Joy Christian wrote:.
Will Quantum Computing Ever Live Up to Its Hype?
https://www.scientificamerican.com/arti ... -its-hype/
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It can’t live up to the most stupid and biggest hype but it might turn out to be able to do something useful. In the meantime, it stimulates fundamental research into quantum mechanics and quantum interpretations.
Protein folding problems are quantum mechanics problems which take too long to solve numerically, accurately enough, while at the same time requiring larger digital computers than we’ll probably ever have. Solving such problems could enable drugs research, and the search for new catalysts in industrial chemical synthesis, and so on. A quantum computer might turn out to be an effective analogue device for solving just those problems. It might even be able to solve more general optimisation problems. There has been incredible progress in neural networks (“deep learning”) in recent years and some of the ideas there might be transferable to “quantum learning”.
But recently there have been big drawbacks concerning the use of Majorana particles which previously were seen as a very interesting avenue for quantum computing. They are virtual particles which supposedly could be found in single molecule thick films made of a regular arrangement of carbon atoms. A big Nature paper has been withdrawn and Microsoft lost a big investment.
I think the era of crazy hype has passed its peak now. Fashions change.