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Why haven't quantum computers factored 21 yet?

(algassert.com)
335 points ingve | 1 comments | 31 Aug 25 12:14 UTC | HN request time: 0.199s | source
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vrighter ◴[01 Sep 25 07:09 UTC] No.45090256[source]▶
Because they haven't actually factored any other smaller number yet.

If your program has a compilation process that requires you to already know the answer to the problem you're trying to solve, then what they did was not factorization, but "print 3" with extra steps.

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1. patrakov ◴[01 Sep 25 09:24 UTC] No.45091023[source]▶
The article, if examined by a non-specialist like me, seems to contain an answer to this concern at the end:

> There are papers that claim to have factored 21 with a quantum computer. For example, here’s one from 2021 [1]. But, as far as I know, all such experiments are guilty of using optimizations that imply the code generating the circuit had access to information equivalent to knowing the factors.

[1] https://arxiv.org/abs/2103.13855