Talk:Quantum supremacy

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Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment[edit]

This article is or was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Jamesonoreilly. Peer reviewers: Rothschild.e.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 02:54, 18 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment[edit]

This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 20 August 2020 and 23 November 2020. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Mcatalano26, Ctaitz. Peer reviewers: ColeDU, Jgus716.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 02:54, 18 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Talk[edit]

A good start on your Quantum Supremacy summary, @Jamesonoreilly--this article will complement other related entries on Wikipedia (e.g. quantum computing, quantum mechanical phenomena, etc). --Amyc29 (talk) 01:59, 24 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I thought this article did a really good job of organizing the relevant information into sections where each section had a decent amount of information and representation. I'm not familiar with this topic at all so there was definitely some information that went over my head, but I think you explained it in a coherent enough way that if I knew a little more about algorithms and circuits it would make perfect sense. I would work on some wording just to make the point of some sentences clear, for example I had to reread the part of your introduction that talked about polynomial speedups just because the phrasing was a bit confusing. I would also add a "Notes" title above all of your references (so many!) and add links within your article to other wikipedia pages. Overall, really well organized, great information, very thorough - I'll definitely be looking into reorganizing my article because I like the way you did yours. Read like an encyclopedia with acknowledgment of the skepticism without seeming like you were persuading the reader either way. Good work! Greenough.h (talk) 19:03, 1 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]


Article Evaluation:

This page demonstrates a strong knowledge of quantum computing and both the results needed for, and the arguments for and against the supremacy of quantum computing to traditional computing methods.  Factual, to the point, well organized.  Tone is neutral, page does a good job discussing skepticism of quantum supremacy.

This article could use more explanation of the litany of technical terminology needed to understand the article.  Sentences are dense, and at times tough to read.  A simple alternative could be hyperlinking wikipedia pages that explain technical terminology, such as the wikipedia page for qubits.  The intention of google to prove quantum supremacy in 2017 is mentioned twice in the article, both times the sentence structure is virtually the same.  The second mention of google's plans to build a 49 qubit quantum computer does not say anything new.  Even though these sentences are in different sections, consider removing the second mention, or altering the sentence to mention the potential development in a new and interesting way.

This page presents information on the proposed supremacy of quantum computing in an unbiased manner.  The page has all the information needed to be a good first source for researching quantum supremacy, but the language used in the page is a bit to dense to be the best first source that it could be.  The concepts discussed could potentially be introduced in more accessible language. Overall, a really good wiki submission.Rothschild.e (talk) 03:56, 4 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the feedback! I shortened the last paragraph of the lead to make it more of a summary and to avoid being repetitive when I mention Google's plans later on. As for density, I think that the level of knowledge required to read the article is similar to that needed for related articles like quantum computing. I added a lot of links to other Wikipedia articles to keep mine connected to other related content and to make it easier to fill in the gaps not covered in this article. Jamesonoreilly (talk) 03:22, 12 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Quantum advantage with shallow circuits[edit]

Can anyone with more knowledge in the subject check if this news is in the scope of the article? If so, could you update the article with information about this new theorem? Saung Tadashi (talk) 04:13, 24 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Criticism of the name section[edit]

I mistakenly re-added this section without a corresponding message, but to explain my reasoning: I'm not particularly attached to the section, but I think it's a reasonably common criticism in the quantum computing community; looking at the extended list of signatories, Debbie Leung, Anne Broadbent, Andrew G. White have all signed the petition, along with a good number of people at Microsoft Quantum. I think it also has enough press coverage to justify inclusion. Fawly (talk) 08:35, 23 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I concur. I think the whole drama is rather silly, but it did get some coverage, and plenty of serious researchers were involved. Tercer (talk) 09:28, 23 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Hans Wurst's suggestion of "quantum ascendancy" is thought to be unacceptably offensive.96.235.138.158 (talk) 14:06, 31 May 2021 (UTC)Dieter Funicula[reply]
Could you provide a citation for that offense? 31.205.129.67 (talk) 02:33, 22 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Requested move 3 January 2023[edit]

