Major Quantum Computing Advance Made Obsolete by UT Grad

[jedishrfu]

https://www.cs.utexas.edu/news/2018/major-quantum-computing-advance-made-obsolete-ut-grad

Ewin Tang, a 2018 University of Texas at Austin graduate in computer science and mathematics, is receiving national attention for a feat he accomplished at the age of 18 by disproving, as part of his honors thesis, a widely held assumption about the hottest next-thing in technology, quantum computing.

As Quanta magazine explains in an article out today, Tang's accomplishment involved showing that ordinary computers could, in fact, solve a problem that previously experts had believed only quantum computers could achieve in a rapid way. Companies like Google, IBM & Microsoft already are hard at work attempting to develop quantum computers that can do things today's computers aren't capable of.

 

[anorlunda]

Wow, what an inspirational story. Thanks for sharing.

I liked the longer version of the article https://www.quantamagazine.org/teen...to-quantum-recommendation-algorithm-20180731/

Here is the full paper by this remarkable young man https://arxiv.org/abs/1807.04271

 

[jedishrfu]

I didn’t post the quant mag story because this morning it wouldn’t come up and I thought maybe it got retracted but the UT version was there so I used it. Go Longhorns.

 

[George Jones]

I liked the longer version of the article https://www.quantamagazine.org/teen...to-quantum-recommendation-algorithm-20180731/

How quickly things change!

I get Quanta Magazine sent to my inbox. The title of the above Quanta Magazine article is "Major Quantum Computing Advance Made Obsolete by Teenager". I remember seeing a Quanta Magazine article (link in above article) six weeks ago titled "Finally, a Problem That Only Quantum Computers Will Ever Be Able to Solve", which was about the "Major Quantum Computing Advance" part of the previous title!

https://www.quantamagazine.org/fina...omputers-will-ever-be-able-to-solve-20180621/

This is all quite fascinating for me, as I currently am being forced to learn some elementary quantum computing. After some (good-natured) arm-twisting, I agreed to lead a seminar course on quantum computing. At 4:30 PDT today, we will cover some stuff from chapter 5 of

https://www.amazon.com/dp/019857049X/?tag=pfamazon01-20

Excuse me, as I have some reading to do.

 

[atyy]

How quickly things change!

I get Quanta Magazine sent to my inbox. The title of the above Quanta Magazine article is "Major Quantum Computing Advance Made Obsolete by Teenager". I remember seeing a Quanta Magazine article (link in above article) six weeks ago titled "Finally, a Problem That Only Quantum Computers Will Ever Be Able to Solve", which was about the "Major Quantum Computing Advance" part of the previous title!

https://www.quantamagazine.org/fina...omputers-will-ever-be-able-to-solve-20180621/

On a quick read, the Raz and Tal problem is not the "major quantum computing advance" made obsolete.

Scott Aronson blogged about Ewin Tang's result: https://www.scottaaronson.com/blog/?p=3880. At the end of the post he mentions that it remains open whether his Forrelation problem, addressed by Raz and Tal, is Ewin-proof.