'Quantum computer algorithms are linear algebra, probabilities. This is not something that we do a good job of teaching our kids' Let's say, for the sake of argument, that quantum computers will exist in some useful fashion in the not too distant future. And if that is the case, fundamental changes will be needed in education, supply chains, and national policies for us to use the machines to solve complex problems, panelists said a forum hosted by R …
"Sorry, yes, we're assuming they will eventually work."
urrgghhhh... I'm sure I can pierce that crap if I try enough ways. So lets try a different approach:
How fast does a force propagate?
You have a force, e.g. electric. It propagates at some fixed speed, e.g. "speed of light", which means it has a fixed function relative to time #1. And time is fixed relative to the oscillations in the nucleus of an atomic clock #2. So the force must also be an oscillating force. #3.
So it's *oscillating* electric force, not some constant force.
So, what I'm saying is that ANY FORCE WITH A FIXED RELATIONSHIP TO TIME *MUST* BE AN OSCILLATING FORCE.
So now you have a concept of all of your forces as oscillating, then you're no longer measuring the position of something, you're measuring its position relative to the current oscillation of the *observer* matter.
So your quantum computer is not going through alll possible states, and only getting its position set when you measured it, it's just that when you measure it, you're determining the unknown state of the observer relative to the observed.
You're just filling in the unknowns in your equation by measuring values you didn't previously know. Hence all your magic QE and Quantum Teleportation crap.... when things appear to be set when you measure it, because you've defined your equations as if the observer is constant.
#1 you already know time changes by the 2x atomic clock, so you could rewrite your formulaes in terms of position instead of time, and you'd have an oscillating function.
#2 It's relationship to time is constant, yet time changes so its relationship tracks those changes. i.e. one is function of the other.
#3 To get from an oscillating function to a non-oscillation function, at best you'd need the inverse (inverse of an oscillating function must also be oscillating). Hence the function based on position must also be an oscillating one.
There is no scientific evidence, nor any widely accepted physical theory, that says that information can travel faster than lightspeed.
Of course, if you like hidden-variable interpretations of quantum mechanics, then you are forced to say that some sort of influence travels faster than lightspeed ... but you *still* cannot use that "influence" for sending information faster than light.
"Also photon pairs or electron/positron pairs communicate faster then light"
No they don't. Assuming you are taking about entangled pairs, there is no information transferred between the particles at the time of resolving the state of one. The only information that exists is encoded at the moment of entanglement, the entangled particles are then moved apart (at less then the speed of light).
It's tempting to view the moment at which one waveform is resolved as sending a message faster than light to the other pair particle to reveal the"hidden message" encoded in the entanglement, but that's not what happens. The information was always there and was transferred at less than light speed.
Entangled pairs do not communicate faster than light any more than shoeboxes do when you open them to find left or right shoe. Is very easy to show that if information can be sent faster than light this leads to causality violation. That has a name: time machine, and is time machine that we could build quite easily. Particular kind of time machine that could be built this way would enable person to send information into their own past. For instance financial information. Person who can do this can win the stock market. Amount person would be willing to spend to be able to do this? A lot: perhaps whole wealth of planet. But look, no-one does it.
And this is because quantum mechanics does not, in fact, allow transmission of information faster than light, despite the woo-woo spooky people (who never are physicists).
Well certainly if you have to operate at the level of wavefunctions to program a quantum computer then they might as well not exist. Only a handful of people will *ever* be able to program them.
Sure, thousands of people each year get degrees which require them to be able to compute the answers to simple QM problems, like atomic orbitals or geometrically trivial scattering problems. (I was one of them once. Not sure if I could do it now. It's been a few decades since I had to.) However, that's the equivalent of "Hello, world!", inasmuch as the form of the problem is completely standardised and all that changes are the values of mass, velocity, etc. You are conceptually miles away from solving a problem that no-one has ever tackled before. That sort of thing is research-level QM and the number of people who ever master it is probably about one in a million of the population. (I'm guessing there may be several thousand alive on the planet right now. I'm pretty certain there aren't several million.)
However, teaching kids the basic principles of probability and even some linear programming might really help their critical thinking and day-to-day analytic skills.
Keep it qualitative, non-numeric for those uncomfortable with numbers, but empower people with some simple tools for understanding what is going on in the world.
Probably because you can't impart it in four days of powerpoint slides followed by a two hour computer marked multiple choice pub quiz.
I consult in business risk, and it's hard to get anyone to realise (even at 'expert' level) that the basics of probability theory are merely a description of how things occur in the real world, and to ignore them is to ignore reality.
The typical business risk assessment is "I think it's a three" - "that sounds about right".
Not surprising that surprises keep happening, is it?
The typical business risk assessment is "I think it's a three" - "that sounds about right".
For a fun experiment illustrating how the population as a whole fails to grasp these concepts, ask any large group of adults how many think they are above average drivers. Except in very rare circumstances, most will assess themselves as above average. People are generally crap at risk assessment and management.
This apparent paradox is easily explained.
