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Is Google's Quantum Computer a Hoax?

zdnetasia.com — A Google scientist will join a controversial demonstration of a claimed quantum computer on Monday--but scientists have their doubts.

Who dugg this? Made popular Nov 12, 2007

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  • inactive, on 11/13/2007, -2/+74How many FPS does it get in Crysis?
  • ozzilee, on 11/13/2007, -1/+63All of them.
  • latrosicarius, on 11/13/2007, -4/+52Oh god, my encryption will be useless!!!!!!!!!!!!!
  • WaterDragon, on 11/13/2007, -11/+59All they will discover is the number 42!
  • du4l1ty, on 11/13/2007, -3/+38So...is the cat alive?
  • qubitz, on 11/13/2007, -4/+36dugg for qubits :)
  • OwdenBowden, on 11/13/2007, -1/+31The next thing your going to tell me is that there is this little device that will allow you to change the television stations without getting out of your chair....
  • ohanon, on 11/13/2007, -8/+37can it run vista at a decent speed?
  • RonBurgundy76, on 11/13/2007, -3/+31No. Nothing can.
  • friedcalamari, on 11/13/2007, -1/+27"Speedy thing goes in, speedy thing comes out"
  • NeoSporin, on 11/14/2007, -1/+25Same, Nvidias drivers suck on even the best computers!
  • 1AliciaMc, on 11/13/2007, -2/+25This is the stuff that sci-fi parallel universes are made of! There's some smart and big money in this, so I for one am not prepared to write off Google's claims just yet.
  • snypylo, on 11/13/2007, -1/+24If you measure the FPS the computer crashes.
  • slashbot, on 11/13/2007, -2/+234chan is that way --------->
  • pagit, on 11/13/2007, -3/+23I runs windows where the blue screen of death is now the black hole of singularity and information can not escape it's clutches.
  • latrosicarius, on 11/13/2007, -1/+20Oh really? This sounds interesting... How about i send you a small TrueCrypt volume and you can provide me a demonstration?
  • vertinox, on 11/14/2007, -3/+2110,000 in WinXP
    5 in Vista
  • DarkDx, on 11/13/2007, -11/+29. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . _________
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  • subgenius, on 11/13/2007, -3/+20What is the exchange rate for qbits and quatloos?
  • ruley, on 11/13/2007, -1/+17about the same as unicorns to leprechauns
  • john2kx, on 11/13/2007, -3/+1855
  • Alex2, on 11/13/2007, -1/+16It's not a hoax. DWave has been around for years.
  • DiscoLando, on 11/13/2007, -3/+17Yes. No.
  • nkm82, on 11/13/2007, -1/+15Just stop touching yourself while reading Digg, it's disgusting.

    - Google.
  • snypylo, on 11/13/2007, -1/+15The holy grail is a computer that builds computers. Once we get that, the fun starts.
  • Homunculiheaded, on 11/13/2007, -1/+14I find that a lot of people really don't understand quantum computers. They are impressive, but only at a very specific set of problems. People working in cryptography have a lot to be excited about, everybody else.. not so much. A reasonable, quick over view can be found in the wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_computing#The ... For a large number of tasks quantum computers are not better than classical computers. And they can't do many of the things people often think that they can (like solve NP problems in polynomial time (well unless P=NP in which case they can, but so can classical computers in that case)). There are also huge challenges to overcome in the field, progress is going quickly but getting good logic gates designed is still somewhat of challenge, and scaling things is very difficult. Quantum computers are exciting, but they aren't going to be the sci-fi exciting that most people think they are.
  • tnoy, on 11/13/2007, -2/+15The SDK *IS* the gPhone. There is no actual phone.
  • CraigJ, on 11/13/2007, -2/+14But they'll have to build another one to figure out what the question is.
  • kufu91, on 11/13/2007, -1/+12basically if it works, it kicks ass
  • cyrillsneer, on 11/14/2007, -1/+12Any computer scientists want to spell out the implications of this in layman's terms?
  • Hermitwise, on 11/13/2007, -1/+12No we already have those, they're called assembly lines. I think what you're referring to is a computer that can imagine like a human and create a better version of itself and creatively problem solve. So once it's running you can tell it to improve upon it's design, which it will start doing at a rapid rate until it dwarfs our own intelligence.
  • Kishoba, on 11/13/2007, -1/+11As much as I like qubits, who here remembers Q-bert?
  • marktastic, on 11/13/2007, -0/+10With a chief technology officer named Geordie, they can't fail
  • a22e, on 11/13/2007, -2/+11And won't we be getting little "googleboxes" blinking into our universe from alternate universes? Or perhaps 'Lyocs boxes' or 'excite boxes'?
  • inactive, on 11/13/2007, -6/+15So, if this thing works, does that mean that in a zillion different universes, people will see some little "Googlebox" blinking in and out of existence? Don't we risk violating the prime directive by sending countless cultures into some sort of religious crisis?
  • ravedave, on 11/13/2007, -0/+8Upvoted for being completely retarded.
  • awakenDeepBlue, on 11/14/2007, -0/+8Oh noes! You collapse my wave form!
  • refreshers, on 11/13/2007, -4/+1217 on maxsettings
  • jdepp, on 11/13/2007, -0/+7It's not strictly a hoax but it is not remotely scalable - the temperature you need to run that system at scales inversely as the number of `qubits' - so you might get 16 qubits but not 16,000 or 16,000,000 which you would need to implement robust error correction on a non-trivial problem...I can't see Moore's law applying to the adiabatic quantum computing route.

    interesting work but I think their investors are getting burned bigtime if they think it'll pay off. but then perhaps it's being funded by people who realise that and want no return other than interesting science? who knows.
  • robsonde, on 11/13/2007, -0/+7misleading title, this is NOT a google project, its from Dwave.
    this has a tiny bit of input from one guy who has worked at google.

    DWAVE did this with out google.


  • freezerburn819, on 11/13/2007, -0/+7so then why do you hope it's a hoax??
  • delmar14, on 11/13/2007, -1/+8isn't that like trying to break the speed of light?
  • CraigJ, on 11/13/2007, -0/+7Deep Thought was #1, the Earth was #2...
  • zeejay, on 11/13/2007, -0/+7Why don't you open the box and check?
  • delmar14, on 11/13/2007, -1/+7Their reluctance to publish their data probably comes from the fact that they don't want to release what, if true, would be a great trade secret. After all, why bother being fist at something if the guy checking your work can release the same product with none of the start-up costs?
  • DarkDx, on 11/13/2007, -1/+7I actually found this thing here on Digg.
  • azprofessional, on 11/14/2007, -2/+8Will it do the Kessel run in less than 12 parsecs?
  • CrazyDave303, on 11/13/2007, -2/+7Running Vista faster only means it crashes faster.
  • DivisibleByZero, on 11/13/2007, -0/+4Been playing it on my PS3. Oh so classic and fun. Best $500 I ever spent.
  • airstrike, on 11/13/2007, -1/+5like most users, you think all 4chan jokes were originated in digg, not the other way around. well, here's a chance for you to learn the truth.
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