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Quantum supremacy → Quantum advantage – As noted in the Criticism section, "Quantum Supremacy" evokes the racist "white supremacy". Over the past 12 months, "Quantum Advantage" has pulled ahead of "Quantum Supremacy" in Google Trends for search frequency, thus making it the new WP:COMMONNAME Michaelmalak (talk) 14:52, 3 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose. The Google Trends data is way too noisy to show anything beyond the fact that there's very few people searching for either term. The problem with "quantum advantage" is that it is a generic term, used for plenty of phenomena beyond the strict sense of a computational problem that can be solved by a quantum computer but not a classical one. I don't think it is a good choice for title when a more narrow term exists. As for WP:COMMONNAME, there are tons of papers from 2022 using the name "quantum supremacy", so it's not as if the scientific community has adopted "quantum advantage" instead. Tercer (talk) 15:05, 3 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
On Google Scholar, Quantum Advantage has also pulled ahead of Quantum Supremacy, in the field of computing. Michaelmalak (talk) 15:14, 3 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
It has 2330 hits for "quantum advantage" versus 2280 hits for "quantum supremacy". It's an insignificant difference. Moreover, just looking at the first page of results I found a paper [1] that is about generic quantum advantage, not quantum supremacy. Tercer (talk) 15:30, 3 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
 Question: If we did this, would it expand the scope of the article? I get the impression that "quantum supremacy" is a little bit more specific, and refers to the space-race-like competition to demonstrate achievement, while "quantum advantage" can refer more broadly to the potential advantages that quantum computers offer over classical machines. For example, "Quantum supremacy using a programmable superconducting processor" seems in line with the current text about the goal of demonstrating a measurable advantage (for a contrived problem), but "Information-Theoretic Bounds on Quantum Advantage in Machine Learning" is about theoretical advantage (potentially for useful problems).
I think I'm leaning towards support, making the following changes:
How does that sound? Freoh (talk) 22:03, 4 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Michaelmalak, any thoughts on this? Tercer, would these changes affect your vote? Freoh (talk) 03:04, 6 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
OK, but "Criticism of the name" should be linked from both the article lead and the section lead Michaelmalak (talk) 05:35, 6 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I think that it makes sense to summarize in the lead. I'm not sure if an anchor makes sense, as it should be pretty obvious in the table of contents. Freoh (talk) 12:52, 6 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not convinced. What you are proposing is to rewrite the article to be about generic quantum advantage, as opposed to simply renaming it. I don't see the motivation for such a rewrite, I think an article on the narrow subject of quantum supremacy is more useful. Moreover, your rewrite would still have a conflict with the vast literature that uses "quantum advantage" in the same strict sense as "quantum supremacy". Tercer (talk) 13:13, 7 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
It seems like if we're restricting to the narrow sense of experimentally demonstrating measurable performance advantages, then a lot of § Computational complexity is outside the scope of the article. I think I'd need to do some more reading to get a better sense of how often researchers talk about "quantum advantage" in this narrow sense versus the broad sense, but it seems like if both are relatively common, then an all-encompassing article would be more useful so that everyone finds the information they're looking for when they look up "quantum advantage".      — Freoh 14:23, 7 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I'm afraid you misunderstood what quantum supremacy is. It's not about experimentally demonstrating a performance advantage, it's about solving a problem that classical computers cannot. As such, the section on complexity theory is crucial in order to give evidence that the problem is in fact classically hard. Tercer (talk) 15:52, 7 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I don't understand the distinction you're drawing. The current lead describes a problem that no classical computer can solve in any feasible amount of time, and it seems like that would imply a demonstrated performance advantage. The distinction that I'm trying to draw is between theoretical and practical; we've known since the 90s that some quantum algorithms give an exponential advantage over the best classical alternative (based on the kinds of theoretical arguments in § Computational complexity), but the current quantum supremacy race is about demonstrating that advantage experimentally, putting that theory into practice. I'm arguing to broaden the lead to be more inclusive of the theoretical advantages, and I'm arguing to restructure the rest of the article so that the experimental demonstrations are grouped together.      — Freoh 16:17, 7 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose, I did not buy your argument about the racist "white supremacy". Try to move White supremacy to White advantage then, won't you? I heard before about the Quantum supremacy and never heard about the quantum advantage. For me the Quantum supremacy is much more recognizable. --Smedja (talk) 22:38, 11 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Is this backed up by a reliable source? As Michaelmalak pointed out, quantum advantage is slightly ahead of quantum supremacy on Google Scholar.      — Freoh 22:44, 11 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
No, I was talking about my personal recognitions, how I saw both terms in the reliable sources. My personal selection of sources may be not representative at all. --Smedja (talk) 23:28, 11 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • What is this move rationale?? I guess I'll order an "advantageous pizza" for dinner tonight; don't want anybody thinking I've got a white supremacist streak Red Slash 23:33, 11 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Move rationale[edit]

Red Slash, you asked a question in § Requested move 3 January 2023, but unfortunately Paine Ellsworth closed the discussion, so I'll reply here instead. The way I see it, there are currently three reasons for moving the page:

  • Reliable sources have criticized the use of the term.
  • There is reason to believe that quantum advantage is more common than quantum supremacy. One article describes quantum advantage as a term that has now largely replaced the earlier 'quantum supremacy', and Michaelmalak has pointed to additional evidence in Google Trends and Google Scholar.
  • It would make the scope of the article a bit broader and more well-defined. People tend to use quantum supremacy for experimentally demonstrated advantage, but quantum advantage for both these experiments and theoretical arguments that suggest quantum computers will scale exponentially faster. The current article is titled quantum supremacy, but has a fair amount of the theory in § Computational complexity. I think that grouping together the theory and experiments in one article titled quantum advantage makes more sense, partly because the experiments make more sense with the theoretical background, and partly because then everyone who searches for quantum advantage would end up in the right place (unlike now, where people interested in the theory would end up on a page about the demonstrations, with some theoretical background).

I don't know if any one of these arguments would be the deciding factor on its own, but together I think that they make a decent case for a page move. Does that answer your question?      — Freoh 15:01, 12 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

  • I appreciate your detailed response. Thank you, my question has been answered. Thank you. Red Slash 22:46, 15 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I think insufficient attention has been paid to "quantum primacy" as a replacement. It captures some (rather than advantage's none) of the essence of the transcendent improvement quantum algorithms could have on classical ones that "quantum supremacy" was meant to evoke. Even though it doesn't answer to the trends in academia, it is still a superior better term and deserves inclusion. 31.205.129.67 (talk) 02:50, 22 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
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