Laugh or cry?

In the i’s 7 Days, The stories that shaped the week section today:

Quantum computers are far more intelligent than conventional computers and can make extremely complex calculations very quickly. The Ministry of Defence has acquired the device in order to improve the country’s deterrents. The tool could be deployed to the battlefield in an armoured vehicle to help guide military tactics.

This is Sellars and Yeatman stuff (1066 and all that). Quantum is such a powerful talismanic word that you can sell almost anything with it, however ridiculous.

Abracadabra, Quantum Suff, indeed.

Laugh, then cry.

That doesn’t even begin to make sense.

Quantum computers are far more intelligent than conventional computers and can make extremely complex calculations very quickly.

Modern computers are far more “intelligent” (note the scare quotes) than the ones we had when we were children. They, too, can make extremely complex calculations very quickly (case in point).

But it’s not any sign of intelligence to collate bits of information in new ways to try to reach better conclusions… you know, like having just bought a shaver you see lots of adverts for….shavers.

acquired the device in order to improve the country’s deterrents

With the exception of the obvious boogeyman (Эй тупоголовый!), the main deterrent needs to be aimed at dangerous individuals. It doesn’t need frittering away money on new shiny-shiny, it needs better policing. Like, more staff members so people “known to the authorities” are actually watched by said authorities before they become lead items on the news.

The tool could be deployed to the battlefield in an armoured vehicle

What a fantastic waste of money and resources. Is there any reason why, in 2022, it couldn’t live in the bunker and communicate with the battlefield using, oh, I don’t know, some sort of highly advanced magic wherea digital computer signal can go into a little box and an exact replica could come out of a different box many miles away. Does such a thing exist?

to help guide military tactics.

Could say the same thing about a compass. Or, these days, maybe a die.
Oh, I know, a Magic 8 Ball!
Should we perform a suicide charge? <shake> <shake> <shake> “Indications are good”. Alright men, let’s do it!

Quantum is such a powerful talismanic word that you can sell almost anything with it, however ridiculous.

Harddiscs, tyres, and, yeah… https://quantumhealth.com/
That last one is a double whammy. “Quantum” and “health”, anda tagline “Inspired by nature”. Do you even need to bother clicking the link? ;)

The tool could be deployed to the battlefield in an armoured vehicle to help guide military tactics.

Ermmm and how are they going to cool it down to the unimaginable low temperature it requires for a Quantum bit to actually work? And since when the Quantum research has reached the so called “Quantum Supremacy” which (depending with who you talk to) generally means an “adequate” number of working quantum bits? And to such a stable architecture to be deployable on a battlefield? (maybe they meant a battle CHESS filed????)

And where are these generally accepted compilers (and, crazy thought, interpreters) that, the “famous and so well available in the UK” profession of “Quantum Software Engineer” should use? (sorry I am laughing just while trying to type all this lol)

Should we perform a suicide charge? “Indications are good”. Alright men, let’s do it!

Yup, that sounds about right at this time.

I hesitate to point out that quantum just means how much in Latin, and was adopted into physics when it was realized that lots of quantities only take specific values, and not an arbitrary value. It would have been far better etymologically to coin the phrase Tantum Physics. However, the letter q exerts its own fascination. Early Greek had a letter called koppa that became the letter Q of the Latin alphabet. The finishing post at a racecourse is koppa-shaped. Lots of things in mathematics are called quantum-this and quantum-that simply because it has become fashionable to use the letter q here or there.

The other excuse is when things do not commute. Two variables A, B commute if AB equals BA. You may recall the Binomial Theorem which states that if you raise A+B to the power n, and expand the expression out, then the coefficient of A to the power k followed by B to the power (n-k) equals the number of subsets of size k in a set of size n — so long as A and B commute. But what if they do not? Suppose for example, that BA = qAB where q commutes with both A and B. Then the q-Binomial Theorem asserts that the coefficient is then the number of subvectorspaces of dimension k in a vectorspace of dimension n, when the field over which the vectorspaces are defined has q elements.

If a field has q elements then q must be a power of a prime number. Up to isomorphism there is only one such field, known as the Galois Field F(q). There is no field F(1) but it has become a joke to say that its vectorspaces are just sets.

it has become fashionable to use the letter q here or there.

I’m quite quirky. ;)

You may recall the Binomial Theorem which states

…uh, no. I’m somebody who understands that joining a seven with a six creates a thirteen only due to many years of rote memorisation. After all, if you join an orange and a lemon you don’t end up with a pineapple…

My main obstacle to figuring out how 3Dish games (think Wolfenstein and Doom) work is getting my head around basic Pythagorean maths.

Actually, the method is really bloody simple and can be expressed in a screenful of code. But the understanding of how it does what it does is quite a bit harder.

So, I’ll laugh politely at the joke and remember that vectorspaces is a poncey word for a set, while having no idea what the hell the final two paragraphs mean. :/

Sorry.

I think I must have a quantum brain (in the sense of quantum physics – small, weird, and quite illogical).

I hesitate to point out that quantum just means how much in Latin

And that’s just in reference to the cost…

If A is the operation of turning Marte’s steering wheel a half-turn to the right and B is the operation of tromping on Marte’s throttle and proceeding forward, then you will understand that AB is not the same as BA.

Non-commutation is a mathematical way of expressing the idea that just by measuring something you can mess it up.

then you will understand that AB is not the same as BA.

If sequentially, then yes. You’ll be here (points) versus there (turns a little and points).

expressing the idea that just by measuring something you can mess it up.

Oh, indeed. From electronics to debugging to quantum physics and the infamous kitty, it’s well known that many acts of measuring affect that which is being measured.
Even in cooking, something as simple as poking a stick into a cake to see if it is done. Opening the oven, pulling the cake forward, shoving something into it. All will have an effect on the final result.

Quantum computing, if you’ll forgive my French, is utter utter bollocks.

There are some quantum effects which can be utilised, such as entanglement, but the common belief that a quantum computer will simultaneously compute every possible solution and somehow spit out the correct answer, allowing things like cryptography to cracked almost instantly, is complete nonsense.

Quantum computing is the new Star Wars (Strategic Defence Initiative), i.e. you propose something which will radically change the game, completely neutralising the oppositions capabilities, and appear to pour billions in to developing it. The hope being he other guy(s) gets so worried they actually pour more billions in to it to try and get there first, bankrupting themselves in the process.

Just as with Star Wars even more money is being poured in to defending against it, instead of decoy warheads and hypersonic delivery systems, it’s the snake oil that is “post-quantum cryptography”.

The only difference with the old Star Wars is that it’s much harder to see who hasn’t bought in to this fantasy.

https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/quantum-4