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<p>[QUOTE="-jeffB, post: 2662845, member: 27832"]Thanks; this does clear things up a bit, for me at least. Reading through the transcript, I can see how it says very different things to someone to people who do follow the field and people who don't.</p><p><br /></p><p>It boils down to Lloyd (the engineer, not the <i>Back To The Future</i> actor) using the wrong tense -- using "can" instead of "could". A certain type of quantum computer <i>could</i>, we're pretty sure, make short work of public-key encryption -- <b>if we could build one</b>, which so far we <i>can't</i>.</p><p><br /></p><p>The "small general-purpose" quantum computers he's talking about are the equivalent of building a "general-purpose" computer out of a small set of light bulbs and mechanical switches (something that students still do occasionally). They use the same <i>principles</i> as a full-scale general-purpose computer, but <i>they aren't</i> full-scale general-purpose computers, at least not yet. We're still trying to figure out how to scale them up to a useful size.</p><p><br /></p><p>There's one company that's been building machines for <b>ten years</b> now with the <i>claim</i> that they're quantum computers, but there's still broad disagreement over whether they are actually doing "quantum computation" at all, and if they are, whether it offers any actual advantages over classical computation. For now, it's slower than a desktop computer; the best it can offer is that <i>when</i> (someday) we can make much bigger quantum computers, they <i>should</i> solve some problems better than classical machines.</p><p><br /></p><p><a href="http://www.theverge.com/2016/9/28/13057414/quantum-computer-d-wave-2000-qubit-chip" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="http://www.theverge.com/2016/9/28/13057414/quantum-computer-d-wave-2000-qubit-chip" rel="nofollow">Biggest ever quantum chip announced, but scientists aren't buying it</a></p><p><br /></p><p><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D-Wave_Systems#Reception" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D-Wave_Systems#Reception" rel="nofollow">D-Wave Systems -- Reception</a></p><p><br /></p><p>A key passage from the <i>Nature</i> paper quoted in Wikipedia:</p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p>D-Wave's "general purpose quantum computer" is still a solution in search of a problem. Researchers (and marketers) are still hard at work on that search.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>
[QUOTE="-jeffB, post: 2662845, member: 27832"]Thanks; this does clear things up a bit, for me at least. Reading through the transcript, I can see how it says very different things to someone to people who do follow the field and people who don't. It boils down to Lloyd (the engineer, not the [I]Back To The Future[/I] actor) using the wrong tense -- using "can" instead of "could". A certain type of quantum computer [I]could[/I], we're pretty sure, make short work of public-key encryption -- [B]if we could build one[/B], which so far we [I]can't[/I]. The "small general-purpose" quantum computers he's talking about are the equivalent of building a "general-purpose" computer out of a small set of light bulbs and mechanical switches (something that students still do occasionally). They use the same [I]principles[/I] as a full-scale general-purpose computer, but [I]they aren't[/I] full-scale general-purpose computers, at least not yet. We're still trying to figure out how to scale them up to a useful size. There's one company that's been building machines for [B]ten years[/B] now with the [I]claim[/I] that they're quantum computers, but there's still broad disagreement over whether they are actually doing "quantum computation" at all, and if they are, whether it offers any actual advantages over classical computation. For now, it's slower than a desktop computer; the best it can offer is that [I]when[/I] (someday) we can make much bigger quantum computers, they [I]should[/I] solve some problems better than classical machines. [URL='http://www.theverge.com/2016/9/28/13057414/quantum-computer-d-wave-2000-qubit-chip']Biggest ever quantum chip announced, but scientists aren't buying it[/URL] [URL='https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D-Wave_Systems#Reception']D-Wave Systems -- Reception[/URL] A key passage from the [I]Nature[/I] paper quoted in Wikipedia: D-Wave's "general purpose quantum computer" is still a solution in search of a problem. Researchers (and marketers) are still hard at work on that search.[/QUOTE]
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