
Quantum Or Not, New Supercomputer Is Certainly Something Else - bobz
http://www.npr.org/2013/05/22/185532608/quantum-or-not-new-supercomputer-is-certainly-something-else?sc=17&f=1001
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btilly
This is a puff piece.

As <http://www.scottaaronson.com/blog/?p=1400> makes clear, the current
incarnation of D-Wave looks cool and costs a fortune, but is slower than a
desktop PC running properly-optimized code. And that optimized code only
needed to be written once because it solves the problem that D-Wave asks us to
reduce all problems to before we can use D-Wave.

~~~
pfedor
As <http://www.scottaaronson.com/blog/?p=1400> admits, large-scale
entanglement most likely does take place in D-Wave's computer. So now he just
argues that their proof of concept prototype is not as efficient as classical
devices that have been perfected over fifty years.

If we lived in a world where nuclear energy was still just a theoretical
possibility, and you had a company D-Uranium trying to build the first reactor
ever, and someone like Scott Aaronson kept saying for years and years "You
guys suck you haven't even demonstraded there are any atoms split inside your
device, for all we know it's all heat from chemical reactions", and then,
eventually in the face of evidence he was forced to admit that atoms indeed
were being split in D-Uranium's pile, so he retreated to saying "But your
reactor generates less heat than a coal burning power station so you guys
still suck!"--what would that make you think?

~~~
btilly
You're attacking me for what I didn't say and ignoring what I did. I'm not
attacking D-Wave for their ambitions. I'm attacking the article for being a
puff piece.

The article, in the second paragraph, says _...the computer can solve a
certain type of problem much faster than conventional computers..._ which is a
claim that even cursory research into the subject would find false. (Though a
PR company could easily deliver a packet of materials and people to talk to
which would give a journalists quotes on both sides, and leave them thinking
that it was true.) That theme of "this is insanely fast" is repeated
throughout the piece in various ways with no challenges. The journalist did
not do their homework.

That right there is the evidence upon which I base my assertion that this is a
puff piece. This looks and feels in every way like what a journalist might
write based on the information given by a PR firm.

Full stop.

As for the rest, you're unfairly misrepresenting what Scott Aaronson has been
saying. His statement all along is that D-Wave's marketing exceeds their
delivery, and he's afraid that a legitimate field of study - which he's
involved with - could suffer backlash as a result. He has repeatedly said, and
I believe him on this, that if they can actually deliver then he'll be a huge
fan. But as long as they say they have delivered when they haven't, he's going
to be a critic.

This seems to me to be a reasonable response to an overhyped implementation of
cool technology. There always will be salesmen overselling their products. But
for building long-term trust, remember the mantra "under promise and over
deliver". D-Wave is doing the opposite.

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elorant
To be honest I never expected that we’d live to see a quantum computer in this
decade. Despite of what D-Wave’s machine actually is the fact remains that
we’re pretty close to achieving this milestone. How would this change the
computer industry though is something I can’t even start to fathom.

What really interests me though as a programmer is whether we’d have to change
our tools too when quantum computers become the norm. Would we have to adopt
new programming techniques or we’d make it by refining the ones we already
use? How would techniques like multithread programming evolve in a machine
like this?

~~~
smithzvk
I don't actually think this will change things as much as you might think. New
problems would be efficiently computable, sure, new programming paradigms will
be needed, yes, but people have been producing abstractions for a very long
time. If you want to know what it will be like to program a QC, look at what
it is like to program in CUDA, OpenCL, Prolog, SQL, or any high level language
with a compiler. All of these things do substantial work that the vast
majority of users are not aware of. 99.9% of programmers will go out and buy a
book called "OpenQC for Dummies" and they will build up a set of heuristics
for proper programming techniques. Meanwhile, 0.01% of programmers will
actually understand QC, and make this abstractions simpler for the rest of the
world.

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derekp7
Any pointers to a technical presentation on how D-Wave's (or any other)
quantum computing is physically implemented? For example, classical computers
use silicon doped with impurities to form gates, and connected with metal
traces. Are quantum chips created in a similar manner (using different
materials), but operate at extreme cold temperatures, for example? Or is it
done using a liquid or gas structure with lasers? So far I've only seen the
high-level logical descriptions, but nothing about the physical side.

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ekm2
Forgive me for butting into stuff i do not understand,but you guys are quoting
Scott Aaranson the same way most people quote holy books.He could be wrong,you
know.

~~~
jerf
I give him that much credit because if he was wrong, it would be easy to
demonstrate. Give this computer an instance of a problem, show it performs
much better than the best conventional computer. If this bar is met, there's
only so much obfuscation that can be thrown up, if this bar is not met,
there's only so much obfuscation that can be thrown up. So far it seems the
bar has not been met.

Scott Aaronson has agreed that they've reached a new high, which also helps
his credibility in my mind. But they have not reached what they claim they've
reached. And being able to solve only one highly restricted problem is a long
way away from having a quantum computer. Basically, if you look at what D-Wave
actually has, it's a great deal less impressive than their marketing would
like you to believe.

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Florin_Andrei
So, the article suggests it might be instead some kind of _analog_ computer,
right?

------
maeon3
Are there any schematics anywhere for how quantum forces could be used to add
together two integers represented in binary?

Does D-Wave have any top secret schematics or diagrams we could look over?

~~~
gizmo686
I used to have links to lectures explaining this, but they seem to have
404`ed.

The general approach is to view quantum computers as a series of quantum
gates. Specifically, the CC-Not gate takes 3 inputs and, if the first 2 are
true, it toggles the third. This is sufficient to build an arbitrary gate,
including a binary adder.

I would try explaining how these gates might be constructed, but its been so
long since I've studied it that I would probably butcher the explanation.