Since the meaning of "above average driver" is never quantified, each respondent is free to interpret it according to their own reference. Since hardly anyone is likely to volunteer that they are crap at driving (whatever that might mean) then they will frame it in terms that make them above average.
Some might fancy themselves as Lewis Hamilton and judge that their perceived ability to drive fast makes them "above average". Others might realise that they are not able to drive fast without endangering themselves and everyone else and so consider that their driving well within their more honestly appraised abilities makes them "above average". Still others might consider that driving as slowly as possible is both safer and less environmentally damaging. So they equate that with "above average".
In other words, no one deliberately drives badly, so the assessment of "above average" boils down to "what I do already".
I'd make everyone resit their test every five years.
-A.
Why not include critical thinking as well?
what and upset big tech's evil plan?
MUAHAHAHAHAHA!
(brainwashing can be done on a much smaller budget... with more predictable results.)
Seriously though...
I had a linear algebra class in college. It was a lot like high school algebra II class, but more in depth. And statistics and probabilities define the core of nuclear physics where EVERYTHING is a probability, and is often measured in 'barns' (as in hitting the broad side of one). When you get above the noise level of entropy, the numbers start to look very consistent and predictable. It's how a fission reactor works, essentially, the probability of neutron reactions based on fission rate, fuel load, geometry, temperature, and neutron absorbing materials (and in many cases, fission products that emit them i.e. delayed neutrons).
It may simply be a mindset, not an actual knowledge deficiency, with linear algebra and probabilities defining it. Still if you can use matrices to calculate things based on probabilities, maybe THAT is what quantum computing would do best at?
"Starting now, education needs to be better for people to take advantage of the quantum processing breakthroughs"
Starting yesterday, education needs to be better for people to be able to write conventional software that isn't a heap of bug-ridden s**t. Until we get that right, all else is pretty much peripheral to progress in the digital domain.
Given where Quantum computing really is - namely still playing around with a handful of qubits, I think the 5 year olds you are referring to are the children of today's 5 year olds...
Quantum Computing - come back when you've got something equivalent to an Intel 4004.
Because J will shoot them.
Eight-year-old white girl. Middle of the ghetto. Bunch of monsters. This time of night. With quantum physics books. She’s about to start some shit. She’s about eight years old, those books are way too advanced for her. If you ask me, I’d say she’s up to something.
I didn't understand much of this, way outside my fields.
But education policy I do understand. There is more chance of building a quantum computer by Christmas than there is of getting Maths education in the UK (or USA) to adapt to the modern world.
Current education policy is overwhelmingly dominated by making schools more like what they were back in The Good Old Days. And if you think about the fact that the UK political establishment isn't too wedded to the metric system even. (And the USA never seems to have adopted it anyway).
"...But education policy I do understand...
"...Current education policy is overwhelmingly dominated by making schools more like what they were back in The Good Old Days..."
...Oh, you mean that 'current education policy' is NOW '"overwhelmingly dominated" by going back to the teaching of the the "three Rs", as in "Reading, 'riting, and 'rithmetic"; and to the demanding that students read, understand, and write reports on The Great Books?
And, since you brought it up, let's include an absolute, healthy dose of the teaching of, and insistence upon, discipline; and respect for teachers, and all authority.
What alternate universe do you live in?
You have indicated, in the most stark of terms, that you most definitely understand nothing of "...current education policy...".
Where there are two things: schools and what is taught. I think the original poster was implying that the Eton educated Conservatives see state schools as only needing to teach pupils how to be proles; failing to see that it is Eton that hasn't moved on since the days of empire...
It's that and the emphasis on Behaviourist rote learning and testing regimes of items that were on the curriculum 50 years ago, because they were on the curriculum 50 years ago. The obvious example is in mandating teaching multiplication tables, which is a good thing, except they make it a high stakes test item - putting kids under pressure which makes a significant proportion less able to learn something that is quite simple if it's taught in a relaxed way and could be worked round for the significant number of kids who really do struggle with rote learning. But also mandating to 12x12. Teaching to 10x10 and teaching partitioning for >10 is essential. No one needs to learn the 12s (at least not until they bring back feet and inches).
Agree with you. But making people functionally numerate is I think important, however it is to be done. Is easy to say that well, we have calculators now and we do not need to be, but I have spent too much time having to carefully avoid stealing from people who could not properly calculate change quickly. And these were not stupid people (whatever stupid person means which is nothing) they were just people for whom part of their education had failed.
If people were functionally numerate they would, for instance, be able to see through many lies told by your glorious yellow-haired emperor. So of course splendid emperor does not really want functional numeracy (do you need functional numeracy to be HGV driver of fruit-picker or servant of kleptocracy? probably no). Yellow emperor is anyway functionally innumerate of course.
PS am mathematician / mathematical physicist. But still aware I am not numerate enough (very bad at statistics).
> Current education policy is overwhelmingly dominated by making schools more like what they were back in The Good Old Days.
Hardly, education policy is about making sure that the grades achieved are better this year than last year so those in power this week can claim they are doing a better job than those in power last week.
My youngest was being taught stuff in A Level maths a couple of years back that I was taught in juniors. Seems that for a lot of maths they are being taught "this is hard" where in the past it was a case of learn this or we'll hit you hard.
