When we realize that ‘quantum’ computing is really just ‘analog’, we’ll see a resurgence in that too.
(Which is great actually, because modern analog computers are stunningly capable. And yes, they are the same thing when you realize that the hardware is exactly the same, and sampling away the noise has the same form as solving for decoherence.)
> And yes, they are the same thing when you realize that the hardware is exactly the same
Quantum computers don't actually exist yet. It's a theoretical model. There's no hardware.
Even for the theoretical models, we have plenty of alternative models. The circuit model is the de-facto standard and a good thought framework, but there are real concerns about it maybe not to being the model to translate into actual hardware. (analogously, lambda calculus vs RTL) It will be interesting to see what alternative or new theoretical models pop up once the quantum computer's equivalent of the transistor surfaces.
Another thought to consider is since our computation latencies are currently restricted by sampling (clock) times, which is restricted by power (for heating reasons which are predicted by quantum), would the smarter bet be to pursue technology which uses exponentially less energy (analog) or technology which uses exponentially more energy with the same promised speed ups as the former (quantum)?
Analog computers in their ideal form (known as real computers after the real numbers) are also strictly superior to classical computers. But unlike quantum computers, we know for sure that ideal analog computers can not exist. This also follows from QM. (Intuitively, real numbers don't exist in physics and everything ultimately becomes quantized)
Given your same line of reasoning, we are able to measure real numbers, in fact you can derive discrete numbers from real numbers while the converse is not true. Intuitively, discrete numbers don't exist and everything ultimately becomes real numbers. This is obviously a correct following of the stimulating rhetoric yet completely untrue. The ability of derivation from an axiom has nothing to do with the validity of the derivative representations.
† https://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1138111 †† https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/7463004/
> we are able to measure real numbers
I disagree with you here. I like to believe in the Church-Turing-Deutsch thesis, which implies that reality is ultimately discrete and real numbers are nonphysical. The example you give, time, is indeed a real number in our best models of physics. But this is mostly because we don't know how to quantize it yet. It's one of the biggest open problems in physics. That said, the outcome could indeed be that it is a real number and CTD is wrong.