A recent paper in Nature Communications gives more evidence that Quantum Computers might produce as big a revolution as Nanotechnology, Seth Lloyd, Silvano Garnerone and Paolo Zanardi have found a Quantum algorithms for the topological analysis of data:
http://www.nature.com/ncomms/2016/160125/ncomms10138/full/ncomms10138.html Seth Lloyd, the man who found the Quantum factoring algorithm some years back says "In a topological description, basic features of the data (How many holes does it have? How are the different parts connected?) are considered the same no matter how much they are stretched, compressed, or distorted. It is often these fundamental topological attributes that are important in trying to reconstruct the underlying patterns in the real world that the data are supposed to represent. It doesn’t matter what kind of data set is being analyzed. The topological approach of looking for connections and holes works whether it’s an actual physical hole, or the data represents a logical argument and there’s a hole in the argument. This will find both kinds of holes.” But Lloyd says the topological approach is too demanding for conventional computers "Topological analysis represents a crucial way of getting at the significant features of the data, but it’s computationally very expensive. This is where quantum mechanics kicks in. The new quantum-based approach could exponentially speed up such calculations." Lloyd gives this example: "If you have a data set with 300 points, a conventional approach to analyzing all the topological features in that system would require a computer the size of the universe. That is, it would take 2300 (two to the 300th power) processing units — approximately the number of all the particles in the universe. In other words, the problem is simply not solvable in that way. That’s where our algorithm kicks in. Solving the same problem with the new system, using a quantum computer, would require just 300 quantum bits — and a device this size may be achieved in the next few years. Our algorithm shows that you don’t need a big quantum computer to kick some serious topological butt.” John K Clark -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
