[itchyjunk]

I felt like my understanding about what has happened didn't change before and after this article. I admit I skimmed through it and I didn't follow all the links but what I got out of this is that we were excited about this for a long time and wasn't sure if it was possible but now knows its possible. Something about topological qbits (which I don't think the article cares to directly define and yes i am to blame for not following the links). I just think a shorter article that gave a few definition and compared and contrasted the pros and cons would have helped me more as a layman. But maybe this is aimed at potential customers who get more out of the article than I do.

[wrycoder]

Yes, that was a whole pile of marketing-engineering fluff that never made an attempt to explain what they had accomplished. The links in the article don't help either. They did hit climate change, though.

They stated that the qubits they are working with are topological defects similar to knots. OK, but defects in the topology of what? Spacetime? The Maxwell potential? Hilbert phase space?

How many topological qubits are needed to produce a logical qubit?

Then they mentioned nanowires connecting the topological qubits. Are those just tiny wires, or is there a quantum phenomenon associated with them? How is the readout done? I assume it's destructive?

As an aside, with all the subtle research being done on qubits and entanglement, I would have expected some clarity in the fundamental interpretation of QM by now (Copenhagen, Manyworlds, Bohmian), but I haven't heard of anything new for awhile.

[sp332]

This article from Ars Technica describes the topology and the quantum effect they're going for. https://arstechnica.com/science/2022/03/microsoft-announces-...

[thesz]

Here's explanation: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Topological_quantum_computer#E...

It looks like "topological qubits" that are used in MSFT breakthrough is a sort of "surface-spread" qubits, because they are two dimensional structures. They are then "braided" instead of "entangled" to specify a problem to solve.

What is interesting here is that error correction for temperature fluctuations amounts to give these braids wider separation (in actual space). Which, on one hand, looks like simplification of the solution, but, on the other hand, still requires more space just like additional qubits in regular quantum computer.