"Don Klemencic" <klemencc@sgi.net> writes:
> For what it's worth, David Deutsch, in Fabric of Reality, Chapter 9
> (Quantum Computers), paragraph 2, says:
>
> "Quantum computation is more than just a faster, more miniaturized
> technology for implementing Turing machines. A quantum computer is a machine
> that uses uniquely quantum-mechanical effects, especially interference, to
> perform wholly new types of computation that would be impossible, even in
> principle, on any Turing machine and hence on any classical computer.
> Quantum computation is therefore nothing less than a distinctively new way
> of harnessing nature."
>
> Does anyone have any feedback on how Deutsch is regarded by others working
> in this area?
I don't know about the view of others in the area, but unless some new
unexpected physics is involved quantum computers just provide an
exponential speed improvement, not a qualitative improvement on Turing
machines. The papers I have seen appear to have reached consensus on
this.
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