Everyone always talks about traveling through time, but if you ask me, the ultimate temporary vacation is just to stop the clock a bit. Who among us can not take a five or six month break after 2020 before committing to a new calendar year? It’s not you 2021; it’s us.
Unfortunately, this is not an episode of Rick and Morty, so we can not stop time until we are ready to go on.
But maybe we can have computers.
A few studies on quantum algorithms, from independent research teams, recently praised the arXiv preprint servers. Both are basically the same: to use clever algorithms to solve nonlinear differential equations.
And if you look at them through the lens of speculative science you can, like me, conclude that this is a recipe for computers that can basically stop time to solve a problem that requires an almost immediate solution.
Linear equations are the bread-and-butter of classical computers. We crunch numbers and use basic binary calculation to determine what happens next in a linear pattern or sequence according to classical algorithms. But nonlinear differential equations are tougher. It is often too difficult or completely impractical to solve even the most powerful classic computer.
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The hope is that quantum computers will one day break the problem and make these difficult-to-solve problems look like ordinary computer tasks.
If computers solve these kinds of problems, they are basically predicting the future. Today’s AI working on classic computers can view a photograph of a ball in the air and, given enough data, predict where the ball is going. You can add a few more balls to the equation and the computer will usually get it right.
But once you reach the point where the scale of interactivity creates a feedback loop, such as when you observe particle interactions, or when you throw a heaping handful of glitter into the air, for example, a classic computer does not essentially have the guts to deal with physics on that scale.
This, as quantum researcher Andrew Childs told Quanta Magazine, is why we can not predict the weather. There are just too many particle interactions that a normal old computer can follow.
But quantum computers do not comply with the binary rules of classical computers. Not only can they zig and zag, they can also zig while doing the same or not. For our purposes, this means that they can solve potentially difficult problems, such as ‘where will every single glare be within .02 seconds?’ or ‘what is the best way to track this travel salesman?’
To understand how we get from here (and what it means), we need to look at the above articles. The first one comes from the University of Maryland. You can watch it here, but the part we are focusing on now is this:
In this paper, we presented a quantum Carleman linearization algorithm (QCL) for a class quadratic nonlinear differential equations. Compared to the previous approach of our algorithm improves the complexity of exponential dependence of T to almost quadratic dependence, under the condition R <1.
And let’s look at the second paper. These are from a team at MIT:
This paper showed that quantum computers can in principle achieve an exponential advantage over classical computers to solve nonlinear differential equations. The main potential advantage of the quantum non-linear equation algorithm over classical algorithms is that it logarithmically scales in the dimension of the solution space, making it a natural candidate for the application of high dimensional problems such as the Navier-Stokes equation and others. nonlinear fluids, plasmas. , etc.
Both papers are fascinating (you should read them later!), But I would venture the risk of gross oversimplification by saying: they give details on how we can build algorithms for quantum computers to solve the very difficult problems.
What does that mean then? We hear how quantum computers can solve drug detection or giant math problems, but where does the rubber actually end up? What am I saying, classic computers have given us iPhones, jet fighters and video games. What is it going to do?
This is likely to give quantum computers time to stop. Now, as you can imagine, this does not mean that any of us will get a remote control with a pause button on it, which we can use to interrupt an argument like the Adam Sandler movie ‘Click ‘.
What this means is that a powerful enough quantum computer that the back-to-back-to-back grandchildren of the algorithms developed today will one day be able to assess the physics of the particle level functionally with sufficient speed and accuracy to make the passage of time a non-factor in its execution.
Theoretically, if someone throws a handful of glitter at you in the future and you have a swarm of quantum-powered drones, they can respond immediately by placing themselves perfectly between you and the particles coming out of the glitter explosion to protect you. Or, for a less interesting use case, you can model and predict the weather patterns of the earth with extraordinary accuracy over extremely long periods of time.
This ultimately means that quantum computers can one day work in a functional void, solving problems at almost the exact endless finite moment that it happens.
H / t: Max G Levy, Quanta magazine
Published on January 13, 2021 – 19:46 UTC