this post was submitted on 10 Apr 2026
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Science Memes

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145
I love when scientists mock each other (feddit.org)
submitted 1 day ago by cows_are_underrated@feddit.org to c/science_memes@mander.xyz
9 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

So I joust found this brilliant scientific paper called "Replication of Quantum Factorisation Records with an 8-bit Home Computer, an Abacus, and a Dog" which mocks quantum computer researchers for optimising factorisation of prime numbers in a way, so that it is as easy as possible to calculate them with a quantum computer. While you may not understand the technical or mathematical explanations they include a lot of jokes and its very funny to read. One of the jokes is,that they call quantum computers a "physics experiment", which is the explanation behind this joke.

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[–] SmoothOperator@lemmy.world 7 points 1 day ago (3 children)

In a way, regular computers are also physics experiments. As are fridges and cars. When does an experiment graduate to being a technology?

[–] Ediacarium@feddit.org 9 points 1 day ago (2 children)

Been a while since I read this paper, but:

The main criticism in this paper is, that the problems are asked and preprocessed in a way that makes them almost trivial. Basically, CPU manufacturers could boast about 10000% faster prime number factorization, if all they were doing was prime number factorization of 2^n^

They even suggest, that instead of solving known and borderline trivial problems, quantum computers should instead be evaluated using random problems.

^Also, they should thank their dog in the acknowledgement section^

[–] cows_are_underrated@feddit.org 7 points 1 day ago

Its basically what you said. They searched for ways to optimize the problem to the solution and not the solution to the Problem.

[–] SmoothOperator@lemmy.world 2 points 1 day ago

Fair enough - sounds more like a problem with the specific study than with the quantum computer

[–] xyguy@startrek.website 2 points 1 day ago

They are pointing out in this article that the way that the problem is devised for the computer makes it basically already solved. The quantum computer get a list of all the factors and, after a bunch of hand waving, picks one. Something a vic20 an abacus and a dog can all do too.

[–] prex@aussie.zone 0 points 1 day ago (1 children)

When people are purchasing their experiments from bestbuy?

[–] SmoothOperator@lemmy.world 2 points 1 day ago

So a supercomputer is a physics experiment? A lithography machine for producing microchips is a physics experiment?

I guess a fair threshold would be "when it can be run and maintained by engineers rather than scientists". In which case, many quantum computers are indeed physics experiments.

[–] someacnt@sh.itjust.works 2 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Is this opinion piece implying that quantum computing researchers should stop researching because current quantum computers are currently less than proof of concept? Is technology supposed to be fully mature from the beginning?

[–] cows_are_underrated@feddit.org 4 points 1 day ago

No its saying, that researches should not invent arbitrary problems that look god when solving them, without actually doing the real problem.