
Breakthrough Paves Way for Affordable Quantum Computers - lisper
http://www.cemag.us/news/2015/04/breakthrough-paves-way-affordable-quantum-computers
======
Zikes
> "We demonstrated that a highly coherent qubit, like the spin of a single
> phosphorus atom in isotopically enriched silicon, can be controlled using
> electric fields, instead of using pulses of oscillating magnetic fields"

Isn't getting a qubit into a coherent state in the first place one of the
biggest hurdles in quantum computing? The headline seems to be putting the
cart before the horse saying we'll get "affordable" quantum computers thanks
to this.

I'm not knocking the scientists efforts, I don't doubt the worth of their
discovery, but if science news articles were true we'd have flying solar
powered cars with batteries the size of a cell phone that can recharge in
under a minute.

~~~
whitewhim
Putting a qubit in a coherent state really isn't a technical challenge
anymore. The challenge these days is getting it to stay in a coherent state
(ie. avoid decoherence) long enough to be able to perform gates on the qubit
and perform computations. I'm about half way through the paper so far and I
really think it is quite an interesting approach and result.

------
copsarebastards
Jesus, please don't upvote this clickbait headline. It's literally lying to
get attention.

We don't have _any_ quantum computers yet. We will probably have
_unaffordable_ quantum computers before we'll have _affordable_ quantum
computers. This headline is not even a believable lie.

~~~
lisper
Just because the headline is lying doesn't mean the article doesn't contain
useful and interesting information. The popular press exaggerates headlines
all the time to get attention, and HN guidelines mandate submitting with the
original headline.

~~~
copsarebastards
I disagree. Bytes from a source who is demonstrated to be willing to lie to
you for ratings isn't information, it's just noise, which is not useful. I
can't objectively say it's not interesting, but I can say is that I'm not
interested.

~~~
lisper
Actually, it turns out that the headline is taken directly from the UNSW press
release:

[http://newsroom.unsw.edu.au/news/science-
tech/breakthrough-o...](http://newsroom.unsw.edu.au/news/science-
tech/breakthrough-opens-door-affordable-quantum-computers)

So it's not CE magazine that's lying (if they're lying), it's the University
of New South Wales. And if you're going to accuse UNSW of lying you need a
stronger argument.

~~~
copsarebastards
UNSW is lying in their headline to attract attention to their research.

We aren't close to affordable quantum computing because we don't have quantum
computing at any price point, let alone at an affordable one. Even a single
multibillion dollar quantum computer would have huge implications, most
notably that RSA, the basis for most of modern security, would be broken.

This is like claiming we're close to affordable human Mars travel. We haven't
even put one human on Mars; it would be ridiculous to claim we are close to
making it affordable.

