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Here\u2019s what you\u2019ll learn when you read this story:<\/p>\n
Quantum computers can outperform even the best classical supercomputers thanks to quantum entanglement and superposition, but even they can\u2019t solve some problems.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n
A new preprint study shows how quantum computers can\u2019t solve a \u201cnightmare\u201d problem of determining quantum phases of matter.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n
This limitation of quantum computers might point to a limit on physical observation itself.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
Quantum computing is often portrayed as the \u201csuperman\u201d of the information age. Powered by entangled qubits in superposition<\/a>, these high-tech machines can perform many calculations at once, drastically improving computing time when compared to classic supercomputers. Just last week, for instance, Google announced that the company\u2019s quantum computer could run algorithms some 13,000 times faster<\/a> than its classical counterpart.<\/p>\n But even Superman has his kryptonite\u2014and the same can be said for quantum computers<\/a>.<\/p>\n Usually, these weaknesses play out on the engineering side of things. For one, quantum computers are extremely susceptible to decoherence<\/a> and require robust error-correction to even be usable. This is the chief reason why today\u2019s quantum computers can barely inch past the 1,000-qubit mark, and current estimates suggest that a 20 million-qubit quantum computer<\/a> would be needed to break classical cryptography.<\/p>\n But a new study, recently uploaded to the preprint server arXiv<\/a>, explores the computational limits of these machines\u2014possibly probing the very limit of physical observation itself. In other words, there are some problems<\/a> that even quantum computers can\u2019t solve, and it could be that these questions are fundamentally unsolvable.<\/p>\n Although not all examples of determining a quantum phase are considered impossible, New Scientist<\/a> reports that some questions would require quantum computers to operate for impossibly long times\u2014potentially billions of trillions of years<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cThey\u2019re like a nightmare scenario<\/a> that would be very bad if it appears,\u201d Schuster tells New Scientist. \u201cIt probably doesn\u2019t appear, but we should understand it better.\u201d<\/p>\n This work is a follow-up to Schuster\u2019s recent study, published earlier this year in the journal Science<\/a>, which focused on improving randomness in quantum computers. Simulating randomness<\/a> helps scientists understand real-world phenomena and design algorithms.<\/p>\n The team was able to generate randomness with fewer operations than were previously necessary, which could indicate that it\u2019s possible to create quantum computers focused on cryptography<\/a> much more easily that was expected. However, within this research, Schuster and his team probed a deeper question behind the work: What are the possible computational limits of these machines?<\/p>\n \u201cOur results show that several fundamental physical properties\u2014evolution time, phases of matter, and causal structure\u2014 are probably hard to learn through conventional quantum experiments<\/a>,\u201d the authors noted in a press statement<\/a> at the time. \u201cThis raises profound questions about the nature of physical observation itself.\u201d<\/p>\n [galleryCarousel id=’9e9354e9-d0c6-426e-ba21-7d41e95744de’ mediaId=’6acac276-d46e-4570-9334-1c575c38ff79′ display=’carousel’ align=’center’ size=”medium” share=”true” expand=” captions=”true” suppress-title=”false” hasProducts=”false”][\/galleryCarousel]<\/p>\n You Might Also Like<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"“Hearst Magazines and Yahoo may earn commission or revenue on some items through these links.” Here\u2019s what you\u2019ll…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":341291,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[25],"tags":[168123,168122,492,28543,13897,159,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-341290","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-physics","8":"tag-classical-cryptography","9":"tag-physical-observation","10":"tag-physics","11":"tag-quantum-computers","12":"tag-quantum-entanglement","13":"tag-science","14":"tag-united-states","15":"tag-unitedstates","16":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115458787667264784","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/341290","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=341290"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/341290\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/341291"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=341290"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=341290"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=341290"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}