[fwip]

To me, it matters because it's a sign that it might not be particularly transferable as a method of computation.

A wind tunnel is a great tool for solving aerodynamics and fluid flow problems, more efficiently than a typical computer. But we don't call it a wind-computer, because it's not a useful tool outside of that narrow domain.

The promise of quantum computing is that it can solve useful problems outside the quantum realm - like breaking traditional encryption.

[AlanYx]

I really like the wind tunnel example. That's a good way of explaining this to people.

I wonder whether discussions over quantum advantage would be clearer if we split it into two concepts: (i) algorithmic quantum advantage and (ii) physical quantum advantage? The former would be for quantum computers that are reconfigurable in some sense to implement algorithms.

[fwip]

Thanks. My first analogy was "a giant configurable pachinko machine you could use to simulate other pachinko machines," but thankfully the wind tunnel occurred to me halfway through writing the post.

[refulgentis]

Good point, I guess that's why I find this comments section boring and not representative of the HN I've known for 16 years: there's a sort of half-remembering it wasn't powerful enough to do something plainly and obviously useful yesterday.

Then, we ignore today, and launder that into a gish-gallop of free-association, torturing the meaning of words to shoehorn in the idea that all the science has it wrong and inter alia, the quantum computer uses quantum phenomena to computer so it might be a fake useless computer, like a wind tunnel. shrugs

It's a really unpleasant thing to read, reminds me of the local art school dropout hanging on my ear about crypto at the bar at 3 am in 2013.

I get that's all people have to reach for, but personally, I'd rather not inflict my free-association on the world when I'm aware I'm half-understanding, fixated on the past when discussing something current, and I can't explain the idea I have as something concrete and understandable even when I'm using technical terms.

[qnleigh]

I know what you're talking about, but I think you happened to pick a bad example to pick on here. This wind tunnel analogy resembles a common criticism of the prior experiments that were done by Google and others over the last few years. Those experiments ran highly unstructured, arbitrary circuits that don't compute anything useful. They hardly resembled the kind of results that you would expect from a general purpose, programmable computer. It's a valid criticism, and it seems like the above commenter came to this conclusion on their own.

To that comment, the present result is a step up from these older experiments in that they a) Run a more structured circuit b) Use the device to compute something reproducible (as opposed to sampling randomly from a certain probability distribution) c) The circuits go toward simulating a physical system of real-world relevance to chemistry.

Now you might say that even c) is just a quantum computer simulating another quantum thing. All I'll say is that if you would only be convinced by a quantum computer factoring a large number, don't hold your breath: https://algassert.com/post/2500

[fwip]

Thanks for the reply and explanation. I admit that I'm not well-versed in quantum computers (trying to understand even basic quantum mechanics seems to elude me), and I deeply appreciate the link for further reading.

[Dylan16807]

If you assume everyone else is wrong from the start, then you won't like the comments, sure.

And what the hell are you calling a gish gallop? They wrote four sentences explaining a single simple argument. If you design a way to make qubits emulate particle interactions, that's a useful tool, but it's not what people normally think of as a "computer".

And whatever you're saying about anyone claiming "all the science has it wrong" is an argument that only exists inside your own head.

[refulgentis]

The fact an earlier demo was an RNG also, and this demo uses quantum phenomena (qubits) to look at quantum phenomena (molecules) does not mean quantum computing can't be a useful computer, a la a wind tunnel.

It's not that I don't "agree with it", there's nothing to agree with. "Not even wrong", in the Pauli sense.

I'd advise that when you're conjuring thoughts in other people's heads to make them mean, so you can go full gloves off and tell them off for what thoughts were in their head, and motivated their contributions to this forum, you pause, and consider a bit more. Especially in context of where you're encountering the behavior, say, a online discussion forum vs. a dinner party where you're observing a heated discussion among your children.

[Dylan16807]

Of course it doesn't mean a quantum computer is restricted to that.

But if that's the only realm where anything close to supremacy has been demonstrated, being skeptical and setting your standards higher is reasonable. Not at all "not even wrong".

> I'd advise that when you're conjuring thoughts in other people's heads

Are you accusing me of strawmanning? If you think people are being "not even wrong" then I didn't strawman you at all, I accurately described your position. Your strawman about science was the only one in this comment thread. And again there was no gish gallop, and I hope if nothing else you double check the definition of that term or something.