
D-Wave quantum computer solves protein folding problem - rabidsnail
http://blogs.nature.com/news/2012/08/d-wave-quantum-computer-solves-protein-folding-problem.html
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kruhft
> 10,000 measurements using an 81 qubit version of the experiment gave the
> correct answer just 13 times

> It’s also worth pointing that conventional computers could already solve
> these particular protein folding problems

So if one cannot already solve the problem is one capable of checking that the
answer is correct with such a low probability of correctness?

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ZoFreX
There are many cases where you can verify an answer much more easily than
finding it. Not saying that necessarily applies here, but for the more general
problem space it isn't the limitation it might appear to be at first.

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thesnark
So they can fold a 20 residue protein on a lattice using the coarse grain HP
model, competing squarely with 1970s tech.

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Permit
I read this article and imagined computing in the first half of the 20th
century. Undoubtedly when some programmer first managed to get his room sized
computer to add, subtract and multiply someone was present to scoff about how
he could already do such things on his slide rule.

It's not about where the technology currently is, but where it is going.

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mturmon
All true. With D-Wave, it's always been hard to separate the hype from the
substance.

They certainly have some exceptional people (e.g., the "director of business
development" mentioned in the post was a research assistant for Hawking (yes,
that Hawking), and wrote one of the very first books on quantum computation).
And, they're doing good work. It's just hard to tell how long the road is.

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DandelionRex
When I first heard of D-Wave I thought for sure they were some kind of scam
outfit. I am impressed..

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unconed
What's funny is that D-Wave is actually taking the smart approach. They're not
trying to build a general purpose quantum computer, they're trying to build an
architecture to solve a particular class of problems using quantum computing,
which is far more achievable and more likely to be immediately useful. So even
at the start they were far less snake-oily than other outfits.

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geuis
It seems that 13 out of 10000 tests is on the level of noise statistically,
isn't it? Admittedly, I am a layman on this subject. But if I had my corgi
puppy nose my keyboard 10,000 times a word or 13 would pop out. That doesn't
mean she knows how to write.

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EricBurnett
That very much depends on the size of the solution space. If they get one bit
of 'answer' from each qubit used in the computation that's 2^81 possible
solutions, in which case you'd expect random chance to require somewhere
around 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 trial runs before they happened to
get one right.

Now, I highly doubt the solution space is anywhere near that large. But
without knowing more about it we cannot infer anything from the 13/10000
statistic presented.

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mikecane
Am I missing something? There was nothing about the speed in which the correct
answer was arrived at versus conventional methods. Isn't q-computing supposed
to be significantly faster? Yet, no solution time(s) mentioned.

