What’s under the hood of a quantum computer? | Hacker News Reader

What’s under the hood of a quantum computer?

physicstoday.scitation.org

85 pointsdigital5514 comments

A couple of years ago I got to push some trapped ion's around in the quantum computer under development at the University of Sussex [0]. Very cool, seeing the glowing ions on a monitor and moving them in 1-micron steps via the cursor keys.

You get to realise how sensitive this stuff is when you hear it took them 3 weeks to track down a single hair that was contaminating their (extensive) vacuum system.

[0] https://www.sussex.ac.uk/research/centres/sussex-centre-for-...

This is what is underneath ours: https://ascr-discovery.org/2021/03/quantum-trap/

I wonder if quantum computing is possible in biological systems.

There's certainly evidence of quantum biological machinery--it is believed to be behind the efficiency of photosynthesis, for example: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/05/180521131756.h...

And why not? Life doesn't care if a physical effect is quantum or not!

Is it possible that there are quantum effects in the brain too? And could that perhaps explain schizophrenia? (only half-joking)

That is apparently wrong [0]. I recently heard a podcast with some of the scientists involved. They were very frustrated with how hard it had been to get any attention at all for the negative result compared with the original research.

[0] https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/6/14/eaaz4888.full

Thanks for sharing that!!

Quantum Effects in the Brain and Mind

https://jonlieffmd.com/blog/human-brain/could-the-brain-and-...

Gravitational and Quantum Effects in Neuron Function (pdf)

http://www.davidpublisher.com/Public/uploads/Contribute/585c...

Sandia is doing a trapped ion quantum computer experiments? Very cool — I did not know. Good luck!

Very cool. We have a 3D tour of the D-Wave quantum computer here for anyone interested: https://content.dwavesys.com/WebGL/D-Wave/index.html

Pretty fascinating stuff, even if I don't get all of it. I wonder how much reliability and 'decoherence' and some of the other problems will improve over time?

There's a joke there somewhere about finding a dead/live cat when you open the hood, or broken/working computer, or something along those lines.

Thanks for sharing!

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