Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments

SoylentNews is people

SoylentNews is powered by your submissions, so send in your scoop. Only 18 submissions in the queue.
posted by LaminatorX on Wednesday November 19 2014, @03:58PM   Printer-friendly
from the super-position dept.

phys.org is reporting that a team of South African Researchers have successfully run Simon's algorithm on a quantum computer.

Simon's algorithm, named after Daniel Simon, is a solution to Simon's Problem that is:

...designed specifically to run faster on a quantum computer than it would, on a standard computer. Its purpose is to figure out whether a black box returns a unique output for every possible input. The team ran the simplest version of the algorithm on a quantum computer that used just six qubits, and report that it took just two iterations to solve the problem, where it would take a normal computer three.

If verified it's the first unambiguous case where an algorithm designed specifically for a quantum computer has been able to demonstrate an exponential gap to the equivalent classical computer algorithm run time.

The paper detailing this experiment is available at arXiv.

 
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
Display Options Threshold/Breakthrough Mark All as Read Mark All as Unread
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
  • (Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 19 2014, @06:11PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 19 2014, @06:11PM (#117770)

    My sister had a Simon [wikipedia.org] back in the 70's. Who knew it was a quantum computer?

    Starting Score:    0  points
    Moderation   +1  
       Funny=1, Total=1
    Extra 'Funny' Modifier   0  

    Total Score:   1