The Quantum Hype Bubble Is About To Burst

Try out my quantum mechanics course (and many others on math and science) on brilliant.org/sabine. You can get started for free, and the first 200 will get 20% off the annual premium subscription.
How much of what you hear about quantum computing is real promise and how much of it is hype? What is the "quantum winter" that so many physicists have been warning of? In this video I sort it out for you.
The Physics World article about quantum hype (which is a great read) is here:
physicsworld.com/a/the-quantu...
The news item about IBMs mega fridge is here:
research.ibm.com/blog/goldene...
The paper about factorizing 21 on a quantum computer is this:
www.nature.com/articles/nphot...
Dyakonov's book is here:
link.springer.com/book/10.100...
The quote about the quantum winter from Hoofnagle and Garfinkel is from here:
slate.com/technology/2022/01/...
And their book is available here:
www.cambridge.org/core/books/...
The Linkedin post from Galitski is here:
/ quantum-computing-hype...
The piece from Gourianov in the Financial Times is here:
www.ft.com/content/6d2e34ab-f...
💌 Sign up for my weekly science newsletter. It's free! ➜ sabinehossenfelder.com/newsle...
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/ @sabinehossenfelder
00:00 Intro
00:37 Quantum Hype
04:58 How Does a Quantum Computer Work?
07:20 Problems With Quantum Computers
12:57 Quantum Winter
17:40 What Does It Mean?
18:20 Check out my Quantum Mechanics Course on Brilliant
#quantum #physics #science

[@NeonVisual]

I am for and against quantum computing at the same time.

[@bbbb98765]

😀

[@generaltheory]

Won't be anywhere near a thing in a decade. In a century? Maybe!

[@lubricustheslippery5028]

I observed what you did. So you don't!

[@greensombrero3641]

I'm clapping with one hand! Bravo!

[@_Woo]

Ah, Schrodinger's comment.

[@dimitrios5903]

Haha „if you look at them, will they collapse?“ loved it

[@Kay-ql2wl]

Best joke I’ve heard all week

[@JorgetePanete]

" "*

[@BrianMChampion]

I was glad I wasn’t right in the middle of a sip when I heard that.

[@bjornmu]

I was sipping beer from a can when I heard that and it almost caused an accident. 😆

[@davidwright8432]

Certainly true of Liz Truss' government! 'The Market' looked ... the highly entangled (as in kittens and balls of string) government promptly collapsed.

[@Kerbezena]

Sabine's dead-pan delivery and her sarcastic and sometimes cynical beat-downs of overblown ideas with her sharp wit never fail to amuse me. In a climate where so many people dare not call out BS for what it is, I adore Sabine for her realness.

[@promerops]

As I came to the end of the video, I started to come to a confirmation of the same feeling - "Science without the gobbledygook; also without the BS". Thanks Sabine, for your honesty and clarity.

[@xbzq]

She's got a decidedly unscientific certainty to the statements she makes. Her opinions are just that and delivering her opinions as obvious facts is deceptive. Quantum computing has enormous potential. It may be expensive and may always be expensive and it may be noisy and this may never change but even with those problems it has enormous potential. If it's at all useful it can do things that seem like total magic right now. This power is known and this knowledge is what causes the seekers to pour so much time, effort, and money in. And Sabine is doing something very sneaky here. She makes a video that contains inflammatory rhetoric about a topic she knows little about and finishes it off by turning into a saleswomen hawking a predatory product that promises it can teach you how to think. And she gets paid for it. Unknown to most, the reason this video exists is to get Sabine paid. The only reason. This is why it is inflammatory. So you'll watch it. It's not inflammatory so it's closer to the truth. The topic isn't chosen because Sabine has strong feelings about it. It's pandering. It's clickbait. Advertising and even payment consistently and inevitably causes the reduction of speech into drama and propaganda. Each KZbinr that engages in sponsorships falls into this trap and all their channels become hollow shells of their former glory. Honesty gets turned into drama. The depths are made shallow. The complex is made simple. The heartfelt is made insincere. The KZbinr clearly only shows up because it's their job. The passion fades and becomes jadedness. Lies creep in. Exaggeration bulldozes over subtlety. Truth dwindles. And the fanboys keep cheering. Like lemmings. Their brains rotted. Their faculties stunted. Off the cliff they go. I dare call out the BS for what it is. I despise Sabine for her fakeness. Another video only made so that there's a place to tack an ad onto.

[@dft1]

@@xbzq Clueless, Sabine was a leading theoretical physicist and calls it like she sees it. the world is filled with bubbles and this is certainly one. She never said they won't happen, just bagging on the hype.

[@xbzq]

@@dft1 Sabine IS the hype. But you could never see that. Also, she has very strong ideas about a lot of scientific ideas as if they were settled science. They aren't. She talks a if she has answers that she doesn't have. I don't care about her credentials. She's just a person. And she's often wrong. Like all of us. She's no god. She doesn't understand programming, or quantum algorithms. She doesn't seem to understand quantum computers won't be used for payroll. Neither does any of you comments seem to understand Sabine is just a person. Everyone worships her as if she's done kinda of god. Everyone on earth it seems theses days subscribes to some hero's ideas and worships them. When they inevitably fall, these people fall right along with them because they've tied their identity in with this person.

[@skawesomeone]

@@xbzq I share some of your concerns about her aggressive way of stating her opinions (she does seem to present herself as the arbiter of what science is useful or worth spending time and money on), but KZbinrs need money to survive the same as the rest of us.

[@MrPalmadores]

Sabine is awesome. Love her one on Nuclear Confusion. And in this one: "Some people will lose a lot of money, but that just means they had too much of it to begin with, so I can't say it bothers me too much" 🤣😂

[@dewiwilliams4821]

Just started watching her videos and I adore her dry sense of humour, such a great bonus on top of the education she provides 👍

[@barryscott6222]

LOL, exactly the comment I was going to make.

[@lawrencedoliveiro9104]

Just so long as it’s not your pension fund that -invested- lost that money ...

[@sayonil]

Being part of a quantum research group myself, I really appreciate Sabine's well informed take on this subject. The fact that its seasoned with her dry deadpan german humour, is a bonus.