That's practice rather than theory. And I truly don't believe that your daughter is learning A level Maths that you were taught in Juniors. Since I've seen enough 'A' level maths exam papers to know that they're far harder than anything I learnt when I was doing 'O' level decades ago, or taught when I was a year 7/8 Maths teacher a few years later on for that matter. And my daughters' Maths GCSEs were no easier than the ones I'd done almost 50 years ago.
But maybe you've seen her doing an introductory module to something.
--Since I've seen enough 'A' level maths exam papers to know that they're far harder than anything I learnt when I was doing 'O' level decades ago,--
You may find that's because you've forgotten a few things in the passing decades. Not using knowledge tends to make it drift away.
Back before pocket calculators we were taught to use log tables, sure we weren't taught how to derive Napier logs or the significance of e, but we were taught that the base of the log wasn't important to the theory of how they worked. Once you're in the book of 4 figure tables then it makes sense to "do the rest of the them". So as well as logs were did a lot of trig and geometry. Yes at least one question from a past paper was stuff we did aged 8 or 9, I saw it as it was one they and their teacher had struggled with (they were trying a more complicated solution) and I happened to ask how things were going.
Sure they were taught things that weren't covered when I was younger, but necessity is the mother of ... and no electronic calculators meant learning other solutions, hence logs and slide rules. And back then rulers tended to have inches on both sides so it was easy to put two together and see them add up and so understand that was all a slide rule did. But how could you convince young kids that logs made their life easier now when they know they can type any arithmetic into a calculator and the answer will just pop out.
They Teach to the Test now. The do not teach comprehension of the subject. All they want are the "correct" answers on the scheduled tests. Correct, meaning currently politically correct answers.
The Powers That Be do not want thinkers, comprehension of the subject, or much real understanding of the subject. Only correct answers on the standardize tests.
The United States has gone from one of the world leaders in education, to approaching 3rd world status in many cases. Privatizing our public schools, i.e., corporate owned, Charter schools hasn't helped any either.
"You know what they want? They want obedient workers. Obedient workers, people who are just smart enough to run the machines and do the paperwork. And just dumb enough to passively accept all these increasingly shittier jobs with the lower pay, the longer hours, the reduced benefits, the end of overtime and vanishing pension that disappears the minute you go to collect it. And now they're coming for your Social Security money. They want your f**kin' retirement money. They want it back so they can give it to their criminal friends on Wall Street."
― George Carlin
(1) The process using "linear algebra probabilities" is quantum annealing. That isn't the only way quantum computers are built, although it is a very useful one. Quantum computer programs for, say, factoring use entirely different techniques.
(2) A quantum bit cannot store multiple arbitrary classical bits of information. Saying, "Oooh, ahh, we can store much more information here because it's quantum bits" represents a fundamental misunderstanding of the technology.
We may have made a mistake by calling these things "computers". It's as if we still called modern computers "difference engines". It limits our thinking so severely as to cause many people to completely miss the point.
All of QM is built on linear algebra, is the point, with the interpretation of various things being probabilities (or the square roots of them). That's why early Heisenberg-picture QM was called 'matrix mechanics' (and why Dirac was so clever when he showed that matrix mechanics and wave mechanics were same thing). So any computer which uses QM is concerned both with linear algebra and probabilities, or it is not in fact using QM.
But is not school linear algebra as is necessarily the case that the vector space concerned is infinite, because general function ('wave function') is vector in infinite-dimensional space, not finite-dimensional. So this is no longer school linear algebra: is actually now quite hard. For instance in finite dimensions is always the case that vector with finite components has finite norm, but this is not true in infinite dimensional: must impose norm (this is same thing as saying functions concerned must be square-integrable). Similarly is not immediately clear that basis is countable even (it is in fact). And so forth.
It may be the case that quantum computers can be restricted to finite-dimensional spaces where things are now easy but I doubt that in fact.
Covid is just one modern example of the difficulties we face dealing with probabilities in everyday life. We all know by now the probabilities of being infected, of getting seriously ill and dying, the effects of vaccination and so on -- at least the information is widely available. But its probabilistic. There just is no 100% black or 100% white. So we get an awful lot of noise springing up about it, a lot of it actually quite well reasoned. (See the "OffGuardian" web site for readable examples)
So the answer to our future problems is to further dilute the school curriculum with abstract subjects that will, at best, be covered extremely superficially? I suggest that we start fixing our current reality, starting with the systematic undermining of education over the best part of a half-century. We've now got supposedly educated people talking about "science" as just another belief system (caused, IMHO, by too much emphasis on subjects you can get teachers for at the expense of subjects that are 'hard' and so difficult to recruit teachers for).
As far as I can see the only reason for the froth about quantum computing is that it promises a way to break encryption systems. I don't know much about it but it does seem to be an exotic form of analog computing, trading accuracy for speed, a tool for generating a lot of potential answers to a problem, assuming you can pick the correct answer out of the noise. Quite likely a valuable tool but not one that's going to be truly revolutionary in the near future.
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