I've heared claims before that quantum computers are not real. But I didn't understand it. Can anybody explain the reasoning behind the criticism? Are they just simulated?
I think that this is now a very fringe position - the accumulation of reported evidence is such that if folks were/are fooling themselves it would now be a case of an entire community conspiring to keep things quiet. I mean, it's not impossible that could happen, but I think it would be extraordinary.
On the other hand the question is what does "real QC" mean? The current QC's perform very limited and small computations, they lack things like quantum memory. The large versions are extremely impractical to use in the sense that they run for 1000ths of a second and take many hours to setup for a run. But that doesn't mean that the physical effects that they use/capture aren't real.
- quantum physics are real, this isn't about debating that. The theory underpinning quantum computing is real.
- quantum annealing is theoretically real, but not the same "breakthrough" that a quantum computer would be. Z-wave and google have made these.
- All benchmark computations have been about simulating a smaller quantum computer or annealer. which these systems can do faster than a brute force classical search. These are literally the only situation where "quantum supremacy" exists.
- There is literally no claim of "productive" computation being made by a quantum computer. Only simulations of our assumptions about quantum systems.
- The critical gap is "quantum error correction", proof that they can use many error prone physical qubits to simulate a smaller system with lower error. There isn't proof yet that is actually possible.
This result they are claiming, is they have "critical error correction" is the single most groundbreaking result we could have in quantum computing. Their evidence does not satisfy the burden of proof. They also only claim to have 1 qubit, which is intrinsically useless, and doesn't examine the costs of simulating multiple interacting qubits.
Cells are predominately electrical in nature. Our sense of physical being is an emergent effect of electromagnetic repulsion at the atomic level. The smaller you get, the less sense it makes to model things as solid and the more sense to model things as charge fields. Modeling proteins and molecules is largely about modeling their electric field.
Quantum mechanics get outsized attention as the “small scale” world. The electrical exists just above it in size, but is much more relevant to how we perceive reality.
My first thoughts after visiting the webiste: People will be quick to create apps with this. But what happens if I want to implement something that is not supported by the framework yet? That is a common problem with frameworks in my experience.
I asked ChatGPT which behaviour results in Reelin being present. It's physical exercise, cognitive activities and social interaction. Behaviours that reduce Reelin are stress, drugs and bad nutrition. Maybe it's just correlation.
Recently I've learned that half of the people are slow caffein metabolizers. The caffein stays longer in their system and it might negatively affect their sleep. Considering how many people drink coffee, I think a lot of people are affected by this.
Yep - raising my hand here. I've completely given up caffeine (including decaf, which isn't totally) because after I got a Fitbit, I realised that my morning coffee spiked my heart-rate to 120, and kept it thereabouts, slowly dropping to normal overnight, after which I'd start again.
A genome sequence shows I'm a slow metaboliser (I expect more will show up with more research).
Slow metaboliser here. Also possibly more prone to caffeine addiction than most, according to said genome sequencing interpretation.
I need to cap at 2 espressos per day before noon at most, or I start suffering side effects like poor sleep quality. People really need to reframe their coffee consumption from food to drug and understand their own usage and effects of said drug.
Please try quitting entirely. My cold turkey took a week and a half and involved intense muscle pain (going from drinking a coffee and a tea each day). I believe the caffeine was building up in my system, although I could be wrong.
I strongly recommend Barleycup as an alternative morning cuppa.
I appreciate the recommendation and will try a period of abstinence this summer, at least. I have quit before, but I find it very challenging to stay away.
I suspect I am an unusually fast metabolizer, since I can be tipped over into very nasty withdrawal headaches extremely easily, even when my baseline consumption is a couple of smallish coffees in a day. The only way I've found to fix this is to get almost completely off it, which as you might imagine I find very difficult to do, since I have to step down very carefully.
Sounds to me more like you consume _a lot_ (therefore have a very strong physical dependence) rather than having extremely fast metabolism.
Alternatively, you might be prone to migraines, and thus are sensitive to headaches of all kinds. That's me, I truly hope that's not you (wouldn't wish that upon anyone).
