
Chad Rigetti on Building Quantum Computers [video] - craigcannon
http://themacro.com/articles/2016/09/chad-rigetti-on-building-quantum-computers/
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tlb
The story of how Cray and his team created the CDC 6600 is really great [0].
Cray decided they had to get away from corporate interference so he picked a
bucolic town a couple hours away from corporate HQ, moved his whole team
there, and they worked in peace to develop a machine that was 10x faster than
anything else.

It's unclear today if quantum computers will be useful, just as it was unclear
in 1962 if supercomputers for large scientific numerical calculations would be
useful. It'll be interesting to see.

[0] [https://www.amazon.com/Supermen-Seymour-Technical-Wizards-
Su...](https://www.amazon.com/Supermen-Seymour-Technical-Wizards-
Supercomputer/dp/0471048852/ref=sr_1_1)

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babangida
For anybody interested in quantum computers I very enthusiastically recommend
taking a look at Scott Aaranson's blog -
[http://www.scottaaronson.com/blog/](http://www.scottaaronson.com/blog/)

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darwingr
His last bit reminds me of a quote I first heard on the West Wing:

"Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change
the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has."

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=43DOgo2VzGU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=43DOgo2VzGU)

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repsilat
Genghis Khan: a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens. I like it.

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kumarski
I don't think quantum computing will have any sort of impact on drug
discovery. Chad mentioned quantum computing's impact on drugs. Anybody know
what he's referring to?

I haven't seen anything to suggest that there's big problems out there waiting
to be solved by powerful computing capabilities. Has anyone else found
something that suggests there's active problems waiting for quantum computers?

I've always found the missing thing in life saving pharmaceuticals is sick
people to test compounds on.

Nonetheless, good to see YC pushing the envelope on impactful stuff.

I hope they desperately bring some inorganic and organic chemists with 10+
years of experience. It would open a new can of ventures that are meaningful.
The good problems, the great ones, are in chemistry.

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adamgravitis
The main computationally intractable problems around drug discovery surround
protein folding and identifying macromolecule shapes. This is necessary to
infer receptor sites for potential drug targets.

The problem is massively intractable. QC could revolutionize the space.

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Hydraulix989
Remember though, NP complete problems still are intractable (exponential
complexity) even for quantum computers, to say nothing of NP hard.

Unger and Moult (1993) have shown a three-dimensional protein folding model to
be NP-complete, and a two- and three-dimensional mathematical model describing
the folding process as a free energy minimization problem is NP-hard:

[https://www.gwern.net/docs/1993-fraenkel.pdf](https://www.gwern.net/docs/1993-fraenkel.pdf)

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boardwaalk
I love the idea of "pumping entropy out of a system" and getting people do
that vs. leaving more in than there was before.

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Hydraulix989
I'm curious what the MVP is? Despite the whole counterargument to Eric Ries
school of thought, even YC's thesis is that "hard companies" should have some
sort of initial stepping stone.

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MCneill27
I'm curious why he pronounces Regina incorrectly (he went to the University of
Regina), when he is from Moose Jaw, a 50 minute drive away. It's really really
strange. 7 year old children all across Canada know how to pronounce that city
correctly...how does a guy forget something so basic?

