Are you saying that a General Quantum computer, which can process any sort of information is physically impossible and could never exist? Would doing so break any known laws of physics or is it just a matter of inventing the correct algorithms to do it?
If it wouldn't break any laws of physics, then I would put it to you that it's simply a matter of time until the types of computing they can do gradually expands as QC programming theory advances. I mean look at all we've learned to do with programming of conventional computers since they were invented. And many would say that even conventional computing is still very much a developing field, let alone QC.
If doing so would violate a law/s of physics, perhaps you could provide a link to support that.
]]>Interesting. Care to provide a link or two that supports your claim? I would like to read about it further.
]]>http://www.flickr.com/photos/jurvetson/8054771535/
Similar to Moore's law but for QC's. Apparently if the trend continues, we'll have computers "faster than the universe" (whatever that means) by 2015.
Both interesting and quite scary. If anyone ever figures out a way to write algorithms to allow QC's to do more than just simulate quantum systems then their potential would be almost impossible to predict.
]]>But nothing would stop you from reading them one state at a time and recording the result, except possibly dying of old age (depending on how fast coherence can again be established after decoherence). Its probably something that will be difficult at first and then slowly improve with technology until it becomes very fast indeed.
No matter how long it takes, in theory, you could eventually record all 2^300 possible different states, which means that in a sense the 300 Qubit machine did have all the information stored. It just couldn't all be accessed simultaneously.
]]>Sorry I'm still getting used to how posts on this blog work, and I messed this up a bit. So #139 is my response to the first part of your post.
For my response to the second part, I will direct you to #110 which was my answer to a similar point and I think it applies to your argument too.
]]>How about this quote.......
"For n quantum bits there are 2n possible states, and a quantum computer of only 300 qubits could hold 2^300 values simultaneously, more than the number of atoms in the universe."
Its from a press release put out by Nobel Laureates David Wineland and Serge Haroche, after they won the 2012 Nobel prize for physics. Remarkably similar no?
The web site is here....
http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/physics/laureates/2012/presentation-speech.html#
And the original article can be found here....
http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/physics/laureates/2012/popular-physicsprize2012.pdf
So while I admit that I might be a little off in my interpretation, someone might want to tell these guys too.
]]>An AI running on a large (or even a small) QC would make all us mere mortals irrelevant pretty quickly.
]]>If you Google "300 Qubits" you'll find an awful lot of links, many of which come from quite reputable sources, which disagree with you. I find it difficult to believe that they are all wrong, wrong, WRONG.
]]>Cut to a tapeworm conversation where an intrepid tape worm called Tapeworm-Charlie has thrown out the funny idea of intelligent Ecoli to highlight the tapeworm's own Fermi Paradox problems.
"It strikes me that Tapeworm-Charlie's analogy breaks down precisely because his Ecoli don't have any sort of long-range sensory apparatus and we do: Our sense of smell. Give us a century or so and we'll be cataloging Bowel-like environments in the small intestine!"
"Long-range" is relative.
]]>It doesn't seem excessive to suggest that a civilization capable of creating a MB would likely have found ways to make a QC do more useful forms of computing. It certainly wouldn't violate any known laws of physics.
]]>Charlie's suggestion of a MB using Qubits would be as close to infinite computing power as you would ever want to go.
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