{"id":902,"date":"2012-02-03T03:31:34","date_gmt":"2012-02-03T08:31:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/scottaaronson.blog\/?p=902"},"modified":"2016-12-10T04:55:35","modified_gmt":"2016-12-10T09:55:35","slug":"whether-or-not-god-plays-dice-i-do","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/scottaaronson.blog\/?p=902","title":{"rendered":"Whether or not God plays dice, I do"},"content":{"rendered":"

Another Update (Feb. 7):<\/strong><\/span> I have a new piece up at IEEE Spectrum<\/em><\/a>, explaining why I made this bet.\u00a0 Thanks to Rachel Courtland for soliciting the piece and for her suggestions improving it.<\/p>\n

Update:<\/strong><\/span> My $100,000 offer for disproving scalable quantum computing has been Slashdotted<\/a>.\u00a0 Reading through the comments was amusing as always.\u00a0 The top comment suggested that winning my prize was trivial: “Just point a gun at his head and ask him ‘Convinced?'”\u00a0 (For the record: no, I wouldn’t be, even as I handed over my money.\u00a0 And if you want to be a street thug, why limit yourself to victims who happen to have made public bets about quantum computing?)\u00a0 Many people assumed I was a QC skeptic, and was offering the prize because I hoped to spur research aimed at disproving QC<\/em>.\u00a0 (Which is actually an interesting misreading: I wonder how much “pro-paranormal” research has been spurred by James Randi’s million-dollar prize?)\u00a0 Other people said the bet was irrelevant since D-Wave has already built scalable QCs.\u00a0 (Oh, how I wish I could put the D-Wave boosters and the QC deniers in the same room, and let them duke it out with each other while leaving me alone for a while!)\u00a0 One person argued that it would be easy to prove the impossibility of scalable QCs, just like it would’ve been easy to prove the impossibility of scalable classical<\/em> computers in 1946: the only problem is that both proofs would then be invalidated by advances in technology.\u00a0 (I think he understands the word “proof” differently than I do.)\u00a0 Then, buried deep in the comments, with a score of 2 out of 5, was one person<\/em><\/a> who understood precisely:<\/p>\n

I think he’s saying that while a general quantum computer might be a very long way off, the underlying theory that allows such a thing to exist is on very solid ground (which is why he’s putting up the money). Of course this prize might still cost him since if the news of the prize goes viral he’s going to spend the next decade getting spammed by kooks.<\/p>\n

OK, two people<\/a>:<\/p>\n