[Tutor] Quantum computing

[Steven D'Aprano]

On Sun, Dec 15, 2013 at 03:40:38PM +0000, Mark Lawrence wrote:
> On 15/12/2013 04:55, William Ray Wing wrote:

> >Well, as it turns out, there actually *IS* a commercially available 
> >quantum computer on the market today.  It is built by a Canadian company 
> >"D-Wave Systems" and early prototypes have been bought by companies like 
> >Google and Lockeed Martin and some Government labs.  Unfortunately, it 
> >isn't clear whether or not it is living up to expectations…
> >
> >You can read a summary and sort of intro here: 
> >http://spectrum.ieee.org/computing/hardware/dwaves-year-of-computing-dangerously
> >
> >-Bill
> >
> 
> Are you saying that it can't do list comprehensions, recursive functions 
> and floating point arithmetic correctly?

Neither William nor the article say anything about D-Wave's quantum 
computer being unable to do list comprehensions, recursive functions or 
floating point arithmentic correctly.

I'm not an expert on quantum computing, but the impression that I get is 
that trying to use a quantum computer for calculating fundamentally 
classical operations like floating point, or serial calculations like 
list comprehensions, would be rather like somebody being shown a 
"horseless carriage" early in the 20th century and asking "So, how do I 
get it to trot?" The point of an automobile is to get from A to B, not 
to duplicate the motion of a horse, and likewise the point of a quantum 
computer is to solve problems, not to duplicate the exact same 
algorithms that you would use on classical computers.

But I could be wrong.


-- 
Steven