[Cryptography] Quantum computers will never overcome noise issues?

[John Denker]

On 02/07/2018 12:07 PM, Allen wrote:

> Gil Kalai, a mathematician at Hebrew University, believes quantum
> computers will never be able to overcome noise issues. See article at:
> 
> https://www.quantamagazine.org/gil-kalais-argument-against-quantum-computers-20180207/
> 
> Any thoughts on this?

It is an observable fact that the quantum computing
industry has overpromised and underdelivered for years.

The rest of the magazine article is opinions.  Everybody
is entitled to their own opinion, but such opinions have
zero probative value.  FWIW I happen to agree with most
of Kalai's opinions, but 2x zero is still zero.

AFAICT the mathematical analysis to which he refers is
here:
  https://arxiv.org/abs/1605.00992    	(abstract)
  https://arxiv.org/pdf/1605.00992.pdf	(article)

Alas, that doesn't prove much of anything either.
It shows that a particular mathematical model of a
particular machine design doesn't work, but that's
not enough to support any wide-ranging conclusions.

He concludes there is reason to be skeptical of
quantum computing, but I was mighty skeptical
already.

The idea that you might be able to simulate some
quantum computer algorithms on a /classical/ analog
computer has been around for a while, and has some
merit.  It might eventually form the basis of a
robust proof that quantum computing is not worth
the trouble.