[@GermanGameAdviser]

Can one look/interpret Qubits as a wave? if the question even makes sense... :D thank you

[@kodfkdleepd2876]

I look forward to having a conversation about qbits while you drive me around town one day.

[@MechanicaMenace]

I do not really have a clue beyond pop science about quantum anything. I do know EECS though and after seeing claims of the capabilities of quantum computers have been trying to tell people for a long time they won't make their GPUs faster. At best, for everyday use, they'll be a coprocessor for rare, very specialised uses. Now I have a video to send people instead of getting dragged into go nowhere argument.

[@unbekannternr.1353]

@@GermanGameAdviser Yes, until entanglement leaves the building-thx for asking.

[@unbekannternr.1353]

You know alot about germans, very suspicious...

[@LookingGlassUniverse]

When I was a PhD student in quantum computing we all found it depressing to read articles about how quantum computers will revolutionise business. “Quantum winter” felt inevitably around the corner

[@ThomasJr]

It's like scientists tend to Elonize (*Elon Musk) things for sensationalistic purposes.

[@jfamo3552]

It will make the landscape even more polarized. Nothing new

[@stefanbalauca7481]

Was it worth it doing the PhD in QC? During my Bsc and Msc I have focused on researching quantum algorithms, but now I have to choose between continuing with QC and shifting towards ML/DL for my PhD. Both fields are over-hyped, but ML has seen some really promising developments lately.

[@johndododoe1411]

@@stefanbalauca7481 ML is the programming language that replaced LISP in education sometime around 1990. Machine Learning needs a different acronym.

[@fplancke3336]

@@johndododoe1411 I'm afraid it's going to be the other way round.

[@cheeseheadfiddle]

Sabine is top of the list in making difficult subjects comprehensible for normal people without dumbing it down too much. Wonderful absence of irritating melodramatic soundscape Excellent work.

[@RandomForestGump]

She’s just pessimistic and gloomy… it’s easier to destroy arguments than build them.

[@brendanlund6959]

I love the balanced and skeptical position you take on all of these issues. It really feels a lot more informative than a video that's clearly trying to push a certain agenda or use clickbait claims to draw in gullible viewers.

[@hellolesnoob]

While I really enjoyed the video, saying that she is balanced and skeptical is quite funny. It is a massively oriented video. Even more, since it is so obviously oriented toward one conclusion, I don't mind it : it's made very clear that she will present points that go in her direction, and you know that straight up.

[@RafaelRodrigues-rx9ry]

I always leave the video depressed.

[@hofii2]

"But if you do it with a quantum computer, you can publish it in Nature." Just phenomenal.

[@slartibartfass5729]

"But if you do it with a quantum computer you can publish it in Nature" - and in Science at the same time 😜

[@jayg6138]

😂😂

[@pdxmusl1510]

Yeah.... cause its fucking cool as hell.

[@kaourintintamine1383]

Was the same thing 5 years ago with a deep learning model instead of other types of maths

[@slartibartfass5729]

@@kaourintintamine1383 And now we have jaw dropping AI applications like DallE, ChatGPT and more. Not sure what we will get from quantum computers. The NSA decrypting all our porn videos?

[@strawbarry7834]

Sabine is the living embodiment of "keeping it real", and I'm so grateful for that.

[@anakinthemannequin69]

Not really. She very clearly has her biases. Especially on anything quantum related or related to ideas like free will or the multiverse that involve both science and philosophy. She is great but she's not the "living embodiment of keeping it real".

[@David.C.Velasquez]

If by, keeping it real, you mean leaning further and further toward cynical skepticism, and philosophical contrarianism. I still watch and enjoy her content , but am often left disheartened and hopeless.

[@rileystewart9165]

With great humor!

[@theMPrints]

@@anakinthemannequin69 Free will is just an illusion , consciousness is just an absurd joke....

[@peterpankert3810]

@@anakinthemannequin69 because she is fed up by all the media hypes and BS by journalists and marketing types who have no clue whatsoever.

[@specialintegral2196]

I see Sabine conveniently left out Xanadu's photonic computer with 216 qubits completely at room temperature... They even provide public access to it.

[@bobwasilewski5768]

I so very much enjoy your presentations! They are informative, they flow very nicely, and are easily followed. But most of all, I truly enjoy your calm and WICKEDLY sharp sense of humor! It is always an education to watch your presentations, and always VERY entertaining. You're like a breath of fresh air in my day. Thank you so very much.

[@koraamis5568]

Hossenfelder is like the doctor who told me "it is not my job to give you hope", but with a different sense of humor.

[@h00db01i]

haha, doctor goes brrrr

[@Skank_and_Gutterboy]

It sounds like the discussion I have with co-workers about their kids. They say to me, "I want my kids to have what I never did, don't you?" My answer is, "No, I don't care about that." It really rocks them when I tell them, "I'm not putting myself in charge of my kids' happiness, that's something they need to go out and find."

[@luisandrade2254]

@@Skank_and_Gutterboy but wouldn’t you prefer to be a part of it rather then a distant observer? They are YOUR kids after all

[@paxdriver]

German humour is not a "widerspruch in sich", it's loudly sarcastic but somehow subtle, like Nietzsche

[@deadsi]

You talked to your doctor? Guessing this must've been pre-pandemic

[@emarsk77]

"Some people will lose a lot of money but that just means they had too much of it to begin with, so I can’t say it bothers me all that much." Nailed it.

[@paulperkins1615]

Not quite. Some people have more inside information and make money on both the growing and the bursting of the bubble. Other people buy in near the peak and then can't get out fast enough and get burned. The stock market creates nothing, it is a zero-sum game.

[@mikelouis9389]

Investing in Quantum Computing is God's way of saying you have too damn much money. All credit to Robin Williams

[@ironhead2008]

There's a suing attributed to P.T. Barnum that I think applies to investors who spray money into stuff without understanding the subject in even the most cursory way: "There's a sucker born every minute."

[@fewwiggle]

Unfortunately, a lot of those people losing money will be taxpayers via their governments.

