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.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.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.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.Maybe that's not computing? but then what is that? and then what is computing??Try as I might I cannot reconcile my understanding of classical computing with quantum computing.