Quantum supremacy: the gloves are off
I still don't understand what the hell is "quantum computing". I think my problem is my own conception of classical computing.<p>My best approximation for what a quantum computer actually is. Is that it's some sort of device to set quantum states, then run a "quantum algorithm" (i.e. a graph of "quantum logic gates"), and finally read out the "quantum bits" resulting from the algorithm. That sounds a lot more like a sensor to me. Also all the problems with noise and calibration reinforce my notion that it's more like a sensor than a computer.<p>But to be fair I barely understand "classical computing".  I think my personal notion relies too much on badly defined ideas about "the run-time" of a computer program (some software) that I have constructed from "industry" experience.<p>To me big huge fundamental part of computing has to do with arbitrarily representing anything with a symbolic alphabet. And then automatically manipulating this symbolic alphabet to get a result with can be "mapped back" through the initial arbitrary representation so we learn something about whatever we initially chose to represent.<p>Maybe that's not computing? but then what is that? and then what is computing??<p>Try as I might I cannot reconcile my understanding of classical computing with quantum computing.