[@mikelouis9389]

@@fewwiggle Then people need to stop electing paint chip gobbling Mow Ron's.

[@suulix4065]

Always love your videos Sabine, thank you so much for the thorough explanation!

[@mirandahotspring4019]

I love your videos Sabine! Very informative, easy to understand, and presented with a great sense of humour!

[@wyattonline]

I worked at Texas Instruments (TI) during the first Artificial Intelligence (AI) bubble, circa 1985-90 (my estimated dates). The issues described in Sabine's vid, were nearly identical to the marketplace hype and expectation of AI. TI developed and produced computer hardware that directly supported the Lisp programming language. To my knowledge, TI sold very few of these systems. Attractive commercial AI outcomes (algorithms, etc), took decades to develop, and used existing hardware.

[@niceguy100000]

There was also a nice little neural network hype (not called deep learning then) in about the same timeframe.

[@jean-marclugrin1902]

Indeed, there were a couple of waves of AI, which mostly consisted in making a new lisp variant and some hardware to make the lisp test programs work faster. Then there was the "expert systems" that were supposed to revolutionize the world and "knowledge experts" were to be trained everywhere.to solve all problems. The fact is that real revolutions are unpredictable by nature.

[@wyattonline]

@@niceguy100000 Yes, also Santa Cruz Operation (SCO), offering Xenix and other Intel/Microsoft/HP based UNIX solutions, all of which Linux killed off. Heady times, fabulous trade show parties, zero profit.

[@niceguy100000]

@@wyattonline Yeah, good times. SunOS was next level and properly working unlike some other caveman software. Also the first VR hype (of course totally profitless) was cute.

[@w0tch]

But AI is arriving at last and is a true world changing revolution

[@thenephilim9819]

"Some people will lose a lot of money, but that just means they had too much of it to begin with" 😂 That made me spit my coffee. Now I have to clean it up. Thanks so much, Sabine 😑

[@sjb27182]

Absolutely savage

[@haddow777]

This reminds me of cloud computing. I was a recent hire at a software company and inherited a project a recently leaving partner signed on. It seems he sold it to the clients by peppering the document with the word cloud with little to no actual meaning reflectig what the technology did. Instead, it appeared to be the cure all for every problem they had or could have. In the 5 page document specifying what our company would do, he had signed us up for a job that would have taken a team of experts years to do and me, a lowly junior, ended up as the lead developer with only three months left in the contract. Suffice to say, it did not turn out well and the term cloud computing always leaves a bad taste in my mouth. Seems that snake oil salesmen are making the same use out of Quantum technologies.

[@rodrickard5528]

'Cloud computing' was always about controlling the product, and streaming revenue. You will own nothing and like it.

[@haddow777]

@@rodrickard5528 not exactly. When cloud computing first came put, it became widely known as a term, but few people actually had any notion what it meant. This sort of dynamic breeds a certain group of people to use such a term as a cure-all of any problem. The snake oil salesmen basically. Back then, if you had a problem, just had to litter the term cloud into the conversation a few times and mamy would automatically think they new some great fix for almost any problem. It was the same hype crypto had and similar junk related to it. Cloud computing, when actually defined, I agree, wasn't anything great and just a play on how computers manage themselves. Still, back then it was more mystical that real.

[@lazzstreets3072]

You became my favorite channel. KZbin needs more content like yours, real and updated. Every one of the words you say is interesting. Thank you.

[@pjmoran42]

"I guess if they don't work out, they can rent them out to have their heads frozen." - best quote of the week.

[@manoo422]

I thought she said hats....

[@steffenbendel6031]

But you probably do not want your head frozen so cold, that parts of it become superconducting. I prefer I fire funeral.

[@bentonjackson8698]

@@manoo422 I wasn't sure if she said "head" or "hats", but I didn't rewind because the joke works either way.

[@h00db01i]

@@bentonjackson8698 she'd pronounce "hat" closer to "het" (not nailing either the American, British, or Australian vowel sound langing somewhere in between everything and succeeding - German engineering for you), and also she has quite a cruel euro humour going so pretty sure it was heads

[@andredelacerdasantos4439]

But if you look at it, does it collapse?

[@LaughterOnWater]

@ 2:16 "If you look at them, do they collapse?" Sabine, your comedy if flawless. I watch a lot of science videos on YT. You are the only one capable making esoteric abstract concepts clear, but also funny in the cleverest ways. You _are_ the smartest social media explainer of scientist on the internet. Thank you _so much_ for what you do.

[@mariasilvia3018]

Thanks for watching 👆text my trader Jeremy if you are interested in investing in crypto to making large profits tell him I linked you..

[@MaryAnnNytowl]

Absofreakinglutely agreed on that one! The next best is Anton Petrov, but he's not a PhD, just (I say "just" but it's definitely not nothing!) a teacher. Still, he has the same flavor of comedy, and he covers lots of different kinds of papers that have been recently published, from astronomy to microbiology and everything in between. But the top winner has, yes, _got_ to be Sabine!

[@DarkShroom]

and what USE is the higgs boson or looking at the "big bang theory" with a telecope?

[@UnderscoreZeroLP]

“esoteric abstract concepts” that phrase alone screams “i have no personality other than my 115 IQ”

[@LaughterOnWater]

@@UnderscoreZeroLP Because IQ is the _only true_ measure of mentorship, compassion and humanity? I grew up in a library. This is your problem of you. May harmony find you.

[@edvenify]

Enjoyed your book a lot. Refreshing to read something the cuts through the hype. However it does speak volumes about the positive state of physics that you can be this critical of paradigms without having your career destroyed! Wish the same could be said for other fields...

[@paperheartzz]

I am sooooo into the intro graphics for every video. So simple yet funny at the same time :)

[@cougar2013]

I’m really grateful for this channel. You really tackle these pop-science issues very well. I say this as a fellow physics PhD.

[@StephenWylie1522]

Pompous pretentious twat

[@aleksandrpeshkov6172]

PSST, STREAMMIE, BEING ASKED : " JUST HWHAT DO YA SERVE HERE ? " RESPOND : " ETERNITY ..."

