Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by scottlocklin 2470 days ago
>you said the number 15 was never factored on a quantum computer - this is false.

I guess it depends what you mean by "factored" and "quantum computer" -using the generally accepted definitions, the number 15 has never been factored on a quantum computer using the Shor algorithm.

Yes, I am talking about the general case where you don't leave out the gates for 2 and 7 being factors of 15. That's what most people mean by factoring. Stating the answer because you know it already isn't useful. LARPing by running the algo through the "right" gates also isn't useful.
1 comments
codesushi42 2470 days ago
You are just plain wrong.

And you failed to consider quantum annealing as an alternative to Shor.

link
scottlocklin 2470 days ago
You're right I do fail to consider this, as it's not really an alternative to Shor, because annealing is horse shit that nobody can decide the computational complexity of. Not even D-wave thinks it might be. [1]

[1] https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-018-36058-z

link
codesushi42 2470 days ago
Complexity in what terms? For a classical computer?

Besides, the empirical data shows otherwise. It takes 12 qubits to factor 15. We're up to 53 now.

With quantum annealing, a 20 bit number has been factored with 97 qubits. Not on a real quantum computer yet, of course.

So I have no idea what you are talking about.

link
scottlocklin 2469 days ago
> Not on a real quantum computer yet, of course...

Erm, OK. I guess we agree that nobody has factored the number 15 on a quantum computer yet.

Maybe you should read the paper I helpfully linked you above.

link
codesushi42 2469 days ago
Yes they have. You are spreading lies and FUD: https://www.google.com/amp/s/phys.org/news/2016-03-quantum-f...

I was referring to the quantum annealing example, because no 97 qubit quantum computer exists yet.

link
scottlocklin 2469 days ago
I'm not spreading FUD; I am correcting misinformation from muppets whose understanding doesn't go beyond press releases. Nobody has yet done a Shor factorization of the number 15; the end, and even if someone's press release says so there is no scalable way of factoring large integers.
link