We're all just petri dishes with shoes.

realcleverscience:

Firstly, thanks to DVK for the link.

This is honestly so mindblowing that I hardly know where to begin - or even have words to describe this! I hope we all realize that with this innovation, we’re looking at the dawn of a new age. And it would be simple-minded to think that this is merely another computer innovation, like newer iPhones or faster processors. This is much more. This is opening a door to new computing capabilities never before imagined. And with that, changes to our understanding of the universe, technology, and the structure of society as powerful as our metamorphosis has been over the last 100 years.

To quote from Ray Kurzweil (from an earlier RCS post):

“It has been said that quantum computing is to digital computing as a hydrogen bomb is to a firecracker. This is a remarkable statement when we consider that digital computing is quite revolutionary in its own right. The analogy is based on the following observation. Consider (at least in theory) a Universe-sized (non-quantum) computer in which every neutron, electron, and proton in the Universe is turned into a computer, and each one (that is, every particle in the Universe) is able to compute trillions of calculations per second. Now imagine certain problems that this Universe-sized supercomputer would be unable to solve even if we ran that computer until either the next big bang or until all the stars in the Universe died - about ten to thirty billion years. There are many examples of such massively intractable problems; for example, cracking encryption codes that use a thousand bits, or solving the traveling-salesman problem with a thousand cities. While a very massive digital computer (including our theoretical Universe-sized computer) is unable to solve this class of problems, a quantum computer of microscopic size could solve such problems in less than a billionth of a second.” (my emphasis)

In short, this is pretty big news.

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“There’s been a lot of talk lately about how close we are to quantum computing for the masses. Now, Canadian company D-Wave claims to have done it with their D-Wave One…

The D-Wave One represents the successes the D-Wave engineers have reached in the area of quantum annealing, as shown in a paper they submitted to Nature. Even though D-Wave is spare in the details department, the computer’s 128-qubit processor is designed to tackle heavy-duty optimization and complex number theory problems. Conventional general-purpose computers will continue to outpace it in other areas, but this particular area of supercomputing could see AI taken a big step forward…”

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p.s. Lockheed Martin, the high-tech security and defense company, bought one. here. (Also a good link for a bit more info.)

And just to be clear, this computer has major limitations, but like the earliest computers or cell phones, it’s just a matter of time before we see massive improvements. And if Kurzweil is right about his “law of accelerating returns”, it may be a lot sooner than we’d think.

Now I have to marry millionaire :/