, implies that D-Wave really would have done a remarkably bad job of insulating their system.
D-Wave has Josephson junction qubits on their chip and couple them. Yet, somehow they are supposed to end up with a machine that is a classical annealer? Although the behavior of the box is exactly what you'd expect from a quantum annealer?
... in 'Tales of Pirx the Pilot' about forty years ago.
If I remember correctly, at some point the simulation of a famous departed scientist has to point out to the protagonist, that he can't really come up with any new idea since he's only a collection of the data and knowledge of the person.
Please mod parent up. Gauss law div B = 0 is perfectly healthy despite this inane babbling of monopoles in the write-up of this research.
Yes, its field looks from the outside like a monopole, but it's a quasi particle not an actual naked monopole, the latter would be the equivalent of a magnetic charge particle.
Despite having been hunting this Snark for decades there is no indication that there is such a thing in nature.
"The people" who complain are often academics outside the research community and not affiliated with an institution that can afford the horrendous subscription cost.
You may have notice the journals charge about $20 a pop for individual subscriptions of articles.
Why do you think they'll do that if there wasn't some demand for it?
He always had the reputation of being a visionary and major league a**hole. I guess he's dead long enough now that we can acknowledge the latter again?
"Google also describes how advertisers will be able to use a customer's profile 'to exclude a customer from being considered for an offer based on exclusion criteria identified by a business,' such as age, job title, purchasing history, clothing size, or other 'desirable' characteristics."
... is about as old as business IT. So now it includes a tiered offer for a transportation discount. The only new aspect is the self driven car, may as well give a gas discount to the customers who prefer to drive themselves.
Having talked with one of the co-authors of the paper, he actually came away impressed at how far D-Wave has come in ten years. Although not yet far enough that I'd win my bet with him, that the D-Wave two could beat classical computing across the board.
Yeah, that's the theory. With business apps this has turned out to be almost a joke. Any friggen' client (Oracle, SAS, SAP you name it) brings their own private Java run-time (typically outdated) because that's the one that's tested and supported.
From the article I glean that they are developing some major business app. Usually if you want to make this platform independent you go with Java. Not exactly light-weight either.
Slashdot Mirror
Ups .. thanks for clearing that up ...
Only to a theoretical computer scientist would the difference between a modern Laptop and a marble-run *not* matter :-)
As mentioned in the other thread. Moore's law comes to an end for semiconductors. This machine doesn't use them and the integration density is still low.
Such implementation details may not matter to you, but I think it shouldn't be hard to see why they matter to the industry.
This is exactly the crux of the matter, but how many here on /. do you think can possibly get this from the article and the various opinion spouted here?
On quibble though: I essentially draw the opposite conclusion from the observation in your last sentence. In comparison to classical hardware they developed this on a shoestring budget, yet can already hold their own. Moore's law is ending for silicon based chip's within the decade, the structures are just getting to small. On the other hand their is still lots of room on the bottom for D-Wave, and they've been doubling chip density about every 16 months.
So quantum speed-up or not, I think this technology has a future.
D-Wave's publication list is here.
Patents can be found just as easily.
After reviewing the documents please let me know what you feel is missing and should be disclosed.
Sure it's just like your other computers. minus all the silicone and transistors.
Let me just repeat this, there is *no* semiconductor in the box, and *no* transistors on the chip.
And yes this is all out in the open and can be read up in Nature, MIT mirror
This thing runs on Josephson Junctions, how exactly does that not meet requirement (2)?
(And sorry, but I stopped going down the list at this point.)
At this point having secured patents D-Wave does not hide their architecture.
For whatever reason, probably because they started out secretive, this meme simply doesn't go away. But it is completely false at this point.
The poster who said that they don't let you look inside the box is full of s***. You can go and take a tour of their campus and they will happily show you the inside of their fridges.
I've been inside one of these boxes myself, and in the D-Wave reception area you can look at the wafers of all the previous chip generations.
Now that they have their patent portfolio D-Wave is not secretive in the least.
DISCLAIMER: I don't work for them, I just occasionally blog about them.
