[ExI] META:MATH Spreadsheet for 'Don't Knows'

[John Clark]

On Sat, Jan 2, 2016 at  spike <spike66 at att.net> wrote:

​> ​
> I won a ton of "money" in Robin Hanson's Ideas Futures with those
> predictions, betting on intervals the math hipsters insisted could not be
> calculated.  After I won thrice, no one would be against me, so I couldn't
> make any more "money" on that concept


​That is interesting. ​I'd like to know how long it will be before a
working quantum computer will actually make a calculation, any calculation,
that no conventional computer or even supercomputer can. My guess would be
sometime between 5 years and an infinite number of years; if I had to pick
a specific number I'd say 15 years because, as everybody knows, 5 plus
infinity divided by 2 is 15.

By the way, quantum computer expert Scott AAronson says things would be
more interesting if it turns out that quantum computers are impossible
because then we'd learn something new, everything we know about quantum
mechanics up to now says quantum computers should be possible.  Of course
if to the surprise of nearly all mathematicians it turns out that P is
equal to NP and if somebody devises an algorithm based on that fact then
you wouldn't need a quantum computer, a conventional computer would do just
as well. But I'd give 50 to one odds that P is not equal to NP.

  John K Clark
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