this post was submitted on 14 Oct 2023
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To be fair, there's no real constraint to what a computer should look like, as long as it computes. You can build the foundational circuits of modern CPUs using dominos, and if you had the space you could build a one time use adder. It would compute the sum of two numbers, so it's technically a computer. Your pipe and water example is technically also a valid computer if built as such.
I understand your statement here and I agree with it. Yet I guess both you and the other user here (@cyd@lemmy.world) are missing what I am trying to describe. Maybe my explanation is not accurate and my understanding is not well developed.
Let me illustrate with an example : we can study new planes models :
a)- in a wind tunnel equipped with instrumentation (camera, smoke trail and so on), or
b)- with numerical simulations on a computer.
One method (a) is very specific to a very precise problem, it cannot be (easily) adapted to calculate various random problems. The other (b) is meant to be a versatile programmable computer and so can switch to a completely different problem in one microsecond.
For what I understand, so-called quantum computers (of today) are more like option (a).
Does this makes sense to you ?
I think what you're missing is that quantum computers aim to tackle computational problems that are classically intractable. In other words, option (b) does not exist, or takes the on the order of the age of the universe to run. Then, for all the numerous practical disadvantages of using a quantum system to perform the calculation, it would be the only game in town.