[@sdwone]

Indeed! Sabine knows how to cut right through the fog! But to be frank, I have an MSc in Physics anyway so I know how to navigate this landscape myself. This is why the general public REALLY needs to get up to speed with scientific literacy! Plenty of crazy crackpot ideas running around and marketing hype that says so much but delivers so little! So as Public Enemy said so forcefully: *DON'T Believe the Hype!!!*

[@mattl1250]

As a computing specialist myself I couldn't disagree with her more. An operation that's used heavily in AI, matrix multiplication, can be done on quantum computers. If a quantum computer is sufficiently scaled up, and these operations were run to train an AI, the amount of training on that AI you could do within a short period of time is ridiculous. This becomes increasingly important as data sets are getting bigger and bigger. I've sat around for hours waiting for a smaller model to train on traditional top end silicon hardware, imagine the bigger models. Quantum computers will revolutionise AI, and that's just one example. Quantum computers aren't going away, they're going to get better and better, and a bitter old lady who's mad that their obscure research isn't getting as much money as quantum computing won't stop it. There's hype but there's also substance there. Of course, it won't ever live up to the hype, no new tech does, but eventually it will exceed it. It's really unscientific to discourage quantum computers by saying it's a dead end.

[@StephenWylie1522]

My God at last someone who has enough knowledge to challenge this egotistical attention seaking opinionated women. Most weeks she talks nonsense and is encouraged and fawned over by wannabee intellectuals who almost certainly live alone. Thank you for bucking the slevering trend of accepting this rubbish.

[@odizzido]

I think the most interesting thing about quantum computers is what we can learn from attempting to make them.

[@Mkoivuka]

Learn about science, or human nature? XD

[@keithprice475]

@@Mkoivuka Both, I would have thought!

[@stefanb6539]

Sounds a bit like "the friends we made along the way"?

[@mattl1250]

Or, you know, a device that can revolutionise AI. Quantum computers will be useful, so long as the progress in scaling up the number of qubits and stability continues, as it has been continuing strongly.

[@peterpankert3810]

You mean like Teflon was the only useful product from putting a man on the moon?

[@ericminch]

I am so glad to hear someone else, someone with more credibility than I have, speak out about this. I've been dubious about quantum computing since the mid-90s. I'm not a physicist, but I've been doing software for many decades, and I've also worked with stochastic and probabilistic systems, and most of the time my understanding of the projections has veered off course as soon as the quantum jargon began to dominate the explanation. It always felt like hand-waving. I gave a talk at Interval where someone brought it up, and my reply (at the time) was "Yes, quantum computing will give you the right answer, and it will deliver it faster than conventional computing, but it will also deliver a multitude of wrong answers, so you'll have to go through them all to determine which one was correct." [edit] Even fuzzy computing does better than that. I just went back and noticed the cat on the cover of the Hoofnagle and Garfinkle book, but I couldn't tell if it was alive or dead.

[@nigelrg1]

Necromancy will fix your cat problem. Just summon up the spirit of Schrodinger. Actually, it sounds as if you've tried that already.

[@Gghjjjjjjjji]

I appreciate your channel and and appreciate your sensible approach to problems

[@juzoli]

Every new technology goes through this “overhype” phase, like internet itself, or blockchain as the most recent example. This is not a reason to stop doing it. We pretty much HAVE TO go through this phase, to learn their real usefulness.

[@peter9477]

I don't actually remember overhype of the internet (and I do predate it). I suspect it has exceeded almost all predictions made for it. Do you have examples to support your claim? (Simple, honest question... not trying to start an internet war. :-) ) (And I do agree with your general premise.)

[@TBPony]

@@peter9477 good question on that internet hype thing I think it fulfilled everything and more I also predate the internet myself. I think the second statement is the biggest truth to be said and is pretty significant. There is a lot of growing pains in all fields of development and some are more embarrassing than others but it's the fact they even tried it is what matters, as far as quantum goes though it has indeed gone too far. It's better to try and fail than to not try and miss your chance.

[@ArsenGaming]

The problem is that quantum computers will almost certainly be useless for decades just due to physics. Until someone can discover a room temperature superconductor and a way to stop particles in superposition from decohering (I don't believe this even possible), most people won't even be able to have a supercomputer, let alone use it, and even if a way is found, we have maybe a few algorithms that are actually useful, and creating more would require even more work and even more research.

[@juzoli]

@@peter9477 omg, you didn’t hear about the dotcom crash, which caused a smaller recession in the whole economy? en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dot-com_bubble

[@slartibartfass5729]

@@peter9477 the burst of the DotCom bubble in 2000 was the internet hype winter. Now we are definitely through.

[@Rolancito]

“Superconducting and ionic qubits are equally bad” is the best compliment I have ever heard from you about QC. Thank you.

[@eluraedae]

Love your vids Sabine. The whole bigger than fire bit gave me a good chuckle. 🔥🔥🔥

[@ajaykothari5206]

Sabine, you are just awesome. So many references above! Even if you didn't go through all of them, but having found them and probably looked at some is quite impressive. Many thanks.

[@LedZeppelinPage]

The subtle humor/sarcasm your put out there and your delivery kills me every time 😂

[@kowloonbroadcast]

fact. the fact of this kind of humour existing within this subject’s framework is already kinda absurdly ironic, but the fact that it’s been so tastefully executed in these videos just cracks me, i almost feel rick-rolled each time. a brilliant thing of its own kind

[@mrtriffid]

Yes, it's great to hear the science WITHOUT the hype!

[@thereare4lights137]

You are becoming part of the few physicists that keep emotional entanglement out of science. It's nice to be optimistic, but much better to be realistic. I appreciate your approach, now more than ever.

[@ornessarhithfaeron3576]

hehe entanglement

[@user-yp6yr9te7l]

yes, I feel like I can rely on her for an honest opinion.

[@Nero-dz5gr]

Unbelievable how people nowadays have so deep of an understanding of Quantum physics and technology on a microscopic level while just 250 Years ago people had to bite on a stick because someone had to cut their arm off when it was infected.

