Trust isn't much of a concept in science. You can take any of her controversial opinions and find equally certificated scientists who disagree with her claims.

That is pretty much the definition of controversy. If no one held the opposite position, it would not be controversial.

 

That is pretty much the definition of controversy. If no one held the opposite position, it would not be controversial.

Yes, that what I mean, healthy science is riddled with controversies and one need to retain an objective mindset rather than a trusting one.

 

One eventually needs to trust somebody, or some institution. It is simply impossible to personally and empirically verify every single scientific claim. In fact, we do it all the time, like when we trust our health to doctors, or our houses to architects and engineers. Trust is also a fundamental ingredient in any education system.

 

One eventually needs to trust somebody, or some institution. It is simply impossible to personally and empirically verify every single scientific claim. In fact, we do it all the time, like when we trust our health to doctors, or our houses to architects and engineers. Trust is also a fundamental ingredient in any education system.

Trust but verify. I self-diagnosed an uncommon condition, and my primary care doctor said I was wrong. Fortunately, I got a second opinion from a specialist, and after the MRI proved me correct, the surgeon exclaimed “how the hell did you diagnose a ***, doctors always get that wrong.”

 

One eventually needs to trust somebody, or some institution. It is simply impossible to personally and empirically verify every single scientific claim. In fact, we do it all the time, like when we trust our health to doctors, or our houses to architects and engineers. Trust is also a fundamental ingredient in any education system.

Trust is earned, not given by intelligence, power or fame. For QM computing and AI claims, the track record is filled with grift because of the hype from those that IMO fully know better. Being human, we've all broken trust at some point in our lives, most of us try not to make a habit of it and regret when it does happen.

 

Trust is earned, not given by intelligence, power or fame. For QM computing and AI claims, the track record is filled with grift because of the hype from those that IMO fully know better. Being human, we've all broken trust at some point in our lives, most of us try not to make a habit of it and regret when it does happen.

All true, but recall 19th century physics. It was trusted (earned trust) that there was a "luminiferous aether" but there isn't.

 

https://www.theregister.com/2025/07/31/microsoft_quantum_paper_science/
Bitter fight over 2020 Microsoft quantum paper both resolved and unresolved

 

All true, but recall 19th century physics. It was trusted (earned trust) that there was a "luminiferous aether" but there isn't.

There are modern ideas that bring this back into a possible reality of some kind. It's kind of nutty really how physics changes with time simply because we have a hard time figuring this stuff out perfectly. For example, there may be a link to gravitons which are also elusive but still sought after.

 

It's kind of nutty really how physics changes with time...

And time changes with physics.

 

There are modern ideas that bring this back into a possible reality of some kind. It's kind of nutty really how physics changes with time simply because we have a hard time figuring this stuff out perfectly. For example, there may be a link to gravitons which are also elusive but still sought after.

The take away here, for students and school kids, is that science has nothing to do with truth, that's a key point that must be stressed.

We should be teaching kids philosophy, how to think.

 

The take away here, for students and school kids, is that science has nothing to do with truth, that's a key point that must be stressed.

We should be teaching kids philosophy, how to think.

While I get your point, I'm not sure I agree with you. I'd say that science (the scientific method, to be precise) and truth are not the same thing, but they're intrinsically linked. Math has entirely to do with truth, for instance. And science cannot do without math.

But yeah, teaching kids to reason and think for themselves is the real challenge.

 

While I get your point, I'm not sure I agree with you. I'd say that science (the scientific method, to be precise) and truth are not the same thing, but they're intrinsically linked. Math has entirely to do with truth, for instance. And science cannot do without math.

But yeah, teaching kids to reason and think for themselves is the real challenge.

You made me realize something interesting about science vs truth which would agree with your insight.

