Interesting in this regard might also be the talk that Robert Smith of Rigetti Computing recently gave: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f9vRcSAneiw" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f9vRcSAneiw</a><p>Apart from praising Common Lisp he describes how they are building an assembler-like language for quantum computing.<p>The HN thread: <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15880172" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15880172</a>
Part 2 mentions two quantum algorithms that could be used to break Bitcoin (and SSH and SSL/TLS; and most modern cryptographic security systems):
Shor's algorithm for factorization and Grover's search algorithm.<p>Part 2: <a href="http://davidbkemp.github.io/QuantumComputingArticle/part2.html" rel="nofollow">http://davidbkemp.github.io/QuantumComputingArticle/part2.ht...</a><p>Shor's algorithm: <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shor%27s_algorithm" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shor%27s_algorithm</a><p>Grover's algorithm: <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grover%27s_algorithm" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grover%27s_algorithm</a><p>I don't know what heading I'd suggest for something about how concentration of quantum capabilities will create dangerous asymmetry. (That is why we need post-quantum ("quantum resistant") hash, signature, and encryption algorithms in the near future.)
> Sorry, I but cannot assume you know nothing at all!<p>Make the witty text a hyperlink to <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boolean_algebra" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boolean_algebra</a> ?
Long talk about superpositions of probabilities, but almost no explanation about how can that help in <i>computing</i>.<p>How can the probabilistic operations speedup computations? No explanation given.
I feel like theres potential here for quantum computers to represent perceptrons in neural networks, since they seem to both operate with rough states.
> Qubits represent 0 and 1 using quantum phenomenon like the nuclear spin direction of individual atoms.<p>Not trying to be <i>that guy</i> but this is so wrong/misleading, it hurts (and I'm not even a physicist!). Spin isn't a "direction" and atoms don't "spin" -- well, they might, but the quantum kind of spin has nothing to do with angular momentum.