[@BumboLooks]

These days you get genitally mutilated for no reason instead. Truly progressive times we live in right now...

[@xavierxrc]

I've been loving how much shade this physicist throws in her videos at pop culture stuff, keeps it grounded. Just cam across her videos and they've been great!

[@smcg2490]

She’s so flipping funny. My family keep asking me what I’m watching on my phone (headphones on) as I keep laughing out loud. Sabine has Fantastic, sharp-as-a-knife humour. More please!

[@ilicdjo]

Humor aside she is basically the only one who is exposing rotten, stinking mold that have been decomposing physics and stopping advancement in the last century.

[@tonybrowneyed8277]

delivered with a german style. i love her videos.

[@randyp3871]

Right! And her delivery is so deadpan. hehe. She goes from the highly technical to humor and back, and if you had the sound turned off, you wouldn't detect it.

[@MaxCareyPlus]

I work in quantum sensing and metrology, and we've started making the headlines now as well. Guess I should be worried! 👀

[@flagmichael]

You have only an indefinite probability of needing to be worried.

[@monnoo8221]

@@flagmichael hehhehehe funny nonsense. In fact it is precisely that: funny nonsense, because you mix different concepts with different transcendental conditions, hence creating a pseudo-paradox... which can be perceived as funny nonsense,. I prefer to drop the "funny". Another ingredient is the claim that quantum theory explains "everything", which , not accessible for quantum theorists, includes complexity, language, and culture.

[@InservioLetum]

_"If you look at them, do they collapse?"_ I'm deeeefinitely borrowing this line. I was in stitches!

[@SkyTelligence]

Thank you for the clarification without the hype. I really appreciate it.

[@Mindkaiser]

Never again the title "science without the gobbledygook" seemed more relevant. Brutal, but honest and funny. Thank you Sabine.

[@gl0bal7474]

I really appreciate your uncanny ability to blend knowledge with humor. Your videos are always excellent

[@triumphTLG]

I love your content, especially the honesty. It's easy for a lay person like me to not understand when people are just trying to Hype up something that may not be as it seems. Your video has helped me know what the actual cases

[@alexh1524]

There is commercial hype and then there is scientific hype. Don't confuse the two of them. Commercial hype about possible technological breakthroughs tend to inflate and collapse very easily. In 1822 Charles Babbage, the father of the computer, came up with a design for a mechanical computer that he called the difference engine. The English government funded him to make his design a reality but the metalworking technology at the time was too primitive. After 20 years the government gave up and considered the investment a complete failure. It wasn't until the invention of electronic circuits in the 20th century that computers exploded and became a part of everyday life. The theoretical possibilities of computers in 1822 looked just as promising as the theoretical promises of quantum computers look today. We may currently not have the technological sophistication to make quantum computers commercially profitable, but this should not deter us from pursuing further research and development into this fascinating technology.

[@ulyssesfewl1059]

I love your unintended double-entendres (sic), at 4:50 you talk about the quantum winter and then proceed with "let me summarise", which could be heard as "let me summer-ise"! Get it? I am sure you do.

[@Jackiee_Chann]

I’ve just found your channel and what a delight it is to hear things explained in such a humble manner. Thank you for adding to the collective intelligence of our society

[@SpeedOfThought1111]

humble??? she's casually insulting extremely intelligent people and their projects and acting like a total know-it-all

[@Jackiee_Chann]

@@SpeedOfThought1111 don’t be so soft , her sarcasm is part of the humor which allows others to be more receptive and keep gen Z non existing attention spans on her. If you believe she’s actually insulting them purposefully, I’m sorry your sense of humor is so dry.

[@peterpankert3810]

@@SpeedOfThought1111 she is insulting them rightfully

[@MapleTreeStudios]

One of the wonderful things about watching you Sabine , and its the reason i was drawn to all your earlier work in other mediums , is the sense your fed up with the BS in modern physics. Love it, more please ! If you havnt already , please please cover the 'big rip' :)

[@antquinonez]

Wow. Very engaging. Glad to have found Sabine.

[@carmanconrad8684]

Love Sabine's explanations on this. Brilliant, and her sense of humor is priceless.

[@curtisreynolds7375]

We need more skeptical physicists like you. So many physicists are so wrapped up in their theories, they just can't see the reasons some say it won't work the way they say it will.

[@goviczek]

Isn't a "skeptical physicist" a pleonasm. At least it should be.

[@AxMi-24]

A lot of us are sceptical and aware of how much hype there is, but, the entire grant system is based on promising future results and dreaming up how they create profit. If you are honest there will be no grant money for your research. It's a similar issue like impact factor that is more a measure of a field's popularity than actual quality of published articles. Science has been corrupted by capitalism and society at large has no tolerance for complex problems and explanations.

[@Vecordia]

dont get me wrong, i like her stuff usually, but this video is more like a rant about that others get more money for there research then she gets... ofc she got some points in the video but at the end it sounds like a rant about why she dont get the money the others get

[@mattl1250]

She's a physicist, clearly not a computer scientist to see the benefits of quantum computing. Matrix multiplication is used heavily in AI, and guess what can do that at ludicrous speeds? This physicist should stick to making science videos, not videos on computing she knows absolutely nothing about. Being an expert in one field clearly doesn't translate to anything. Of course, there is an initial hype phase of every new tech, but that eventually passes and then after that trough comes revolutionary tech. To say it's a bubble that's going to burst and nothing revolutionary will come out of it eventually, is complete bullshit.

[@AxMi-24]

@@mattl1250 Nice that you mention the other big bubble. There is exactly zero intelligence in AI so fits well here :D

[@LordCarpenter]

I love your down-to-earth, rational explanations. And the humor makes it priceless. 😅 Thanks for sharing. Great video.

