Daily Archives: September 23, 2019

Quote of the Day

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As ever, fingers are being pointed at Corbyn’s two closest and most divisive aides, strategy and comms guru Seumas Milne and chief of staff Karie Murphy. One fuming member of Corbyn’s office likened Milne to “a lighthouse on Dartmoor — very bright, but completely useless.”

From Politico’s unmissable daily newsletter about British politics.

A real quantum leap?

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This is from the FT (behind a paywall) so it came to me via Charles Arthur’s invaluable The Overspill:

A paper by Google’s researchers seen by the FT, that was briefly posted earlier this week on a Nasa website before being removed, claimed that their processor was able to perform a calculation in three minutes and 20 seconds that would take today’s most advanced classical computer, known as Summit, approximately 10,000 years.

The researchers said this meant the “quantum supremacy”, when quantum computers carry out calculations that had previously been impossible, had been achieved.

“This dramatic speed-up relative to all known classical algorithms provides an experimental realisation of quantum supremacy on a computational task and heralds the advent of a much-anticipated computing paradigm,” the authors wrote.

“To our knowledge, this experiment marks the first computation that can only be performed on a quantum processor.”

The system can only perform a single, highly technical calculation, according to the researchers, and the use of quantum machines to solve practical problems is still years away.

But the Google researchers called it “a milestone towards full-scale quantum computing”. They also predicted that the power of quantum machines would expand at a “double exponential rate”, compared to the exponential rate of Moore’s Law, which has driven advances in silicon chips in the first era of computing.

Interesting that the article was withdrawn so precipitously. But really significant if true. After all, current encryption methods are all based on the proposition that some computations are beyond the reach of conventional machines.

How to summarise

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Janet Malcolm has written a masterful review of Benjamin Moser’s authorised biography of Susan Sontag. Here’s a representative sample:

Moser’s biography, for all its pity and antipathy, conveys the extra-largeness of Sontag’s life. She knew more people, did more things, read more, went to more places (all this apart from the enormous amount of writing she produced) than most of the rest of us do. Moser’s anecdotes of the unpleasantness that she allowed herself as she grew older ring true, but recede in significance when viewed against the vast canvas of her lived experience. They are specks on it. The erudition for which she is known was part of a passion for culture that emerged, like a seedling in a crevice in a rock, during her emotionally and intellectually deprived childhood. How the seedling became the majestic flowering plant of Sontag’s maturity is an inspiring story—though perhaps also a chastening one. How many of us, who did not start out with Sontag’s disadvantages, have taken the opportunity that she pounced on to engage with the world’s best art and thought? While we watch reruns of “Law & Order,” Sontag seemingly read every great book ever written. She seemed to know that the opportunity comes only once. She had preternatural energy (sometimes enhanced by speed). She didn’t like to sleep.

Do read the whole thing. It’s worth it.