Tuesday, April 19, 2016

Politician on quantum computing

A reader pointed out that Canada's dopey leader tried to explain quantum computing:
Justin Trudeau’s appeal may have just found a new dimension.

The Canadian Prime Minister was asked about the deployment of airstrikes against ISIS at a press conference on April 15, but the reporter had inserted a joke about quantum computing beforehand.

Trudeau took the bait, and launched into an explanation of the quantum computer.

“Normal computers work by …” Trudeau said, before he was greeted by an outburst of laughter. “Don’t interrupt me. When you walk out of here, most of you will know more about quantum computing.”

Then he proceeded to give a brief summary of what makes quantum computing different from normal computing.

“Normal computers work…either there’s power going through a wire or not. It’s one or a zero. They’re binary systems,” Trudeau said. “What quantum states allow for is much more complex information to be encoded into a single bit.”

“A regular computer bit is either a one or a zero — on or off — a quantum state can be much more complex than that because, as we know, things can be both particle and wave at the same time, and the uncertainty around quantum states allows us to encode more information into a much smaller computer.”

“Don’t get me going on this or we’ll be here all day,” Trudeau said at the end of his explanation, to cheers from the crowd.
He began a Master's degree in environmental geography before entering politics, so that gives him the ability to talk science, I guess.

No, a quantum computer will never be a smaller computer, even if one is ever built.

It is wishful thinking to say that uncertainty means more information.

6 comments:

  1. I brought up your arguments against quantum computing to Luboš Motl and he couldn't even come up with an intelligent answer but was basically just repeating himself. All he did was call you a creationist hack. Best laugh of the morning. The funny thing is that he goes around chastising people for a belief in non-locality but was completely shut down to the idea that we take QM wave functions too literally when it comes to things like superposition. All he could do was dance around what you said. That's enough proof to say that they know QCs requires a certain interpretation of QM and you called their bluff.

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  2. What is the difference between a quantum physicist and a magician? Behind closed doors away from the kids, the magician admits his job is to fool you.

    Quantum Mechanics and its spooky interactions ARE slight of hand, and dependent upon the same kind of 'interpretation' to considered as true. When you don't know where the magician has the small ball, it does not mean (as the magician implies) it has disappeared. It means you don't know where it is. That's all. There is a phenomenally huge gulf between 'I don't know where something is' and 'it does or does not exist anymore'.

    I am weary of being treated like a small child at the birthday-party magic show, being mocked by the magician because I don't believe he has the power to make things 'dissappear' into nothingness with the visual contract of a wave of his hand, then 'reappear' with a flourish at the prestige of the illusion.

    That any scientist, mathematician, or serious thinking person would treat such black box illusions as 'reality' tells me they really want to be fooled. I have no interest in being fooled, or buying bridges to Brooklyn for that matter, and have little patience with 'children' who think a second hand calculation called a 'probability' can inform anything. Math is not a causal mechanism, or modern day sympathetic magic, science needs to stop treating it as if it is.


    It's easier to fool people than convince them they have been fooled - Mark Twain

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    1. What is the difference between a quantum physicist and a magician?

      A magician is at least entertaining.

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  3. No, I am not a creationist. I occasionally complain about evolutionist teachings, so I guess that is why Motl dismisses me.

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    1. He dismisses you because he's an unrelenting and overrated asshole. He couldn't find anything wrong with what you said. I certainly agree with you points and I'm STUNNED how few people agree with your common sense. I read his post on unitary violation and it was a fifth-rate commentary that made no sense. The guy got kicked out of Harvard because he's a provincial clown. He's a flake and I advise you not to take any of his views as representative of intelligent positions. The Asperger savants are really hacks. They don't make important contributions. He only claims to be conservative out of iconoclasm. It's just for show. He can't even discuss the CERES data on global warming because he can't even read the literature on it. Total clown.

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  4. Actually, Motl threatened someone at Harvard, and smelling the potential lawsuits in the air, higher ups decided they had had enough of him. I actually do agree with Motl on some things, but the man is so conceited and vile I wouldn't bother ever bringing it up with him for discussion, and any agreement was most likely due to the odds rather than ideology.

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