[@oystercatcher943]

Fascinating. Especially the factorisation of 21, and they had to make it simpler! Well I do think its impressive quantum computers can be built at all, but you really helped that bubble burst before it got any more big and dangerous. It seems to me that optical computers might be way better for most tasks. An optical transistor combined with the ability to compute multiply and add ops for neural networks in.a massively parallel way would be way more useful

[@DamianHallbauer]

yes even lcd, fluidics, 2d non dispersive non dissipative circuits, mabye graphene layers, or surface based , 2d logic gates are possible in 2 with accurate timers.. solitons, in 1d, advanced crystal nano fluids and such material sciences are more promising and show results. cheap and dont heat up nor need cooling. even a 8 cm wire has a massive voltage drop, these have no resistance so if they are bigger but flatter, and doent make 400 watts of heat, its great.

[@karolkornik]

I like Your humor woman. I like the links to free books too. I enjoy learning from You 🤠 Thanks!

[@exxzxxe]

You nailed it! I worked in the supercomputer field, and spent time working with algorithms to solve quantum problems. I cannot see how the current quantum computer architectures can support any algorithms that compute, ab-initio, molecular structure.

[@SigmundOppenbaum]

I am getting rather obsessed with your channel and your hilarious humour, I must tell you. This should be a million+ subscriber channel. You'll get there, Sabine.

[@Harlem55]

She has a distinct bite of linguistic sharpness that combines the candid command of language as exemplified in the writing of the late Scalia, the tenacity exemplified by the writing O'Connor, and the linguistic influences of the late Ginsberg.

[@EdwinaTS]

So glad Sabine confirmed my vague understanding after glancing the content page of a Quantum Computing textbook.

[@russellniebolt1493]

This was super illuminating. I have watched about 10 to 15 youtube explanations of quantum computing, trying to find one that would give me a real world example of how it would do things better. Of course they mentioned pharmaceutical applications and other high-level things like that. But never a down to earth example that I could understand being a non-scientist. So Sabrina explain things perfectly, they have not figured out anything to do with quantum computing yet other than then to say things can be computed faster and then again only on a targeted limited set of problems with a super-small set of algorithims? Amazing, thx so muc Sabrina for cutting theough the hype!

[@j5255]

Excellent. You have managed to bring together many aspects of quantum computing that I have been researching with much frustration. Thank-you

[@larrybuzbee7344]

In a quantum winter you can know the air temperature or the wind speed to arbitrary precision at some point in space-time but never both, but either way you freeze.

[@scar6073]

I love your channel! Thanks for giving a more down to earth practical take even if that doesn't get you more clicks. Respect ❤

[@user73629]

great video for delivering mostly correct information. but I want to add comments on your short discussion on NV center and photonics. There are existing quantum computers already. In fact, I worked for both of them for many years. But they are not operable in room temperature for technical reasons.

[@SubAtomicFabric]

Sabine is a good "grounding" factor for those with their head in the clouds.

[@jamesedward9306]

This woman is a gift to intelligent people with a sense of humor everywhere.

[@jgonsalk]

There were some serious smackdowns in this video. Awesome content!

[@gyrogearloose1345]

Thanks again Dr Hossenfelder ! A glorious mix of information and wicked wit!

[@Rationalific]

I love your objectivity ( especially when it's pessimistic) as well as your humor! :)

[@exodus1977]

Makes me think of the transition in classical computers from vacuum tube to the transistor and then integrated circuit. It was hardware refined for binary software. It will be interesting to see how hardware design changes to the specific nature of quantum software.

[@shrimpflea]

That is a tempting comparsion but it's apples and oranges. I think the the fission to fusion energy is closer.

[@exodus1977]

@@shrimpflea I don't think I quite see that comparison. I'm talking about the relationship between hardware development to efficiently use binary software code. Vacuum tubes were used as on/off switches (binary), which were shrunk into a solid state transistor switches. It did away with unnecessary components to make the switching occur (like heating elements, glass chambers, and a vacuum). I don't know that the hardware containing a fission process has changed much at all since it's inception (and ironically, it's still basically just a complex steam turbine engine), and fusion has never actually been used to power anything, (despite promises to the contrary for 30-40 years).

[@a0flj0]

I don't believe there will be any change in hardware specifically determined by quantum computing. Quantum computing, provided it will indeed take off, will be very niche, and as such hardware will be developed very specifically for the things it's good at, leaving the rest of the hardware untouched.

[@cryora]

Cloud computing because the idea of everyone having to supercool their personal computers or having a mini vacuum chamber installed is ridiculous. We're going back to the pre-PC days with quantum computing, but the benefits will be made available to the masses via the internet and cloud computing, and the IC technology which allows PC's the be small isn't going away.

[@cryora]

@@shrimpflea Fission and fusion is not an apples and oranges comparison? If you want an apples to apples comparison, you'd want to compare between two different fission nuclear power plants. Fusion technology has not matured to where there is an industry standard, and an "apples to apples" comparison can be made between different approaches. I also don't like the term "apples and oranges", because it begs the question: when is it acceptable to compare two different fruit and why? Can you compare an apple to a pear or an orange to a lemon? What about a a red apple to a green apple? Do the apples being compared need to come from the same tree? What exactly are we comparing between the fruits? If we are discussing the evolutionary tree of apples and oranges and their common ancestor, THEN can we compare them?

[@OLDCANNONBALL34]

Everything you have s said so far makes mixed sense to me, my brain working on it . Your voice and those eyes can watch and listen forever❤

[@mlmimichaellucasmontereyin6765]

Bravo!!! Sabine, this may be my all-time fave of your video roasts (unless you do one that features my new theory and metatheory). I am even more inspired to expedite my practical alternative (to QCs), that improves equivalent "bandwidth" & security by nearly 3 orders of magnitude, while also improving E-efficiency by a similar factor. BTW, it also reduces the sizes of personal node units to a much more comfortable, affordable minimum. How? Briefly, a superior logic paradigm.

[@BillKinsman]

I have worked on systems since 1974 and I have serious doubts about the usefulness of quantum computers and I have had them since I first heard about it and I haven't seen anything that has given me more confidence in them. Hype is all it is.

[@ironhead2008]

Good Lord, do I love the snark from Sabine!!! This kind of reminds me of the hype behind the revival of 3-D and VR to be honest, and I suspect it'll pan out the same way: outside of specific applications its impractical at current tech levels. Unlike VR and 3-D (where the primary application is entertainment which chases the lowest common denominator), I think there are enough diverse applications for Quantum Computing for the tech to continue developing when the bubble pops.

