Quote:
D-Wave Systems, Inc. is a technology company, based in Burnaby, British Columbia, that gained news attention when it announced on January 19, 2007 that it had a working prototype of a commercially-viable quantum computer. The prototype is claimed to be a small (16-qubit) adiabatic quantum computer, that was demonstrated on February 13th, 2007 at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, California. (The second demo of the prototype was on February 15th, 2007 at the Telus World of Science in Vancouver, Canada).[1]
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D-wave showed three examples of Orion in operation, marking the first public demonstration of a quantum computer and associated service. The first, an example of pattern matching, showed search for a similar compound to a known drug within a database of molecules. The next computed a seating arrangement for an event subject to compatibilities and incompatibilities between guests. The last involved solving a Sudoku puzzle.
The demonstrations accessed the quantum computer remotely, because the device is too delicate to transport. D-Wave Systems had not released the full details of Orion to the scientific community, and as such many physicists knowledgeable about quantum computing have expressed skepticism. "My gut instinct is that I doubt there is a major 'free lunch' here," said noted physicist Andrew Steane, noting that the problem of adiabatics is a major technical hurdle that has not yet been feasibly solved even in theory.[5] "This is somewhat like claims of cold fusion," Steane added.[6] In an interview in Wired David Deutsch, an early champion of quantum computing, said "The idea will either be valid, or not. … I think that the normal processes of scientific criticism, peer review and just general discussion in the scientific community is going to test this idea -- provided enough information is given of what this idea is. That will be quite independent of what kind of access they provide to the public. However, I think the idea of providing an interface such as you describe is a very good one. I think it's a wonderful idea. ..." [7] D-Wave themselves admit that they "are not sure" if the device is actually doing quantum computations, instead stating that it simply may be using quantum mechanics to do essentially classical computation.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D-Wave
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D-wave showed three examples of Orion in operation, marking the first public demonstration of a quantum computer and associated service. The first, an example of pattern matching, showed search for a similar compound to a known drug within a database of molecules. The next computed a seating arrangement for an event subject to compatibilities and incompatibilities between guests. The last involved solving a Sudoku puzzle.
The demonstrations accessed the quantum computer remotely, because the device is too delicate to transport. D-Wave Systems had not released the full details of Orion to the scientific community, and as such many physicists knowledgeable about quantum computing have expressed skepticism. "My gut instinct is that I doubt there is a major 'free lunch' here," said noted physicist Andrew Steane, noting that the problem of adiabatics is a major technical hurdle that has not yet been feasibly solved even in theory.[5] "This is somewhat like claims of cold fusion," Steane added.[6] In an interview in Wired David Deutsch, an early champion of quantum computing, said "The idea will either be valid, or not. … I think that the normal processes of scientific criticism, peer review and just general discussion in the scientific community is going to test this idea -- provided enough information is given of what this idea is. That will be quite independent of what kind of access they provide to the public. However, I think the idea of providing an interface such as you describe is a very good one. I think it's a wonderful idea. ..." [7] D-Wave themselves admit that they "are not sure" if the device is actually doing quantum computations, instead stating that it simply may be using quantum mechanics to do essentially classical computation.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D-Wave
So what do you guys think of this? The entire "remote" thing seems awfully suspicious... And I have no idea what "adiabatics" refers to...
