Perhaps the absolute worst and most nonsensical of the Why Files episodes ever. Worse, he doesn't even do his usual ending of "all the things I lied about and exaggerated during this episode". This episode was entirely a work of fiction.
For example, Google's Willow announcement was nonsense. It was nothing more than a carefully constructed test algorithm to show that the quantum computation was working. It can't be used to solve any real world problems.
And as for the encryption being in the "errors", that's not how quantum computers work. Instead, they work by allowing qubits to calculate superpositions of states. And then you allow those states to collapse and read out an answer. Not every answer will be correct. You have to run the computation thousands of times, and if you set up your problem correctly, then the answer that appears statistically more often is the correct one.
That doesn't mean we don't need to worry about quantum computers breaking modern encryption like RSA and ECC algorithms. Shor's Algorithm can do that, and in a few years, if significant advances are made, it might even be an actual threat. But this fictional narrative isn't how it will go down.
BTW, there's currently a $2000 bounty for anyone who can program IBM's computer using Shor's algorithm to factor 77. Nobody can do it, because there aren't enough qubits yet to make even that simple calculation stable. The best anyone has demonstrated is factoring 15.
The Why Files are fantastic!
Interesting.
Also, there are repeated references to the movie “Sneakers”. Do yourself a favor and watch it.
Makes sense,if they are telling us about it.
Q bits...
Perhaps the absolute worst and most nonsensical of the Why Files episodes ever. Worse, he doesn't even do his usual ending of "all the things I lied about and exaggerated during this episode". This episode was entirely a work of fiction.
For example, Google's Willow announcement was nonsense. It was nothing more than a carefully constructed test algorithm to show that the quantum computation was working. It can't be used to solve any real world problems.
And as for the encryption being in the "errors", that's not how quantum computers work. Instead, they work by allowing qubits to calculate superpositions of states. And then you allow those states to collapse and read out an answer. Not every answer will be correct. You have to run the computation thousands of times, and if you set up your problem correctly, then the answer that appears statistically more often is the correct one.
That doesn't mean we don't need to worry about quantum computers breaking modern encryption like RSA and ECC algorithms. Shor's Algorithm can do that, and in a few years, if significant advances are made, it might even be an actual threat. But this fictional narrative isn't how it will go down.
BTW, there's currently a $2000 bounty for anyone who can program IBM's computer using Shor's algorithm to factor 77. Nobody can do it, because there aren't enough qubits yet to make even that simple calculation stable. The best anyone has demonstrated is factoring 15.