[@hasher2265]

You need to emote more. The delivery is on point. The scientific method is applied beautifully on your works.

[@antonioponce6788]

Straight fire 🔥🔥🔥 Sabine you’re a real one 4 this☝️

[@AndrewKnightMIT]

Excellent summary. I wrote a paper, to spite Scott Aaronson, called "On the (Im)possibility of Scalable Quantum Computing." Would very much like your thoughts. Regarding algorithms, you mentioned the very short list, but the key one so often mentioned is Shor's Algorithm. Many have mistakenly claimed that this has already been implemented on a quantum computer to factorize the number 21, but this is patently false, which you discuss. Thank you so much for clarifying this, and for your great video.

[@danielsank2286]

When I graduated from graduate school in 2014 with PhD in physics and went out looking for jobs, I found that almost all of them were somehow associated with the military. That is to say, an experimental physicist has a relatively easy time finding jobs building RADAR, missile guidance systems, etc. I was depressed. The military industrial complex that Eisenhower warned us about in 1961 is real and I felt it at that time in my life. I wound up getting a research position at Google, working in quantum computing. I am and will forever be grateful that while so many scientists -- who got into science to understand Nature and improve our lives -- are resigned to building weapons while being paid by taxpayers, I have the chance to work on something that might be useful for medicine and other beneficial fields and is paid for by internet ads.

[@DarkShroom]

honestly sabine should know better than to say some of this rubbish.... i have no doubt they will be useful, probably far sooner than that higgs bosom .... but hey no-one knows might be a few hundred years before the machines themselves are useful.... what you learn along the way will be useful and it all contributes this is how science works respect to this field as when i learnt about some of the achievements i was like hog diggity, big factorisations proven!

[@MendTheWorld]

@@DarkShroom Can you nestle yourself in a quantum computer? No! Higgs bosom on the other hand? You can never be sure what will be useful.

[@jongya]

Yea I feel that, I’m currently getting my PhD in physics and I’m dreading heading into the workforce. I don’t want to work on military technology bc I hate the way the US uses its military. I’m thinking I might try to stay in academia and if it turns out I’m not that great of a researcher I’ll just go into being a high school teacher or community college professor. At least that way I can get some fulfillment from teaching. I don’t think I could be happy producing weapons or even going into the private sector in general since I’ll basically be working to make some fat capitalist richer.

[@jongya]

It just sucks man I went into physics bc I loved the formalism and learning how the universe works on a fundamental level. I motivated myself through undergrad by watching lectures on cosmology, QFT, and GR and now I’m facing the grim reality that that’s probably not what I’m gonna get to work on after grad school and it’s really depressing. I’m glad to hear you found a job in physics you enjoy and I hope I can do the same

[@danielsank2286]

@@jongya Private sector can be very rewarding. Consider working in fusion power, wind/hydro power, new battery technology, biotech (think artificial replacement limbs with a brain-machine control interface, or whatever other cool technology catches your interest.

[@zabeardybeardy232]

I have been binging Sabines videos for 3 days straight

[@nickchristofi7992]

Sabine, you are very clever and funny. I don't know much about quantum computing, thank you for clarifying a lot of my questions. I need to do more studying.

[@charles.e.g.]

I spend the majority of my time teaching composition and music theory. And although I love my work, I often have this sense that I am using only one small portion of my brain. When I watch your videos Sabine, I always feel like these other dormant parts of my mind are being awakened and asked to stretch their muscles. I feel like I am being encouraged to venture beyond what I know and feel comfortable with, into this marvelous world that is so foreign to me in many ways, making it all the more wondrous and awe inspiring. I feel like an adventurer discovering new lands, and this is such a wonderful feeling! Thank you Sabine, for being my guide into this extraordinary uncharted territory.

[@BladeOfLight16]

It's because she is challenging a lot of the conventional wisdom. She is asking you to think for yourself, rather than regurgitate what you are being taught. Perhaps you can find ways to do that with your music. I suspect that unlike Sabine with all the BS surrounding physics, you will find a deeper understanding of the intricacies and realities of your field and grasp the wisdom of your predecessors, but finding out that the giants of old were right and understanding why in new ways is its own fun and equally challenging. But then again, maybe music theory has gone down the crapper, too, and needs the same kind of sanity to be brought back down to Earth.

[@coronnation8854]

Just as an FYI, the whole using a certain percentage of our brain is a myth. It helps to think of our neurons as a binary system like computers; neuron not firing as 0 and firing as 1. The 0 is doing just as much as the 1. It's obviously much more complex, but it helps illustrate the issue. If we used all neurons simultaneously, we would have a stroke BTW ;). I'm not saying you made this claim, I just got triggered into a soap box moment

[@amark9775]

@@coronnation8854 actually, a seizure a stroke happens when the blood vessels supplying the brain are either ruptured or clotted

[@DaemonJax]

You're actually using all of your brain, all of the time.

[@amark9775]

@@DaemonJax sure, if youre living through a constant seizure

[@richardoldfield6714]

My super-position on the subject is this: I favour a bit of quantum computing, but I try not to get too entangled with it.

[@SpinWave]

Sabine, you are BRILLIANT . Thanks for your research.

[@russellwright3818]

You are an amazing educator for beginners on this topic. I have taken this video to the topic on Quora. Thanks

[@SurfinScientist]

Thanks, Sabine, for this video. I am a computer scientist who has been skeptical for ages about quantum computing. It is a sad state of affairs that it drains money away from much more promising research.

[@kensuiki6791]

Research like optical computing?

[@danielsank2286]

I've been in quantum computing since 2007 and I've seen steady progress the whole way.

[@SurfinScientist]

@@danielsank2286 Like, in 2007 they could factorize 15=3x5 using Shor's algorithm, while now they can factorize 21=3x7? Note that the quantum computer they use for such a calculation is application-specific and input-specific. In other words, the quantum computer used to factorize 21 cannot be used to factorize 15. To make things worse, hardware complexity grows exponentially with respect to the number of bits used to represent the input.

