News Quantum Computing May be Bolstered by Liquid-Like Electrons

[Admin]

Parafermions could lead to quantum computers with fewer errors and improved coherence.

Quantum Computing May be Bolstered by Liquid-Like Electrons : Read more

 

[George³]

I see more increase of costs. This is not way to make quantum computers popular.

 

[bit_user]

I see more increase of costs. This is not way to make quantum computers popular.

They have to work at a useful scale, before you can worry too much about cost reductions. And we're still wrestling with that scaling problem.

Do you complain that supercomputers are too expensive? QC holds the potential to be vastly more powerful, at certain kinds of problems. So, even if it remains as expensive and impractical as supercomputers, that wouldn't actually be a deal-breaker. Especially in the era of cloud computing, where it matters less than ever where the computers are physically located, and you can rent time on one instead of having to buy it outright.

 

[George³]

So far I have not learned of any fundamental benefit since supercomputers have existed. All important things were discovered or invented before supercomputers existed, or before they had meaningfully high parameters. Using the good old human brain as creator and as tool. Of course, besides the supercomputers themselves, there is money and jobs. I really wish they had paid off, though, not in bloody cash, but in a way that was actually beneficial to our species as a whole. So far I don't think there is a payout. Please don't show me figures, invoices and budget tables. I can't be convinced like that.

 

[bit_user]

So far I have not learned of any fundamental benefit since supercomputers have existed. All important things were discovered or invented before supercomputers existed, or before they had meaningfully high parameters.

So, you're essentially claiming that the advancement human scientific knowledge ended in the 1960's? That's absurdly and demonstrably wrong.

I don't have a detailed list, but I know that supercomputers are used to process the vast quantities of data collected by particle accelerators, telescope arrays, weather data, not to mention solving problems related to materials science, genomics research, and drug development. I'm sure there's not an area of scientific knowledge that hasn't been touched by them. I once worked for a pioneer in the field of plate tectonics who stumbled into the field of supercomputing, in order to prove this theory of our planet that we now take for granted.

I hate to sling this term around, but you know there's a name for when someone with little knowledge of a field of expertise underestimates the size and depth of that field: Dunning–Kruger effect. Prescription: a dose of humility and try to be inquisitive whenever you're inclined to be dismissive.

Using the good old human brain as creator and as tool.

The human brain has well-known cognitive biases and limitations. Data science and computational simulations are essential tools for surpassing these.

 

[George³]

All of the above is true. And what? I still can't buy a ticket to Mars. Actually I can, but then I'm not sure if I'll live to use it. People still die of cancer, cars still roll on wheels invented millennia ago. There are still no reliable predictions of earthquakes. In fact, there are no exact predictions for anything slightly more complicated than the algebraic addition of two numbers.
Where's my antigravity? So many petaflops and now exaflops and nothing!

 

[bit_user]

All of the above is true. And what? I still can't buy a ticket to Mars. Actually I can, but then I'm not sure if I'll live to use it. People still die of cancer, cars still roll on wheels invented millennia ago.

You're saying that, because we haven't arrived at certain arbitrary milestones, we have made no progress at all? That's a flawed argument, and the computer you're typing it on proves it.

There are still no reliable predictions of earthquakes.

We can go through these milestones, one by one, look at what progress has been achieved and why they're hard problems. However, I think it would be a pointless exercise, as you don't seem to be making a sincere attempt to understand the contributions and role of supercomputing in these & other fields.

I can't make you change your mind. My role is only to challenge your assumptions. The information is out there, if you seek it.

Meanwhile, the miracle of modern civilization is that people will continue to toil away in research institutions, furthering our understanding of particle physics and material science that enables ever faster CPUs and GPUs to be fabricated, which you can buy and use while remaining oblivious to this fact. Even car and airplane engines owe their past several decades of efficiency improvements largely to sophisticated simulations. The oil & gas sector is another example of one that has made extensive use of HPC.

BTW, we're off track from QC. If you want to understand the value proposition of QC, much has been written about the classes of problems where it excels.

 

[George³]

I would appreciate it if you would never use medical terms in the role of arguments again. Yes, I expect much more from these items, in which there are extremely large public investments from the state budgets of various countries.

 

[bit_user]

Yes, I expect much more from these items, in which there are extremely large public investments from the state budgets of various countries.

You haven't demonstrated any knowledge or even curiosity about what has been achieved, using them. So, I think the bar you've set is basically impossible ever to be cleared.

I'm not about to spoon-feed you what you don't seem to want to know. The information is out there, but nobody is going to cram it down your throat (which, ironically, is what I think you're somehow waiting for).

 

[Systemsincode]

Good article can you cover the ms approach and some of the other quantum computing subjects, perhaps some first principals for us newbies?

 

[bit_user]

Good article can you cover the ms approach and some of the other quantum computing subjects, perhaps some first principals for us newbies?

