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Could you think of a question that it would take a classical computer years to find the correct solution?

Quantum computer people claim THEIR computers could come up with the correct solution for your question in a couple of minutes.

What is your question?

Posted - September 21, 2021

Responses


  • 53509

     

      Randy D Randolph is traveling on an ocean liner taking a cruise en route to the tri-annual Tilde Collectors’ Convention, which will take place in The Sandwich Islands this time. He is accompanying The Harada triplets (who paid his passage and all expenses, by the way), as they are on their victory tour for having won the Miss Osaka, Miss Nagoya, and Miss Kyoto beauty pageants. The three sisters, age 25, have hired Randolph as their English language consultant and tutor due to being their first venture abroad without chaperones. Of course, at their insistence, it’s a shared stateroom for all four of them (cough, cough).
      Concealed in a secret compartment in his luggage, Randolph is carrying $325K in bearer bonds, possibly counterfeit, possibly forgeries, but let’s not split hairs. In exchange for the approximate equivalent in cash, he is to deliver the goods to the eldest daughter of a Sri Lankan coffee magnate who is posing as the Grammarian Laureate for her country, and will give the keynote address at the convention, speaking on the importance of proper tilde management. No one knows it, but she has gone rogue on her mother’s coffee empire and is financing the world‘s biggest anti-coffee activist group ever known. She’s also been carrying on a madly passionate lust affair with Randolph ever since they met in a Minnesota civil courthouse where he was answering outrageously frivolous restraining order claims, and she was filing paperwork to open her own private detective agency, the specialty being the search for long-lost lovers who retired a few years ago and volunteer locally to help out in the community and who suffered a debilitating injury that required hospitalization around that retirement date. Nothing too specific.
      The cruise ship is also carrying in its cargo hold ten pallets with cases of various exotic massage oils that are used exclusively by gigolos, along with crates of bin and other monitoring devices. 

      What is the maiden name of the ship’s first mate?
    ~

      September 21, 2021 11:08 PM MDT
    3

  • 13395
    They may need to master quantum untanglement in order to process such a complex problem  of that magnitude.
      September 21, 2021 11:57 PM MDT
    3

  • 10643
    The ship's first mate is male.  Therefore, he doesn't have a maiden name.
      September 22, 2021 12:04 PM MDT
    4

  • 53509

     

      Why would you assume the first mate is not a woman?  I’m calling Gloria Allred. Grrrrrrr. 

    :(

      September 22, 2021 4:25 PM MDT
    4

  • 10643
    I'm not assuming.  The data you provided shows that he's male.


    (I wouldn't call her right now... it's her nap time)
      September 22, 2021 6:23 PM MDT
    4


  • good catch.
      October 14, 2021 2:07 AM MDT
    2

  • 16794
    If 42 is the answer to the ultimate question of life, the universe and everything, what is the question?
      September 22, 2021 12:38 AM MDT
    4

  • 13395
    That's pretty good.
      September 22, 2021 12:51 AM MDT
    3

  • 13277
    That's too easy, no computer needed. Who was Jackie Robinson?




      September 22, 2021 12:58 PM MDT
    2

  • 16794
    I completely don't get it.
      October 3, 2021 8:28 PM MDT
    3

  • 13277
    Of course you don't. Jackie was an American hero.
      October 3, 2021 9:25 PM MDT
    1

  • 258
    The answer is shown by the project names identified in the following webpage:
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_distributed_computing_projects
      September 22, 2021 1:45 PM MDT
    3

  • 6023
    "A couple minutes" is too long. 
    I can't wait that long. 
    My attention span is too short.
    Speaking of spans, did you see the documentary how they built that bridge over the French valley and moved those spans into place?
      September 22, 2021 1:59 PM MDT
    3

  • 13395
    No, I did not see it. Sounds interesting.
      September 22, 2021 3:01 PM MDT
    3

  • 44620
    what do women want?
      September 24, 2021 11:27 AM MDT
    2

  • 343
    One immediately thinks of 'The Last Question'. It took even Multivac millennia to come up with the answer didn't it? The answer to 'can entropy be reversed'. If we happen to be living in the post-Multivac era (and how else could we possibly know of it?) then we have much to thank computer technology for.
      October 3, 2021 8:19 AM MDT
    3

  • 13277
    Speak for yourself. I didn't even think of "The Last Question" because I have never heard of it. Why would you assume everyone thinks alike?
      October 3, 2021 9:03 AM MDT
    2

  • 137
    Stu: 'one', singular, he is speaking of just himself; disclosing his own thoughts.
    One might add, why would you assume 'one' refers to everyone. By the way, 'The Last Question' is a short story from Russian-born, American, popular science and science fiction writer, Isaac Asimov in case you really didn't know. G'day.    
      October 3, 2021 9:35 AM MDT
    2

  • 13277
    Thanks. "One" generally refers to people in general, "I" or "me" refers to oneself.
      October 3, 2021 9:38 AM MDT
    1

  • 137
    'One' generally refers to the speaker.  
      October 3, 2021 9:41 AM MDT
    0

  • 13277
    And now you are wrong for the second time. Read and learn something new:

    As a pronoun, one can also function in an impersonal, objective manner, standing for all people who are like the writer or for the average person or for all people who belong to a class. In the U.S., one is often replaced by you.

    • One would think the airlines would have to close down.
    • One would [You'd] think the inner dome of heaven had fallen.
    • The young comedian was awful; one felt embarrased for him.
    • If one fails, then one must try harder next time.
      October 3, 2021 10:35 AM MDT
    0

  • 2219
    Travelling salesman problem
      October 14, 2021 10:04 AM MDT
    1