Re: QC: this looks quite kosher, opinions?

hal@finney.org
Mon, 20 Sep 1999 23:00:15 -0700

Sayke@aol.com, writes:
> READY TO BUILD THE HOLO-1 QUANTUM COMPUTER
> [...]
> The completion of the first practical quantum computer is near at hand.

I don't know much about the details of quantum computers, but at first this looked like it might be legit. It was kind of confusing, saying that computations would be done with radar and NMR techniques. Okay, I know NMR is one of the methods experimenters have used for QC, but it's not clear where the radar comes in. Then they start talking about an RGB freestanding II-VI compound laser lens? This is really getting confusing.

But this was too much:

> Once the new op-code has been established it will be a relatively
> simple process to modify a software compiler to compile current source code
> into executables compatible with the quantum computer system. Initially we
> will use a Linux port since the Linux OS is open source and easily
> transferred to different computing systems. Since the Linux kernel is not
> hardware specific it will fit Unitel's quantum computer like a glove. The
> prototype should prove itself as the world's first efficient quantum
> computing system, being many billions of times faster than a conventional
> PC and capable of storing multiple terabytes of data. When the it is
> finished our quantum computer will be manufactured and placed on the market.

They're going to COMPILE LINUX and run it on the QC? This has got to be a joke! It's absurd. Quantum computers have a very special architecture with quantum parallelism. You couldn't get Linux to run on one in a meaningful way, and you wouldn't want to.

If you did have a QC, you'd load it with special values and perform special quantum transformations on it. It would be an auxiliary unit to a regular computer which would drive the overall computation. It just doesn't make sense to try to put a conventional program like Linux onto a QC.

Then they get going with this financial mumbo jumbo:

> Companies who ally themselves with the popular Linux operating system
> usually experience dramatic increases in stock values. Market analysts
> marveled when SUN Systems stock increased in value due to the company's
> decision to release a MS Office clone with an open source policy. The
> consensus was SUN Systems' open source policy would be most beneficial to
> Linux, which pushed their stock value up. Since Unitel's quantum computer
> will need an easily portable OS to start out with, it is unlikely that
> quantum computers will be running Microsoft operating systems anytime soon.
>
> In lieu of all of this, Unitel has reduced the minimum investment amount to
> $1000 in order to create a more affordable situation for investors. The
> previous minimum was set at $5K at 1/10 of 1% or 1/2 share. This all boils
> down to the fact that anyone that invests a minimum amount of $1K has a
> chance to gain much profit in the future. After all, the future of
> computing is quantum computing...

As I said, I can't claim any particular expertise in the nitty gritty of building a QC. But this smells very fishy to me. I didn't see a URL in all that verbiage for actually learning about the project, either, just a lot of name dropping. Overall I'm afraid I have to judge this as some kind of stock scam.

Hal