The “JVG algorithm” only wins on tiny numbers (scottaaronson.blog)

34 points by jhalderm 2 hours ago

14 comments:

by MathMonkeyMan 2 hours ago

The title of this post changed as I was reading it. "It looks like the 'JVG algorithm' only wins on tiny numbers" is a charitable description. The article is Scott Aaronson lambasting the paper and shaming its authors as intellectual hooligans.

by measurablefunc 41 minutes ago

Scott Aaronson is the guy who keeps claiming quantum supremacy is here every year so he's like the proverbial pot calling the kettle black.

by guy4261 an hour ago

> (yes, the authors named it after themselves) The same way the AVL tree is named after its inventors - Georgy Adelson-Velsky and Evgenii Landis... Nothing peculiar about this imh

by johncarlosbaez an hour ago

Adelson-Velsky and Evgenii Landis were not the ones who named their tree the "AVL tree".

In my "crackpot index", item 20 says:

20 points for naming something after yourself. (E.g., talking about the "The Evans Field Equation" when your name happens to be Evans.)

by goodmythical an hour ago

Like RSA?

by ot 42 minutes ago

RSA was also not given that name by its authors, the name came later, which is usually the case.

In the original paper they do not give it any name: https://people.csail.mit.edu/rivest/Rsapaper.pdf

by abound an hour ago

Same with RSA and other things, I think the author's point is that slapping your name on an algorithm is a pretty big move (since practically, you can only do it a few times max in your life before it would get too confusing), and so it's a gaudy thing to do, especially for something illegitimate.

by PLenz 16 minutes ago
by croes an hour ago

Named after != named by

by RcouF1uZ4gsC 2 hours ago

Scott References the top comment on this previous HN discussion

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47246295

by kmeisthax 2 hours ago

I mean, considering that no quantum computer has ever actually factored a number, a speedup on tiny numbers is still impressive :P

by dehrmann 2 minutes ago

I didn't get the quantum hype last year. At least with AI, you can see it do some impressive things with caveats, and there are bull and bear cases that are both reasonable. The quantum hype training is promising the world, but compared to AI, it's at the linear regression stage.

by Tyr42 an hour ago

Hey hey, 15 = 3*5 is factoring.

by ashivkum an hour ago

my understanding is that they factored 15 using a modular exponentiation circuit that presumes that the modulus is 3. factoring 15 with knowledge of 3 is not so impressive. Shor's algorithm has never been run with a full modular exponentiation circuit.

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