A "Showerthought" is a simple term used to describe the thoughts that pop into your head while you're doing everyday things like taking a shower, driving, or just daydreaming. A showerthought should offer a unique perspective on an ordinary part of life.
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:
That's not the computer, that's the cooling system.
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.
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
They used that quantum computer as a reference for the show prop
Totally makes sense, I just happened to see them in reverse. But props to Alex 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
They get better!!
#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.
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).
The "cheesy sci-fi movie prop" look is usually either heavily influenced by, or quite literally, retrofuturism, which itself is very often inspired by the early computing era. Considering quantum computers are basically in their infancy, they will indeed look like a mix of old/future tech for some time.
Once when I was robbed I was messing around with hardware on my workstation so had the shell off. The thieves did not take the naked tower.
"Grab that."
"No you, I'm not touchin' that."
Or they might have assumed there was something wrong with it. I learned a trick at Microsoft to not have my desk chair "borrowed" for meetings - put a big piece of duct tape on it, Nobody wants the duct taped chair lol.
ooh thats a good trick. will remember.
related, nobody steals pink power tools. A building contractor friend of mine had some pink paint leftover from a bathroom remodel, so he slapped it on all his power tools - no more tools stolen on job sites!
Yuh. It's early days though. They'll have it in a standardized black or grey box int he next decade or two
That'll actually be a shame.
It always reminds me of the TARDIS for some reason.
Maybe because they tend to be round. Some of them make me think of the old Cray supercomputer,s but with a ton of extraneous wires and plumbing added to look more futuristic.