[@danielsank2286]

@@SurfinScientist When I started in 2007, a good lifetime for a superconducting qubit was 600 ns. Now we see 100 times larger as a matter of routine. Factoring small numbers in algorithms tailored for those specific cases was a nice demonstration in the 2000's when the qubits couldn't live long enough to compute anything actually interesting, but these days we're aiming for full error corrected computation. I'm not sure what you mean about the hardware complexity growing exponentially with number of qubits, because actually in my career I'd say the hardware has overall gotten simpler, and the electronics, packaging, etc. remains relatively the same level of complexity as the number of bits increases.

[@SurfinScientist]

@@danielsank2286 Your claim that hardware increases linearly with the number of qubits may hold for the type of quantum computers that do not use entanglement of a large number of qubits, like quantum computers doing optimization through annealing, but for the class of algorithms based on Shor's algorithm your claim is incorrect. There have been decades of promises of factorization of much larger numbers than 21, but it hasn't happened. Error correction requires a significant number of entangled qubits, which is currently far from being realized. I am not even talking about noise, which becomes increasingly problematic as the number of (entangled) qubits grow. The hardware you are talking about is basically the annealing-type of hardware, which has no potential for those claimed exponential speed-ups. In fact, classical computers perform these tasks as well or better. Oh, and then there are NP-complete problems, for which the quantum crowd also claims exponential speed-ups, which is a false claim. It has never been proven.

[@adamgm84]

I always feel like the pursuit of quantum computing will teach us about edge cases related to quantum mechanics, some of which may provide fruit. After hearing your video, I feel like we should focus more on length of time staying coherent so we can at least play with the system. It's probably 20 years out along with fusion reactors and artificial general intelligence.

[@RobertJWaid]

Love, love, love, the quote gems sprinkled through your videos especially this one.

[@Galenmacil]

We love you Sabine! Keep it up: you are the best. 🥰

[@petersage5157]

There's also been a lot of hype about analog computing in mixed-domain applications, and some of that looks promising. I wonder if there may be a future for digital/analog/quantum hybrid computers.

[@ohcho-fg4co]

Qbits are analogous memory. This analogousness is also the problem. They will never make it 100% accurate. When many qbits are used, error will be exponential to qbits. They will never make working large QC.

[@lawrencedoliveiro9104]

In the early part of the 20th century, analog computers had the edge over digital ones in physical-simulation problems in being a lot faster, albeit with limited precision. I see history repeating itself, with “quantum” computers being the new-style analog computers. You never see them demonstrate any success with number-theoretic problems, for example, as would be needed for cracking encryption (what happened with Shor’s algorithm?). Just about all the success stories I hear about have to do with physical-simulation problems.

[@d1d234]

Sabine, you are my favorite Physicist AND my favorite German. You speak in real and fairly understandable terms. Please continue to bring us these mini-summations of Physics - you might save a lot of middle class people from investments in companies that have little chance of ever making a profit. This is a valuable thing you do.

[@lawrencedoliveiro9104]

She’s Swiss.

[@fabf1023]

Brilliant, brilliant, finally I find these arguments explained so well

[@johnnypisshead7039]

You are bloody fantastic , Nice to hear from a real scientist loved the comment about writing a book

[@BM-jy6cb]

I've been watching Sabine's channel for a while now, and her quirky, almost incongruous humour has really grown on me, not to mention the down-to-earth analysis of a lot of the hype being thrown around in the physics arena at the moment.

[@richardwalker4966]

A bit withering but I love Sabine’s scepticism and passion for genuine scientific thought. It’s refreshing in its intellectual honesty. And the background research is so impressive.

[@danwest3825]

I adore you Sabine :) You can always make me laugh and learn something at the same time

[@stevebutrimas9972]

Thanks for your honesty and objectivity.

[@gosborg]

Sabine keeping us all grounded whilst simultaneously blowing our minds, as usual.

[@sccur]

Also, from an algorithmic standpoint it doesn't matter if an individual algorithm is of use or not. All algorithms fall into certain categories of complexity and approaches to solving them. There are only a handful of distinct approaches that are modified and repurposed for many use cases. If you, for instance, could find a way to solve sudoku puzzles in polynomial time, it would only take a matter of a few years to have several approaches for solving protein folding in polynomial time published.

[@peterisawesomeplease]

The issue is that quantum computers do not allow you to solve NP complete problems in polynomial time. The algorithms we know of so far only apply to a few specialty problems.

[@sccur]

@@peterisawesomeplease you kind of missed the point I was trying to make there.

[@Eric-jh5mp]

@@peterisawesomeplease Yes, but since all NP complete problems are solvable if one is in polynomial time, he is saying that once one is solved in polynomial time, the whole class of problems will be solvable in polynomial time.

[@peterisawesomeplease]

@@Eric-jh5mp Yes that would be true if there was an algorithm to solve a NP complete problem in polynomial time on a quantum computer. But there isn't one that we know of.

[@peterisawesomeplease]

@@sccur Maybe. My point is that even if solving one problem often leads to many being solved in computer science it doesn't mean that any of the quantum algorithms are particularly useful even when considering this point.

[@starkfistier]

Love the deadpan delivery - you’re hilarious!

[@grinpisu]

An impressive achievement: 21=7X3! That's phenomenal! I'm an old software engineer, thus I've already seen something better 😀 Congratulations for the excellent video!

[@frankupton5821]

May I propose a new word for quantum hype - qubris?

[@hamjudo]

I remember years ago when it was announced that scientists had built a device that could factor 15. Today I learned that they can now factor 21. I expect they will be able to factor 91 by the year 2030! Being able to cool things down to the millikelvin level with devices bought on the surplus market should open up some cool research opportunities.

[@RedRocket4000]

AH a positive view on it I like it

[@SimchaKorenblit]

The cooling for the ion trap quantum computers is a technical issue that might be solved. The main reason it is used is to decrease the pressure below 10^-12 Torr so that your ions don't get knocked around by background gas. Anyway - thanks for the great video!

[@rvirzi]

This was quite a well researched and comprehensive analysis of the subject