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

  • @TheImpressiveX@lemm.ee
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    545 months 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:

    • @webghost0101@sopuli.xyz
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      265 months 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@lemmy.world
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        145 months 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@lemmy.world
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      185 months 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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        115 months ago

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

        • @kautau@lemmy.world
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          5 months 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@lemmy.world
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        35 months 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@lemmy.world
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          35 months ago

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

    • @beansbeansbeans@lemmy.world
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      105 months 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.

  • DreamButt
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    245 months ago

    Yuh. It’s early days though. They’ll have it in a standardized black or grey box int he next decade or two

  • folkrav
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    5 months ago

    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.

    • Lovable SidekickOP
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      115 months ago

      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.