Science is RECURSIVE. That is, we discover, then realize the errors and correct it, then realize the errors and correct it, then ... etc., etc.
So it would be like a feedback system with TRUTH being the reference, and then a function of minds, then the output is Science. But then later, we loop back because we realize that the Science is still not the truth, so the feedback is:
SCIENCE_OUT=fm(TRUTH-SCIENCE_OUT_PREVIOUS)
where fm() is the function of minds. BTW, that is TRUTH minus SCIENCE_OUT_PREVIOUS and that's the error term we use to adjust the next input to the system.

So in short it's a constant recursion over previous beliefs and what we believe is truth at the time.
It is interesting that we also use measurements of nature in order to determine what is not true, so we don't really have truth we just have "NOT TRUTH" if you will. We know it's not right yet because we got two different outcomes, and that gives us feedback.

Along those lines of thought, it seems that quantum mechanics and relativity may never be consolidated into one thing. If we try to measure the smoothness of space with quantum mechanics, it doesn't work. It's like they are two different paradigms: one is really geometry and the other actually physical. Geometry is not real in itself, but we consider something like mass to be real. Something like that.

 

Proven quantum advantage: Researchers cut the time for a learning task from 20 million years to 15 minutes

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The experiment was set up in the basement at DTU Physics and runs at telecom wavelengths with well-known optical parts. It works even with ordinary losses in the setup. That matters, the researchers say, because it shows that the gain comes from how you measure, not a perfect measuring device.

 

Proven quantum advantage: Researchers cut the time for a learning task from 20 million years to 15 minutes
View attachment 356606​

Jonas Schou Neergaard‑Nielsen, an associate professor at DTU Physics and co-author of the paper, stresses that the researchers have not targeted a concrete real-world system yet.

"Even though a lot of people are talking about quantum technology and how they outperform classical computers, the fact remains that today, they don't. So, what satisfies us is primarily that we have finally found a quantum mechanical system that does something no classical system will ever be able to do," says Neergaard‑Nielsen.

Another possible but not practical toy.

 

It reminds me of the engineer's question: "Just because I can, should I ?????" Certainly there are many modern inventions that all of the world would be better off if they did never exist.

 

Proven quantum advantage: Researchers cut the time for a learning task from 20 million years to 15 minutes
View attachment 356606​

Oh interesting, so what was the 'task' at hand?

Also, so how long would it take them to crack launch codes for missiles?

 

QM machines (or any computing device) will never crack (one-time pad) launch codes for missiles.

There is also this BS story about codes being set to all zeros. Never happened, people saw indexing (translate) code inputs that needed extra EAM (SIOP enable and targeting codes) decoded messages to be more than a lump of metal and it damn sure won't launch.
https://www.scribd.com/document/200806620/140113-Blair-ICBM-Code-Response

 

Quantum Computing is still in the "HYPE" portion of the curve. and how could anybody honestly figure a task would take 20 million years?? That is at best a dumb guess and at worst a plain old lie. A number made up to impress investors, probably. AND, Certainly, there is a real need to impress investors to continue to pay the high salaries of those folks working, or pretending to be working, to deliver "the next software miracle."

 

Time will tell ... what drew my attention to the article is its reference to rather serious source ...

 

Quantum Computing is still in the "HYPE" portion of the curve. and how could anybody honestly figure a task would take 20 million years?? That is at best a dumb guess and at worst a plain old lie. A number made up to impress investors, probably. AND, Certainly, there is a real need to impress investors to continue to pay the high salaries of those folks working, or pretending to be working, to deliver "the next software miracle."

Hi,

Well, I don't know about 20 million years, but some tasks will take a very, very long time on the scale of years, which is long enough for me to not start it

I did some numerical PDE calculations that I had to leave run overnight. Some took even longer. It's just that the number of calculations that have to be done because there are a lot of nodes to solve for, and they all have to be solved for because they interact. This was with an 8 core 3.1GHz CPU which was somewhat decent for the time, except it only had 4 floating point units (which AMD actually got sued for some years later).
That was with 2d networks. Going to 3d, I was restricted to small spaces because it would just take too dang long to get results.

We also know that some crypto cracking algorithms can take a very long time to complete also. Not sure if prime number problems are still difficult or not though.