I was thinking along the lines of running current observed data backwards to fine tuned initial conditions. That must require lots of computational power. Are we sure quantum computers and quantum algorithms wont speed this part up. That has to be somwewhat isomorphic to factoring large numbers, which I thought QC does have a potential advantage. But maybe chaos is distinct from factoring, I don't know much about how it would be modeled computationally. I realize most of the battle is getting proper initial conditions. But quantum computing is also coming at time when quantum sensing is growing. To me with quantum computing speed ups and quantum sensors, we have the two ingredients necessary to make progress on chaotic systems. Better initial conditions and better computational methods. That was my thought. Sorry for the ramble
Re:Neurons unexpectedly encode information in the timing of ...
by meroes on Monday July 12, 2021 @02:14PM
(#27813297)
If chaos is not a problem for computation, why do we always hear weather simulations needing better and better supercomputers? If simulating/computing chaos is just about getting precise enough initial measurements, then that wouldn't seem to be a need for weather simulating right?
It's very important to understand that this only applies for a limited set of algorithms. QCs are not universal accelerators. In particular, if picking out this deterministic patterns from the apparent chaos were an NP problem, the QC would be just as slow as any other computing machine that we know so far.
You're also misunderstanding how chaotic systems work. With a chaotic system, even if you know the precise time evolution rules, you're not going to be able to predict the outcome at time T, because a tiny difference in the initial conditions, or a tiny interference from the outside world, will mean vastly different outcomes.
In fact, QCs would be particularly BAD at predicting the outcome of a chaotic system, because QCs can only give answers up to some error bound, unlike classical computers which can perform exact calculations. But the error introduced by the QC itself is probably going to compound the imprecision in the initial measurements of your chaotic system.
One final note that is important to state: the problem with predicting chaotic systems is not physical or computational, it is mathematical. You can have even simple systems whose solution can vary orders of magnitude more than a variance in the parameters. Solving such a system is easy and fast, but the solution is physically meaningless: a 0.01% error in the measurements can mean that you solution is off by a factor of 100.