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+ - How Blogs are Changing the Scientific Discourse->

Submitted by quax
quax writes "Mainstream media always follows the same kind of 'He said she said" template, that is why even climate change deniers get their say, although they are a tiny minority. The leading science journals on the other hand are expensive and behind pay-walls. But it turns out there are places on the web where you can follow science up close and personal: The many personal blogs written by scientists — and the conversation there is changing the very nature of scientific debate."
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Comment: Yes they are compatible (Score 1) 551

by quax (#46165013) Attached to: Should Nuclear and Renewable Energy Supporters Stop Fighting?

If you care about the environment you should want the mountain of nuclear waste reduced. And treating it with a particle accelerator, using a so called spallation reaction, you can do exactly this, while running the whole thing as an inherently save reactor with net energy gain.

The technology is proven and an industrial scale prototype is about to be build in Belgium.

+ - Google's Quantum Computer Cannot be Explained Classically 2

Submitted by quax
quax writes "So writes the company that developed the machine on their blog. Admittedly, you would expect them to defend their architecture, but the founder of D-Wave, Geordie Rose, puts forward a compelling argument, that comes down to Occam's razor. The scientists who claim that the machine can be explained classically, as recently reported on slashdot, only base their model on the sub-set of data that they looked at in their research. But if you look at all the data amassed by D-Wave over time, only quantum annealing makes for a perfect fit.

They are not the only ones who argue that D-Wave's claims in this regard hold up. Independent research performed by Matthias Troyer et al. confirms that quantum annealing is the best model to describe the machines performance, but they don't see evidence for quantum speed-up yet. A recent video nicely summarizes their research findings."

Comment: Re:Quantum Cash! (Score 1) 224

by quax (#46150561) Attached to: First Evidence That Google's Quantum Computer May Not Be Quantum After All

Only to a theoretical computer scientist would the difference between a modern Laptop and a marble-run *not* matter :-)

As mentioned in the other thread. Moore's law comes to an end for semiconductors. This machine doesn't use them and the integration density is still low.

Such implementation details may not matter to you, but I think it shouldn't be hard to see why they matter to the industry.

Comment: Re:Nonsense (Score 1) 224

by quax (#46150431) Attached to: First Evidence That Google's Quantum Computer May Not Be Quantum After All

This is exactly the crux of the matter, but how many here on /. do you think can possibly get this from the article and the various opinion spouted here?

On quibble though: I essentially draw the opposite conclusion from the observation in your last sentence. In comparison to classical hardware they developed this on a shoestring budget, yet can already hold their own. Moore's law is ending for silicon based chip's within the decade, the structures are just getting to small. On the other hand their is still lots of room on the bottom for D-Wave, and they've been doubling chip density about every 16 months.

So quantum speed-up or not, I think this technology has a future.

God doesn't play dice. -- Albert Einstein