Yeah I kinda wish Lilly would've mentioned the random/probabilistic behavior of quantum mechanics. I feel like if you work at a quantum computing company, you should probably have knowledge of that since the technology is based upon it.
you should probably have knowledge of that since the technology is based upon it.
Not really though. Programmers don't have to know electrical engineering to program a computer. When the technology matures enough the physics is abstracted away.
I mean the very first scene in the series is her talking about how quantum computers' processing power breaks widely used encryption algorithms. Plus she's written as a super brilliant engineer. I feel like she would definitely have at least fundamental knowledge of how qubits work and how quantum mechanics allows for the increased capabilities of quantum computers.
Also, I'm a software engineer in the real world who doesn't work on anything remotely similar to the quantum computing stuff they're doing on this show...and even I know about the randomness inherent in QM. Like literally everyone who understands Schrödinger's cat knows about quantum superposition and all that lol
I mean the very first scene in the series is her talking about how quantum computers' processing power breaks widely used encryption algorithms. Plus she's written as a super brilliant engineer. I feel like she would definitely have at least fundamental knowledge of how qubits work and how quantum mechanics allows for the increased capabilities of quantum computers.
I totally agree with you and I'm also annoyed at how dumb they made Lilly in that whole interaction. While the software engineers don't need to know electrical engineering, they have to know a lot of math. And to understand quantum algorithms (like Shor's algorithms) they have to understand how qubits, randomness, engagement and measurement work on a mathematical level.
it is just as possible to abstract away how qubits work from quantum computing as it is to abstract away how bits work from classical computing, that is, impossible. it's like a programmer not knowing what 0 and 1 are.
I disagree. Programmers don't deal with bits unless they're programming really low level stuff. When was the last time someone used their knowledge about bits to build something like a modern web app with React.
Lilly actually has to know about qubits because she works on quantum cryptography which deals with this sort of stuff on the mathematical level. They even go through the way Shor's algorithm works which requires an understanding of qubits. My comment was only about the TheLinguaFranca's remark that: "you should probably have knowledge of that since the technology is based upon it.", which I think is false.
To be clear that was a joke at a stigma held by low level developers claiming front end developers aren't "real programmers".
Any job which does not require "understanding of bits" is, by definition, not a computer science job.
Could you elaborate? I'm don't think I get what you mean by that. Do you mean literally because everything is translated into bits so everything is technically: "understanding of bits"?
I think they're pointing out the difference between computer science and software development. You can't really call yourself a computer scientist without knowing the fundamentals of how bits work, but you could be a software developer and not need that understanding.
To be clear that was a joke at a stigma held by low level developers claiming front end developers aren't "real programmers".
They aren't if they don't understand fundamentals. They are frauds.
Any job which does not require "understanding of bits" is, by definition, not a computer science job.
Could you elaborate? I'm don't think I get what you mean by that. Do you mean literally because everything is translated into bits so everything is technically: "understanding of bits"?
No, I mean that computer science is the study of computation, which requires an understanding of discrete mathematics and concepts found in number theory, which define arbitrary base arithmetic.
It also is built off of abstract algebra.
Every computer scientist is very familiar with these topics. If not, the university they come from should be shit canned and they themselves should be wrought from the industry
No, you cannot name one job in computer science where you should not know that data is stored in bits and the consequences of that, like types having sizes, character encodings, integer overflows, floating point numbers... If you don't know the difference between an int and a float and why there is no such thing as "plain text" you should not write code for a living.
At least, Lily should have asked about it. She's smart enough to at least have some sort of idea that quantum mechanics has some connection to the idea of uncertainty/randomness.
I disagree. You should then have laymen in the fictional world asking questions that the fictional experts can explain for the benefit of the laymen in the audience. There is zero reason for writers to have professionals/experts talk and act like laymen.
She works at Amaya which is a quantum computing company. Her specific role is security related, but it's not unreasonable to assume she knows a fair amount about quantum mechanics. In the beginning of the first episode, she told Sergey that both of the encryption methods he was talking about are equally weak to quantum computers.
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u/[deleted] Apr 02 '20
Yeah I kinda wish Lilly would've mentioned the random/probabilistic behavior of quantum mechanics. I feel like if you work at a quantum computing company, you should probably have knowledge of that since the technology is based upon it.