Boffin claims Microsoft's "quantum leap" is invalid due to "basic Python errors"
112 points
3 hours ago
| 11 comments
| theregister.com
| HN
jdw64
2 hours ago
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https://github.com/microsoft/azure-quantum-tgp

```

return xr.apply_ufunc(

    lambda x: (x - x[::-1]) / 2,

    conductance,

    input_core_dims=[dims],

    output_core_dims=[dims],

    vectorize=True,
) ```

Reading the article about how they filtered and cherry-picked specific regions, I got curious about the actual asymmetry computation, so I looked up the source code. Looking at it, they seem to have used memory offsets as if they were physical coordinates, but they're only looking at the array index order, not the actual values. x[::-1] isn't measuring physical coordinates; it's just reversing the array. So it seems this bias axis mentioned in the article only forms when things are symmetric. But in typical numerical computations, isn't it pretty common to reverse arrays like this? In this case, there must be a reason why the physical coordinates change. Should we be verifying invariants here? Sometimes I see people who find these kinds of issues and I think they're really amazing. Even after reading the article, tracing it, and debugging it, I kept wondering what the problem was..

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simonw
1 hour ago
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On Hacker News you can indent code samples with two spaces, like this:

  return xr.apply_ufunc(
      lambda x: (x - x[::-1]) / 2,
      conductance,
      input_core_dims=[dims],
      output_core_dims=[dims],
      vectorize=True,
  )
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frollogaston
3 hours ago
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Was pleasantly surprised to see the exact bug in here, in a "The Register" article of all places. Legg showed that fixing the bug invalidates the research. Seems Microsoft is responding to a clear problem with a vague dismissal.

Edit: Oh, The Register is a true tech paper, guess the name makes sense for that. Got mixed up cause there are a bunch of general papers called something Register.

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dekhn
2 hours ago
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The Register is a tech paper that is modelled on various British tabloids (daily mail, the sun). Sometimes it's humor, sometimes it's real news and occasionally they even break a new story.
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rtkwe
1 hour ago
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I always find it hard to remember which of the British publications are real and which are pure trash. Usually they reveal it pretty quickly with the writing though.
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frollogaston
2 hours ago
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Haha, they got me. Was mostly thinking "The Daily Register" which doesn't exist, but Daily Mail does.
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secretsatan
1 hour ago
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I wouldn’t say it was modeled on that trash, rather they poke fun at them, eg, the term boffin is obviously used tongue in cheeck
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swiftcoder
1 hour ago
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Yeah, it's always weird that they write and format the articles like the absolute worst tier of new sites, and then the articles themselves are oftenn very technical
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mjhay
2 hours ago
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You’d really think they’d really check everything and cross their t’s after their previous issues in marjorana fermion QC. I generally have a very high opinion of MS research, but this is getting a bit embarrassing.
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rvba
1 hour ago
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Looks that the next step of this "project" is selecting a patsy and blaming all on that one sacrificial person
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frankohn
1 hour ago
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I guess Microsoft upper management doesn't understand anything at all about quantum computing and they are "scammed" by Microsoft research people in quantum computing telling them they are making breakthroughts, that in a few years that can become a real thing, etc. They just need to publish some impressive sounding papers a little bit once in a while and the thing keeps rolling.

May be it is just me but when I see all these quantum computing pseudo results I wonder how people can believe this thing has any hope to work at all so much it is ungrounded to reality.

All in all, the whole fundation of the quantum treatment is flawed in my humble opinion because of the idea of wave-packet collapse, when a measurement is done, is by itself completely unsound. However they assume it holds perfectly and base a ton on speculative calculations assuming that principle holds perfectly which is far from true.

Successful engineering and technology development is not done having a crazy idea that holds only based on a number of highly incertain assumptions but it needs solid ideas developed incrementally iterating from things we already know. First electricity, then basic electronics, the diode, then bipolar transistors, then J-FET, then MOSFET and so on.

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gadders
3 hours ago
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Love the word "boffin". I think we should use "pundit" more often as well.
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mellosouls
27 minutes ago
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TheRegister - like, say Viz - likes its lazy, outdated journalistic stereotypes and tropes.

That's not being critical of them; its their humour, they mimic the crassness and condescension of tabloid journalism, particularly that of the 70s and 80s (even tabloids have moved on).

When you see cliches like boffin, nanny state, egghead etc etc in a HN title, you can be reasonably confident its El Reg.

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Anthony-G
3 hours ago
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As soon as I saw this word, I guessed that El Reg was the source.
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happytoexplain
2 hours ago
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I was surprised to see it - I thought "boffin" was good-natured but highly irreverent, like "nerd". But I can't imagine any publication writing the headline, "Computer nerd claims Microsoft's supposed quantum leap does not compute."
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wiml
2 hours ago
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"Good natured but highly irreverent" is pretty much The Register's house style.
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gh02t
1 hour ago
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To be fair, "boffin" usually implies someone has relevant (usually scientific) expertise, but nerd doesn't. Henry Legg has the relevant credentials to give weight to his claims, he's not just some random basement nerd.
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SAI_Peregrinus
2 hours ago
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The Register is highly irreverent, as a rule.
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cpncrunch
2 hours ago
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It's typical of the Register. They always use the word "boffin" for expert/scientist. It's a british word used to describe a clever person.
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MobiusHorizons
2 hours ago
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Roughly interchangeable with egg head I think, although more used and slightly more endearing.
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KineticLensman
25 minutes ago
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Used in WW2 to refer to radar engineers, bouncing bomb designers etc
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sensanaty
2 hours ago
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Completely unrelated but I'm always sad that Umbra, Penumbra and Equinox aren't used very often in day-to-day speech, very cool sounding words.
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devin
1 hour ago
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Also, adumbrate.
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Isamu
1 hour ago
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When I see “boffin” in a title I think “The Register” so kudos I guess.
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deflator
9 minutes ago
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I think boffin is a Britishism. I have heard it other places, not just on El Reg. Specifically: a lot on Top Gear when it was hosted by Clarkson.
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antonvs
45 minutes ago
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Came here to say the same thing.

Sadly, noticing this doesn’t make us boffins.

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rdtsc
2 hours ago
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> boffins willing to go on the record as describing Microsoft's work as "unreliable" and perhaps even "fraudulent."

> Microsoft insisted its work is sound and in early June 2026 announced Majorana 2, a "next-generation topological quantum chip" it developed with the help of its own agentic AI.

AI hallucinates quantum computing bullshit as well or better than humans can hallucinate quantum computing bullshit. Couldn't have a better combination of technologies helping each other out.

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frollogaston
2 hours ago
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The kinds of bugs really look like human mistakes more than AI
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dmvjs
1 hour ago
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i assumed Boffin was their last name
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blastonico
58 minutes ago
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No idea whether the claim is right or wrong, but this processor package is beautiful.
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josefritzishere
2 hours ago
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Is it premature to assume it's due to AI Microslop?
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teshier-A
1 hour ago
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Unless if you list AI as a co-author, people are still responsible for the code they ship. Whatever tool was used to write said code
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ck2
1 hour ago
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