I promise I don't. I can be on a teaspoon of strongish instant coffee twice a day and it still happens sometimes (though it's worse when I'm drinking more of course). It can happen literally overnight, even when I'm on a steady intake.
The headaches are reliably cured within maybe 20-40 minutes by application of more caffeine, so I don't think they are migraines.
I'm not a regular drinker and even a coke after 11 am means I'm going to have a late night. It's frustrating how often there are no caffeine-free diet soda options.
My withdrawals only kick in on the second day of no caffeine. Also, I feel a cup of coffee on the day I drank it and the day after (with no additional caffeine). :D I guess I'm turbo slow. Although I didn't use to be...
I've learned to drink coffee only in the morning. If I drink coffee any time after 12PM, I'm not going to get much sleep that night. Therefore I have limited my coffee intake to medicinal purposes (i.e. as needed in order to stay awake).
I wonder how they know the axe-heads are 4k years old. Carbon dating tells them how old the material is, but how do they know when the head was formed into an axe? The same goes for cave paintings. They can date how old the paint is, but how do they know when it was painted?
I don't think you can date the axe-heads from the material? I assume they date based on objects found nearby and the technique used to make them. Which is also why knowing the exact location is important.
Mitochondria are ancient bacteria that merged into the eukaryotic cell, accordinga to a theroy. They have a distinct DNA from the rest of the human body and are inherited via the mother. The amount of mitochondria can change, if you exercise more and eat less sugar, the number of mitochondria in your body grows!
Mitochondria are involved in aerobic energy production in the cell, using O2 (oxygen) and some energy substrate to produce ATP (adenosyne tri-phosphate), the "energy currency of the cell".
"exercise more" means "higher energy needs", and growing the amount of mitochondria would be adaptive.
"eat less sugar" means less anaerobic energy production, I guess. Thus more aerobic energy production in exchange.
Interesting - I guess there is some sort of balance there, given the radical biochemistry that is seen with Mitochondria. “The more [mitochondria] the merrier” …?
The more the merrier, yes. I’m an amateur road cyclist and most of my training is spent in the lower heart-rate “zones” trying to train my mitochondria. The theory is that for endurance sports the key variable is your mitochondria’s capacity to use oxygen and fuel to produce ATP.
Further, if the mitochondria is being asked to make more ATP than it can aerobically, then it will skip the final respiratory step and respire without oxygen (anaerobically). This causes a build up of lactate in the cells that is not tolerated above a certain level, I believe due to it raising acidity levels in the cell.
You’ll often hear athletes and coaches talk about lactate threshold and Functional Threshold Power (FTP). This is all to do with mitochondria function.
If I'm rowing for 20-30 minutes in a HF range of 150-160, that should fall into your parameters, right? This is a very interesting fact - I have been sedentary for a couple of years and I'm fighting a kind of fatigue. Maybe this is a way to work against the symptoms. Do you know of a way to tell if the effects are taking hold?
It also applies selective pressure on your population of mitochondria which can reduce the prevalence of deleterious mutations and make them more efficient on a population basis.
that theory doesn't seem to encompass all that is know.
> Wallace notes: “The mitochondrial theory of aging holds that as we live and produce ATP, our mitochondria generate oxygen free radicals that inexorably attack our mitochondria and mutate our mitochondrial DNA.”1
if aging is killing the mitochondria, why then the mother passing mitochondria to the offspring give them a blank state if they got dna-damaged mitochondria to begin with?
The mitochondria that mothers pass down are from a special group of cells that already existed when the mother was born and they are kept in a special, protected state that minimizes damage.
My understanding is that only happens to a point, then new fat cells are generated, which will then just deflate/inflate when weight is lost and regained again. I think it's one of the reasons that losing fat is so much harder than gaining fat.
The obvious benefit is having a greater ability to produce cellular energy, in principle also having the feeling and experience of having more energy. When you gain weight your overall energy expenditure does go up a lot, but not really in a useful way- you are just supporting the maintenance and physical movement of the extra weight. It’s more useful to think of energy expenditure in proportion to bodyweight.