"It is really hard to make large systems show quantum effects."
Well, I guess it depends on your meaning of "hard" and "quantum effect". Too me the Meisner effect is certainly quantum mechanical in nature, and easy to demonstrate with macroscopic superconductors.
The Josephson effect is another poster boy for a macroscopic quantum phenomenon.
So there is little doubt about the quantum nature of D-Wave's Josephson junction circuitry. But you are entirely correct that decoherence is what needs to be prevented by isolating the system. One thing to note though: A quantum annealer is less sensitive to this than a gate based quantum computer.
On one hand decoherence, i.e. the uncontrolled entanglement with the environment, is something you want to minimize, while on the other hand you want the coupled qubits on the chip to be entangled. Arguing that there is no entanglement between the qubits while at the same time suffering bad decoherence, implies that D-Wave really would have done a remarkably bad job of insulating their system.
Given how close to absolute zero this machine operates, and the sensitivity of the performance to the slightest temp increase, I don't see a reason to reconsider my stance.
D-Wave has Josephson junction qubits on their chip and couple them. Yet, somehow they are supposed to end up with a machine that is a classical annealer? Although the behavior of the box is exactly what you'd expect from a quantum annealer?
Seems rather far fetched.
I wished before anybody was writing about D-Wave they'd watch this video form the last Q+ hang-out where the Troyer et. al. research into the characteristics of the D-Wave machine was presented.
When it comes to uploading consciousness the fundamental question is if a classical computer can fully simulate a brain, or if we have some inherent physical resources not captured by the Turing model.
... in 'Tales of Pirx the Pilot' about forty years ago.
If I remember correctly, at some point the simulation of a famous departed scientist has to point out to the protagonist, that he can't really come up with any new idea since he's only a collection of the data and knowledge of the person.
Please mod parent up. Gauss law div B = 0 is perfectly healthy despite this inane babbling of monopoles in the write-up of this research.
Yes, its field looks from the outside like a monopole, but it's a quasi particle not an actual naked monopole, the latter would be the equivalent of a magnetic charge particle.
Despite having been hunting this Snark for decades there is no indication that there is such a thing in nature.
"The people" who complain are often academics outside the research community and not affiliated with an institution that can afford the horrendous subscription cost.
You may have notice the journals charge about $20 a pop for individual subscriptions of articles.
Why do you think they'll do that if there wasn't some demand for it?
See your point. This may be an alternative to the "suicide by cop" approach. Clubbed to death with PowerBooks by enraged Apple 'geniuses'.
True there is a bigger picture here.
He always had the reputation of being a visionary and major league a**hole. I guess he's dead long enough now that we can acknowledge the latter again?
... in the summary ...
"Google also describes how advertisers will be able to use a customer's profile 'to exclude a customer from being considered for an offer based on exclusion criteria identified by a business,' such as age, job title, purchasing history, clothing size, or other 'desirable' characteristics."
The Google Quantum AI lab puts this news into perspective and I put my positive spin on it here.
Having talked with one of the co-authors of the paper, he actually came away impressed at how far D-Wave has come in ten years. Although not yet far enough that I'd win my bet with him, that the D-Wave two could beat classical computing across the board.
So in short, yes, the BBC's reporting on quantum computing is atrocious. Not the first time either.
"... which most people already have."
Yeah, that's the theory. With business apps this has turned out to be almost a joke. Any friggen' client (Oracle, SAS, SAP you name it) brings their own private Java run-time (typically outdated) because that's the one that's tested and supported.
From the article I glean that they are developing some major business app. Usually if you want to make this platform independent you go with Java. Not exactly light-weight either.
It is Open Source code with a BSD style license. Google can't just disappear the currently released source code.
If they want to move to a closed development model you could fork the code.
Insightful only if you haven't read the article or didn't understand it.
As even the headline stated they use it as a library to compile against.
Sure, but jailbreaks are readily available.
When a 'phone' runs UNIX underneath and is a commercially attractive software platform, then I think there is indeed a basis for comparison.