Quantum computers

[Ben Madison]

I have been doing some thinking about how quantum computers change the playing field in the relm of computers. With the advent of Quantum computers and how the technology is progressing Are we going to see Digital sampling go to the wayside as we see quantum computer will be able to run the amount of calculations to model a single pipe or rank in real time.

I wondering if quantum computers will enable better Additive synthesis or other calculation based harmonic development. If this is the case then how would the technology be applied and how much better would it be compared to Digital sampling?

[VaPipeorgantuner]

I have been doing some thinking about how quantum computers change the playing field in the relm of computers. With the advent of Quantum computers and how the technology is progressing Are we going to see Digital sampling go to the wayside as we see quantum computer will be able to run the amount of calculations to model a single pipe or rank in real time.

I wondering if quantum computers will enable better Additive synthesis or other calculation based harmonic development. If this is the case then how would the technology be applied and how much better would it be compared to Digital sampling?

well, the capability of computer modelling either a single pipe or a whole organ currently exists to a degree with the Bradford system or it's offspring (Physis is such a system). The challenge is that speakers do not interact with each other the way real organ pipes do (the physics of wave interference and reinforcement) and speakers produce sound in a "beam" rather than circumferentially. One speaker is made to do the 'work' of multiple organ pipes, so the more you start to combine stops and notes, the less realistic the sound becomes unless you have SO MANY channels of audio going that you have approached the cost of the real thing.

Rick in VA

[KC9UDX]

By the time quantum computers come into play for this sort of thing, no one will experience anything real anymore anyway. Everyone will be fully immersed in "augmented reality." Fortunately most of us won't be around for it.

[Logan]

they won't necessarily bring better reproductions, it's up to whomever is programming it! the trend of modeling real instruments with computers will continue to improve tone and price, but i wouldn't expect any pipe organists to jump ship. budding organists will certainly benefit though!

Everyone will be fully immersed in "augmented reality."

welcome to my world!

[Silken Path]

I think we will be renting/licensing organs that are only available online, and if we spend enough, they'll play the correct note even if we press the wrong note, and they may include choo-choo train sounds and nightingales (dipping a pipe into a water bucket). With AR, we could appear to be playing that organ, too.

For the last several years, I've seen "laptops" in scifi shows and movies that were two hinged Lucite panels. That will require ubiquitous networking.

And what that has to do with faster computing is that it will bring us faster networking.

Roland would like to let me play synths online right now. I don't know how much of one has to download first, but it's a subscription.

[quantum]

I think we will be renting/licensing organs that are only available online, and if we spend enough, they'll play the correct note even if we press the wrong note, and they may include choo-choo train sounds and nightingales (dipping a pipe into a water bucket). With AR, we could appear to be playing that organ, too.

I think that is a very real possibility, considering the trend of notable manufacturers of professional software eschewing perpetual licensing and forcing its user base into the subscription model. Although, I hope the virtual organ world will not turn to such extreme.

And what that has to do with faster computing is that it will bring us faster networking.

Networking is likely one of the ways quantum computing will be able to reach the mass population. Instead of us all having personal quantum computers, we would just open a browser window in our phone and launch an "app". Or use some wearable tech to do the same.

[KC9UDX]

Huh.. Just like dialing up a mainframe. :)

There is nothing new under the sun. And Sun is long kaput.

[Ben Madison]

Huh.. Just like dialing up a mainframe. :)

There is nothing new under the sun. And Sun is long kaput.

..to connect to the mainframe pick up the phone and dial number, wait until their is a tone then press sync on the Teletype...

I paraphrased it!
.

[Epicurious Maximus]

Want a quantum computer? Get a hold of D Wave in Western Canada. They're ready, they work and they are for sale if you got the doe-re-mi. Only takes 25KW of power, core operates at -13K and takes up about as much space as factory air conditioner. And you'll need their quantum operating systems and their scientists to help you. (DARPA wanted to buy them and wasn't nice about it [are they ever?!], The inventors and owners said no. But D Wave is in Canada and the Canadian government told the US to cut it out and wait its turn. Now what this has to do with pipe organs I don't know.

[APipeOrganist]

As mentioned above, Qunatum computers are big and expensive. They are less hitting us like a freight train, more running gently into out leg like a Hornby OO model of said train running at the lowest possible power setting. The things that the quantum computers are doing at the moment are purely research, and they have more in common with the Large Hadron Collider than they do with a desktop. There is no GUI, no google, no word, nothing that we would associate with a standard desktop computer. And considering the power and cooling requirements that they currently have, I wouldn't hold out on them being home-user friendly for a good while yet.

[Ben Madison]

As mentioned above, Qunatum computers are big and expensive. They are less hitting us like a freight train, more running gently into out leg like a Hornby OO model of said train running at the lowest possible power setting. The things that the quantum computers are doing at the moment are purely research, and they have more in common with the Large Hadron Collider than they do with a desktop. There is no GUI, no google, no word, nothing that we would associate with a standard desktop computer. And considering the power and cooling requirements that they currently have, I wouldn't hold out on them being home-user friendly for a good while yet.

I see your point but i was asking about what quantum computer could do for pipe organs. I saw it as an opportunity to kind of kick digital sampling to the curb and take hold the alternatives that are out their.

its true that qauntum computers are big things right now, but i can foresee qautum computers augmenting the real instrument or completely providing a Quantum equivalent of the Wanamaker pipe organ.

[crapwonk]

Here is a link to the D-Wave computing group mentioned above:
https://www.dwavesys.com/tutorials/b...antum-hardware

Regarding temperature, from the D-Wave site, "Reduction of the temperature of the computing environment below approximately 80mK is required for the processor to function, and generally performance increases as temperature is lowered - the lower the temperature, the better. The latest generation D-Wave 2000Q system has an operating temperature of about 15 mK. " K is Kelvin, the metric absolute temperature scale. You cannot have temperatures below 0 K, and it is exponentially difficult to approach 0 K (and impossible to actually reach 0 itself).

From a recent MIT Technology Review article (2/21/18), https://www.technologyreview.com/s/6...quantum-world/
"Another reason for caution is that it isn’t obvious how useful even a perfectly functioning quantum computer would be. It doesn’t simply speed up any task you throw at it; in fact, for many calculations, it would actually be slower than classical machines. Only a handful of algorithms have so far been devised where a quantum computer would clearly have an edge. And even for those, that edge might be short-lived. The most famous quantum algorithm, developed by Peter Shor at MIT, is for finding the prime factors of an integer. Many common cryptographic schemes rely on the fact that this is hard for a conventional computer to do. But cryptography could adapt, creating new kinds of codes that don’t rely on factorization."

The point is, quantum computing will be challenging for anytime in the near future, maybe forever. In addition, they may not actually offer any advantage over current computer architectures.