MIT Scientist Offers $100,000 to Anyone Who Can Prove Quantum Computing Is Impossible
Qubits in Liquid Helium Hulton Archive/Getty Images Scott Aaronson, a scientist at MIT who works mostly with theoretical quantum computers, issued a challenge to all of those deniers out there: prove that "scalable quantum computing is impossible in the physical world," and Aaronson will personally pony up $100,000 to the winner. Aaronson works with quantum computing theory all day; sounds like he's sick of the constant chatter that quantum computing is not scalable, that the theory is purely theoretical. (Check out our interview with Seth Lloyd for a great beginner's guide to quantum computing.) There are as many skeptics as believers out there, so Aaronson is asking them to step up and prove that quantum computers will never be able to do useful work. "Useful work" is a key phrase in the contest; so-called "toy" quantum computers, using only a few electrons, are already proven to exist, so the challenge is more...