What's the big deal about Quantum Computers?

Are we even sure they can exist? Have we absolutely proven Quantum Physics/Mechanics in the first place? Even if we did, from what I understand, they essentially are just a giant leap in super computers. As in they're better at storage than normal computers, theoretically. Sounds pretty cool nevertheless. Thoughts?

It's a meme. They've only been able to create "quantum" CPUs with just a few qubits, so unless there is some giant leap foward in material science you won't be able to take advantage of it's full capabilities. And even then it will only be used by scientists for complex computations and sending very secure data. There probably won't be any "desktop" like quantum computers or anything of the sort with our current understanding and technology since not only does it use expensive materials, but the process must occur in an incredibly cold environment.

So for them to work at all, they cannot be stored at room temperature?

You have to understand that these things must be quite large to create not only near perfect lab conditions so as to no interfere with the data (since any observation breaks down the quantum state), but they must also be large to create the conditions of near 0 Kelvin temperatures for it to function.

>Are we even sure they can exist?
No.

>Have we absolutely proven Quantum Physics/Mechanics in the first place?
Yes, of course. It's based purely on empirical observation.

>Even if we did, from what I understand, they essentially are just a giant leap in super computers. As in they're better at storage than normal computers, theoretically.
No, totally wrong.

>No.
funny how they, you know, do exist then.

OP again. Yeah, I'm not actually a science major, which is why my tone isn't exactly authoritative here. Could you give me a quick rundown on what the purpose of such a machine is, then?

They can perform certain kinds of math more efficiently than binary computers

the person you're responding to is dumb and his information is about a decade out of date. Quantum computers can exist, do exist, are used in practical engineering applications by various agencies, and you can get time on quantum computers.

Do they surpass ordinary computers in anything besides calculation? They must, right?

Well, they surpass ordinary computers in being ridiculously difficult to engineer.
But no. And no quantum computers will never replace regular ones. Binary logic works just fine for most things and is very easily implemented. Quantum computers are pretty much only going to be relegated to certain calculations. Maybe in the far future binary computers will have tiny quantum daughter boards to do that kind of math for them and then just use binary logic for normal operations, but that's far in the future, as today's quantum processors need to be supercooled to function properly. The real next leap in computer technology is light based computing that uses photons, because even consumer grade CPUs have hit the hard physical limits of what we can do with electrons. You'll notice that next-generation CPUs have gotten bigger than the standard form factor we've been using since the turn of the century, and that's because we literally can't miniaturize the circuit paths inside them any more than we have, because we've gotten to the point that if they packed the paths any closer together, electrons would be able to just randomly jump between them and short circuit them.

Pic related
Part 1/3 because Veeky Forums a shit

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For a second there, I thought my Probability and Statistics class would make it any easier to understand. Well, that was definitely informative. As was

>It's not the size that matters, it's the rotation through complex vector space.

Lmao

Depends what you mean by quantum computer. Have quantum computational operations been carried out? Yes. Do we have a practical, functioning quantum computer? No. Do we know for sure that we'll be able to create one? No.

>Do we have a practical, functioning quantum computer? No.
what world do you live in?

you can literally buy one (if you have 15 million dollars)

How many Qbits do you get in a 15 megabuck computer these days?

2000

There are different types of quantum computers but yes they exist and yes they've been proven to be doing actual quantum computations (dumb term but you get the idea).

D-waves quantum computers been commercially available since 2011, Google and NASA have ones, and you can buy processor time on D-waves in house bank of them for research purposes.
It's just goofy to me that there are people out there who think quantum computers are still some nebulous future tech. Maybe the first commercial quantum computer company wasn't a big news story in burgerstan because they're Canadian.

ya a lot of scientists will joke "it won't make your video games look better", which is true but it's more than that. They won't make most things classical computers can do faster. They're very good at very specific tasks and not much else. They'll basically be used for optimization problems and not too much else. The good news is they're insanely good at optimization problems in a lot of ways (more than just being faster), and these problems are extremely useful to have solved.

I think it wasn't big news because they don't do anything that your everday person would find exciting. And the how and why of quantum computers can't be summed up too well in a 1 page article.