Here's a good intro article:

https://www.tomshardware.com/features/what-is-quantum-computing

You can find more, here:

https://www.tomshardware.com/search?searchTerm=quantum

 

[husker]

So far I have not learned of any fundamental benefit since supercomputers have existed.

Let me fix that for you then. Here are six things for you to learn about:

1) Weather: Every waking moment, 2x1044 molecules (that's a 2 followed by 44 zeroes) bump into each other in the earth's atmosphere, creating what we call weather. Predicting the interactions of even a fraction of these particles requires billions of calculations. Today's five-day forecast is typically on target 90 percent of the time, thanks to supercomputers

2) Automobiles: For more than 30 years, supercomputers have been helping cars become faster, safer, and more energy efficient. Japanese carmakers began using supercomputers in the late 1980s. Mazda employed an $8 million Cray supercomputer to design the sleek "Aero-Wave" roofline of its 1993 RX-7 sports car. And in 2004, General Motors purchased a supercomputer to simulate the results from vehicle crash tests.
Three-dimensional seismic models are helping petrochemical companies predict the locations of oil reserves. Not a fan of fossile fuels? Supercomputers also help design longer lasting electric vehicle batteries.

3) Medicine: Supercomputers played a key role in the development of vaccines for avian and swine flu and are now hard at work seeking treatments and cures for COVID-19.

4) Financial services: Have you ever used your credit card in a foreign country and gotten a phone call from your bank minutes later asking you to verify the purchase? That's because a machine learning algorithm running on an supercomputer has identified potential fraud as it happens. MasterCard processes 165 million transactions per hour, applying nearly 2 million rules to each transaction—and does it in a matter of seconds.
Supercomputers also detect and repel cyberattacks, assess credit risk, evaluate investments, verify regulatory compliance, predict pricing, and manage high-speed trades.

5) Entertainment:
Films constructed entirely around CGI brought in nearly $6 billion at the box office in 2018. And the more sophisticated the animation, the more computing power required. Baymax, the doughy white protagonist of Disney's "Big Hero 6" (2014), was rendered using a 55,000-core supercomputer that simulated 10 billion rays of light bouncing off each object.

6) Astronomy:
When astrophysicists do it, they're looking back 13 billion years, using supercomputers to simulate what the cosmos looked like shortly after the Big Bang. Supercomputers have been used to model how galaxies are born, plumb the depths of black holes, and shed light on the mysteries of dark matter.

 

[Systemsincode]

Let me fix that for you then. Here are six things for you to learn about:

1) Weather: Every waking moment, 2x1044 molecules (that's a 2 followed by 44 zeroes) bump into each other in the earth's atmosphere, creating what we call weather. Predicting the interactions of even a fraction of these particles requires billions of calculations. Today's five-day forecast is typically on target 90 percent of the time, thanks to supercomputers

2) Automobiles: For more than 30 years, supercomputers have been helping cars become faster, safer, and more energy efficient. Japanese carmakers began using supercomputers in the late 1980s. Mazda employed an $8 million Cray supercomputer to design the sleek "Aero-Wave" roofline of its 1993 RX-7 sports car. And in 2004, General Motors purchased a supercomputer to simulate the results from vehicle crash tests.
Three-dimensional seismic models are helping petrochemical companies predict the locations of oil reserves. Not a fan of fossile fuels? Supercomputers also help design longer lasting electric vehicle batteries.

3) Medicine: Supercomputers played a key role in the development of vaccines for avian and swine flu and are now hard at work seeking treatments and cures for COVID-19.

4) Financial services: Have you ever used your credit card in a foreign country and gotten a phone call from your bank minutes later asking you to verify the purchase? That's because a machine learning algorithm running on an supercomputer has identified potential fraud as it happens. MasterCard processes 165 million transactions per hour, applying nearly 2 million rules to each transaction—and does it in a matter of seconds.
Supercomputers also detect and repel cyberattacks, assess credit risk, evaluate investments, verify regulatory compliance, predict pricing, and manage high-speed trades.

5) Entertainment:
Films constructed entirely around CGI brought in nearly $6 billion at the box office in 2018. And the more sophisticated the animation, the more computing power required. Baymax, the doughy white protagonist of Disney's "Big Hero 6" (2014), was rendered using a 55,000-core supercomputer that simulated 10 billion rays of light bouncing off each object.

6) Astronomy:
When astrophysicists do it, they're looking back 13 billion years, using supercomputers to simulate what the cosmos looked like shortly after the Big Bang. Supercomputers have been used to model how galaxies are born, plumb the depths of black holes, and shed light on the mysteries of dark matter.

Yes.. but apart from weather and climate prediction, vehicles and transport improvements, public health gains, economic systems, entertainments and deep looks into the impossibly fascinating astronomical questions that have puzzled mankind since he first looked up.....what have supercomputers ever done for us?!

