Thursday, February 15, 2007

Quantum computing: revenge of the analog

I'd assumed we were still 10 years away from a useful quantum computer. A Canadian company is now advertising one: Scientific American.com: First "Commercial" Quantum Computer Solves Sudoku Puzzles.

The experts believe this particular approach won't scale, but I'm stunned that they're already up to 16 bits. It also doesn't work do encryption tasks, so international finance can keep working. It apparently works rather like the analog computers my grad school adviser once played with. Don will be amused to learn that his analog skills are again on the cutting edge.

So, how long until we do applied counterfactual computing? Does anyone still think we can predict twenty years ahead?

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