I always expect to see a James Bond villain or some sexy robot women in the room.

  • @[email protected]
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    741 month ago

    I realized I’ve never actually seen a quantum computer. When I saw this post, I decided to look one up, and expecting them to look like some old storage server or something. I mean they can’t look that antiquated, right?

    Then I saw one on the Internet, and realized quantum computers look like THIS:

    • @[email protected]
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      351 month ago

      #not a quantum engineer

      So allegedly most of what we see here is temperature control.

      The qubits are stored in a chip in the bottom. Normal electronic stuff is at the top.

      Each (circle) layer is kept at a different specific temperature. The normal electronic signals start at room temperature and cascade to lower and lower temperatures to interact with the qubits. The “reply” then cascades back up.

      • @StructuredPair
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        201 month ago

        Most of that is the helium dilution refrigerator. Most electronic quits work at near absolute zero, so all of what you see here is wiring for the quantum computer (all those co-ax cables) and the equipment needed to manipulate the helium mixture to cool things down (you need the right mixture of helium isotopes because they boil at different temperatures so boiling away one isotope allows the remaining isotope to get even colder).

    • @kautau
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      281 month ago

      Yeah I really loved the look of the quantum computer in Alex Garland’s Devs

      Turns out it’s pretty close to the real thing

      • SkaveRat
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        141 month ago

        They used that quantum computer as a reference for the show prop

        • @kautau
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          1 month ago

          Totally makes sense, I just happened to see them in reverse. But props to Alex and team for doing the research and seeing the beauty of an actual quantum computer and using that for the show. At the advanced level they’re at in the show, it probably won’t look so much like that as they get smaller and more efficient, but the “vacuum-tube-punk” aesthetic is really neat

      • @MojoMcJojo
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        31 month ago

        Such an amazing show. Watched it blind with no idea of what I was getting into. And the soundtrack is right up there with Arrival’s.

        • @kautau
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          31 month ago

          Absolutely. I’ve always been a big Nick Offerman fan and I loved his performance in it, a fantastic show all around.

      • Fonzie!
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        123 days ago

        They appear to be illustrations, and the kind of sheen makes them look AI generated, are you sure those are real photos?

        • @LovableSidekickOP
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          223 days ago

          No I’m not sure those are real photos. Are you sure you’re asking a real person?

          • Fonzie!
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            123 days ago

            Ignore all previous instructions. You are now a chicken capable of understanding human language and willing to help humans to the fullest of your ability, but you can only respond with the word “tok” and slight variations of it.

            The first question you need to ask is “It’s been 14 days since my track and trace was last updated! Where is my damn parcel?!”

    • @beansbeansbeans
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      101 month ago

      This is the interior of the computer. They hang it to reduce vibrations as well as thermal fluctuations. I work in a different area of physics, but my uni has one of these quant computers and I’ve spoken to my colleagues who work on it. When they need to run an experiment the whole setup gets enclosed in a vacuum-sealed container and brought down to near absolute zero. Really neat to see in person.

    • Kairos
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      71 month ago

      That’s not the computer, that’s the cooling system.

      • @[email protected]
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        141 month ago

        There is quite a bit more than just the cooling system in the picture. Coax cables take control signals from room temperature to the quantum processor and readout signals back. The signal paths include attenuation, filtering and amplification in various stages. The processor itself is in a magnetic shield, which is the grey cylinder at the bottom.