 

[George³]

Let me fix that for you then. Here are six things for you to learn about:

1) Weather: Every waking moment, 2x1044 molecules (that's a 2 followed by 44 zeroes) bump into each other in the earth's atmosphere, creating what we call weather. Predicting the interactions of even a fraction of these particles requires billions of calculations. Today's five-day forecast is typically on target 90 percent of the time, thanks to supercomputers

2) Automobiles: For more than 30 years, supercomputers have been helping cars become faster, safer, and more energy efficient. Japanese carmakers began using supercomputers in the late 1980s. Mazda employed an $8 million Cray supercomputer to design the sleek "Aero-Wave" roofline of its 1993 RX-7 sports car. And in 2004, General Motors purchased a supercomputer to simulate the results from vehicle crash tests.
Three-dimensional seismic models are helping petrochemical companies predict the locations of oil reserves. Not a fan of fossile fuels? Supercomputers also help design longer lasting electric vehicle batteries.

3) Medicine: Supercomputers played a key role in the development of vaccines for avian and swine flu and are now hard at work seeking treatments and cures for COVID-19.

4) Financial services: Have you ever used your credit card in a foreign country and gotten a phone call from your bank minutes later asking you to verify the purchase? That's because a machine learning algorithm running on an supercomputer has identified potential fraud as it happens. MasterCard processes 165 million transactions per hour, applying nearly 2 million rules to each transaction—and does it in a matter of seconds.
Supercomputers also detect and repel cyberattacks, assess credit risk, evaluate investments, verify regulatory compliance, predict pricing, and manage high-speed trades.

5) Entertainment:
Films constructed entirely around CGI brought in nearly $6 billion at the box office in 2018. And the more sophisticated the animation, the more computing power required. Baymax, the doughy white protagonist of Disney's "Big Hero 6" (2014), was rendered using a 55,000-core supercomputer that simulated 10 billion rays of light bouncing off each object.

6) Astronomy:
When astrophysicists do it, they're looking back 13 billion years, using supercomputers to simulate what the cosmos looked like shortly after the Big Bang. Supercomputers have been used to model how galaxies are born, plumb the depths of black holes, and shed light on the mysteries of dark matter.

None of the above apply to me. Except for periods when the climate is stable and it is impossible to be wrong, I have never read or heard an accurate forecast. Often, in such unstable climatic periods, even the short-term forecast for the day is not correct. Yes, yes, I know, I should, another 5000 times more powerful supercomputer and everything will be ok. Meanwhile, the songbirds in my garden are clearly better at forecasting and not costing hundreds of millions of dollars apiece.

 

[bit_user]

None of the above apply to me.

Sure it does. As long as you don't live completely off the grid, in the wilderness, but instead exist through the support of modern society, you're indirectly deriving benefits from these things even without knowing it.

Except for periods when the climate is stable and it is impossible to be wrong, I have never read or heard an accurate forecast. Often, in such unstable climatic periods, even the short-term forecast for the day is not correct. Yes, yes, I know, I should, another 5000 times more powerful supercomputer and everything will be ok. Meanwhile, the songbirds in my garden are clearly better at forecasting and not costing hundreds of millions of dollars apiece.

Even if you live somewhere with very erratic weather that's hard to predict, that doesn't mean forecast accuracy hasn't improved elsewhere. If you buy any food that's grown or raised elsewhere, then you're indirectly benefiting from more accurate weather forecasting. Not only that, but forecasting affects transportation & shipping efficiency, as well as helping to lower insurance rates.

 

[George³]

Sure it does. As long as you don't live completely off the grid, in the wilderness, but instead exist through the support of modern society, you're indirectly deriving benefits from these things even without knowing it.


Even if you live somewhere with very erratic weather that's hard to predict, that doesn't mean forecast accuracy hasn't improved elsewhere. If you buy any food that's grown or raised elsewhere, then you're indirectly benefiting from more accurate weather forecasting. Not only that, but forecasting affects transportation & shipping efficiency, as well as helping to lower insurance rates.

I agree with this viewing angle

 

[TerryLaze]

Yes.. but apart from weather and climate prediction, vehicles and transport improvements, public health gains, economic systems, entertainments and deep looks into the impossibly fascinating astronomical questions that have puzzled mankind since he first looked up.....what have supercomputers ever done for us?!

Sorry, obligatory link.

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qc7HmhrgTuQ

 

[TerryLaze]

So far I have not learned of any fundamental benefit since supercomputers have existed. All important things were discovered or invented before supercomputers existed, or before they had meaningfully high parameters. Using the good old human brain as creator and as tool. Of course, besides the supercomputers themselves, there is money and jobs. I really wish they had paid off, though, not in bloody cash, but in a way that was actually beneficial to our species as a whole. So far I don't think there is a payout. Please don't show me figures, invoices and budget tables. I can't be convinced like that.

Please don't use rants with zero proof. I can't be convinced like that.