The Quest For A Quantum Future | Hacker News Reader

The Quest For A Quantum Future

microsoft.com

90 pointsdaigoba6621 comments

I think graphical story telling format that is so popular now would be a smash with web comics, but for me it really interferes with reading the story. Abrupt background changes leave me confused, definitely not the best state to be reading about quantum physics.

>Most kids want the thousand bucks, Lee said, but the pennies doubled daily over 30 days eventually adds up to more than $10.7 million.

30 years perhaps?

Anyway, it's cool to hear about Microsoft Research. This quote is especially exciting, since scalability is the main question I've had about quantum computing (and really quantum mechanics as a whole) being viable outside of a lab.

>“The problem of coherence is a major focus of our research here,” Lee said. “Every researcher connected to this field dreams of building a quantum computer. We are not trying to build a quantum computer. Our belief is that trying to build a quantum machine by controlling electron spin and using surface codes is like trying to build a computer using vacuum tubes. Labs all over the world can do that, but you’ll never be able to scale up. We’re taking an outrageously hard, unreasonably difficult approach, and if we succeed – and it’s a big if – then we will have a building block for a scalable quantum machine. We have a chance, a tiny chance but a real chance, to completely upend technology and society in a fundamental way just like the transistor did.”

Edit: oh, wow, I was thinking about the 30 day thing really wrong. Thanks!

> 30 years perhaps? No, 2^30 is 1,073,741,824

You get all the pennies from previous days too, so it's actually 2^31 - 1.

That said, the children may be correct to prefer $1000 over the pennies. Two billion pennies is not exactly practical.

(2^30) / 100 = 10737418.24

Unrelated to the post, but I hate static fixed headers so much. I think I hate any kind of fixed element that covers content.

Agreed, there's something constricting about it. Claustrophobic.

It breaks paging.

Any idiot with a two state system thinks they have a Quantum Computer, but this is different. Non-Abelian braiding statistics are so far the only known robust architecture for QC, so this will be interesting to watch. Its worth mentioning that the cocktail they discuss relies on something that has yet to be observed in nature; calling it science fiction would be an insult to time travel.

I'm not sure "non-Abelian braiding statistics" is the only known robust architecture for QC. Topological qubits are, after all, just systems whose natural states are quantum error correcting codes. Those who chose to pursue quantum error correction directly likely also deserve the moniker of "robust architecture".

Nice to see some PR about quantum computing that's not related to D-Wave.

I don't know why, and it's really not relevant, but the thing that struck me the most was that they used actual chalk on the chalkboards. Everything I've seen has been whiteboard and markers for quite a while now...

You've discovered how to tell if you are in a physics department or a computer science department :)

So, looks like this topological approach is to Quantum Computing what the Space-State is for radio transmission and Phasors are to electrical engineering...

Crashed firefox mobile

Crashes of browsers are never the problem of the website, but always of the browser vendor.

The Quest For Researching Stuff That Will Never Come Out of Our Lab - is probably a more accurate headline coming from Microsoft.

Google gets tons of PR from Google X, why shouldn't Microsoft as well?

and it gets a fair amount of press over the NASA-hosted D-Wave they partially funded.

You can't know.

No, the way this uncertainty thing goes is that you can know, but then you do not talk.

(Maybe.)

Reply on news.ycombinator.com