from the inconsistent-consistencies-!=-consistent-inconsistencies dept.
Submitted via IRC for Bytram
"WLIHE QTAUUNM CMPIOTUNG IS PEISOD FOR SGIFANCIIT GWORTH AND AEVNADCMNET, THE EGRENEMT IDSRTUNY IS CRRULNETY FARENETMGD AND LCAKS A CMOMON CMUIATCHIMNOS FARWEORMK" -IEEE
One person’s trapped ion is another’s electrostatically defined quantum dot. I'm talking about qubits, by the way—the quantum-computing equivalent of the bits in regular computers. But if you don't quite follow, don't worry: you're far from being alone.
"Confusions exist on what quantum computing or a quantum computer means," says Hidetoshi Nishimori, a professor at the Tokyo Institute of Technology who specializes in quantum computing.
[...] The snappily titled IEEE P7130 Standard for Quantum Computing Definitions Project will corral experts and define the most important terms in the field so that everybody is reading from the same page.
As this is a nascent field, addressing fragmented terminology now makes excellent sense — there are a limited number of papers in the field at the moment, compared to what is envisioned for the future. Compare that to other professions where archaic terminology continues. What something was known as back-in-the-day continues to today because it would be too much work, now, to embrace a new, consistent taxonomy. Especially the medical profession and its terms for various parts of the human anatomy. What profession, if any, has successfully redefined its nomenclature as is envisioned here?
(Score: 0, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 25 2017, @02:23AM
tweak it a little and you have human flesh, it's what they want and what they get.
it's in most foods now with Illuminati designs.
they cannot maintain their human appearance without ingesting human flesh. if you're in the right frame of mind, or should I say WRONG state of mind, these hybrid beings give off the same sick (not sick as in cool) scent. I do not know why this is. when you discover the scent and you're sniffing about in public, it's like the comments made to the creatures in THEY LIVE where they discover he can "see".
There are many ways to "see" the aliens and/or hybrids on this planet. But no matter how much you want to, trust me, it's not worth it, and they'll never let you forget it.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 25 2017, @02:27AM
I declare this comment thread closed!
Fuck all SoySuckFuckMooNewShitNews!
I'ma be pissed at all so I say your site shall fucking die!!!
(Score: 5, Insightful) by driverless on Friday August 25 2017, @03:08AM
I don't know why the IEEE is bothering, quantum computing is driven by marketing, not technology. So it'll end up being described with whatever term(s) the marketing department comes up with to sell it, not what the IEEE says. That's why we have Broadband and not G.992.1, WiFi and not 802.11ac, 5G and not 3G-on-marketing-steroids, and so on.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 25 2017, @03:47AM
Is this a fucking joke? Looks like one of those terrible April fool's day stories on another green site.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by AthanasiusKircher on Friday August 25 2017, @03:50AM (1 child)
Just out of curiosity, why is medical terminology singled out here? If anything, most anatomical terminology is incredibly descriptive, following standard patterns for prefixes and suffixes. And standard terms like "superior" or "anterior" or "lateral" mostly require knowledge of a few axes around the various systems. The main flaws tend to occur in certain systems where things are oriented around what were once thought to be the "major" structures, but now our understanding of function has changed somewhat. But those aren't generally huge issues. And the only other flaws tend to be buried in some of the etymology for terms, but that's mostly in the roots (not the prefixes and suffixes that doctors actually know the meaning of), so unless you're a Latin and Greek expert, you won't notice those either.
Exactly what's the proposal for a "new, consistent taxonomy" for human anatomy? The medical profession HAS tried alternatives in the past couple centuries. For example, naming things after the discoverer. That's great at first, because it differentiates the mumbo jumbo of Greek and Latin and associates it with a story and a person... but that only works well until you need to memorize hundreds of body parts and conditions and diseases named after people, after which you might actually prefer a more descriptive term, even if it's a complex phrase of four Greek terms that accurately locate the condition and its cause. Or, the medical profession has tried just numbering stuff, but again, that just gets unwieldy when you need to remember that proteins 3, 17, and 31 are the important ones for X, but 5, 12, and 47 are the important ones for Y.
To me, most anatomical terminology seems perfectly straightforward, and it's additive, in the sense that once you know the major systems and structures, additional terms can often help you to imagine where a particular thing (like a minor blood vessel or whatever) is located. What's the alternative?
I don't see anything in the links that actually makes clear what all is going on here, but from the limited description from the project seems to imply it's not so much about "redefining" so much as clarifying inconsistent terminology and also providing technical guidance on terminology usage (e.g., all those damn CS people who don't really understand quantum physics terms on a rigorous level or whatever).
(Score: 2) by Osamabobama on Friday August 25 2017, @04:41PM
Medical terminology has made progress in standardization of medical terms. For instance, even though everyone is different, they (doctors, I suppose?) have managed to agree on the definition of the foot [wikipedia.org] since 1959.
Appended to the end of comments you post. Max: 120 chars.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Friday August 25 2017, @03:52AM (1 child)
The other quantum technology is profoundly affected by the same illness for quite a long time already [xkcd.com].
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 25 2017, @06:52AM
another related one [xkcd.com]
(Score: 5, Funny) by SomeGuy on Friday August 25 2017, @04:07AM
Even with all the talk about quantum computing it is still extremely confusing about what it actually IS. It seems as if it is really not possible to fully understand it: that is, one simultaneously understands and does not understand quantum computing, until one NEEDS to understand it, at which time they are attacked by an angry cat.
(Score: 4, Informative) by RamiK on Friday August 25 2017, @07:19AM (4 children)
https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/the-talk-3 [smbc-comics.com]
compiling...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 25 2017, @07:57AM
- eiπ
Thank you for that link!
(Score: 2) by AnonTechie on Friday August 25 2017, @08:32AM
Very relevant ... Thanks.
Albert Einstein - "Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former."
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 25 2017, @09:37AM
Hah, I loved that comic, one of the best SMBCs :)
--
"It's not the size that matters. It's the rotation through complex vector space."
--
"Wait. You guys put complex numbers in your ontologies?"
"We do. And we enjoy it."
"Ewww."
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 25 2017, @01:33PM
The cartoon sets a high bar.
They actually do a pretty good job of describing the situation.
Both here's what we think is happening in nature and here's our feeble attempt to model it in math.
Hopefully, the IEEE will recognize the bar even if they don't clear it.
The CC field is an infant.
It has managed to corral a few Q-bits and connect them with a few special case constraints.
Convergence to a stable solution meeting the constraints is iffy.
Before CC is real, it needs many more Q-bits, many and more general purpose logic constraints, and robust convergence.
What these look like remains to be seen.
The tools which make these work will drive the terminology of CC.
For the IEEE to say they can define this terminology now says they think they know things they don't.
That sounds like a quantum situation in itself.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 25 2017, @05:49PM
Please do the same thing for AI! PLLLLLZZZZ. I'm so tired of the higher ups tossing Machine Learning around when describing some sort of "Solutions" they want me to make. They have no idea wtf it is, and I'm not going to try to mansplain them cause I'll get fired.