Quantum Simulator Can Outperform a Universe-Sized Computer

Well, for one thing, a universe-sized computer would be damn slow....

Indeed. This one has been running for >13e9 years and it hasn't finished its sums yet...

Well, from the looks of things, it's an infinite sum. And besides, Forever is a long time - especially toward the end. :-#

Well everybody knows you can't come out with a faster computer until you come out with an OS that is large enough to slow it down....

Speak of the Devil.

Microsoft Windows should do the trick.

Slow it down in terms of expansion too. The mass-equivalent of the energy required to encode the OS would cause gravitational collapse. Of course Redmond would have to get it from some alternate universe - possibly one where people actually like them and their BloatWare? :-\

Yes, but can it outperform anything smaller?

I've never been comfortable with the phrase "quantum computer". The semiconductors that power computers today work by quantum mechanic state changes already. So calling these predicted new machines a quantum computer seems more like carnival barker obfuscation than an actual new approach in computation.

What also bothers me with quantum computing is the hyperbole that is so often layered into the prediction of what they will be able to one day achieve. It reminds me so much of Douglas Adam's computer Deep Thought with the proffered answer "42". A quantum computer with 300 qubits (a qubit is capable of being a 0 and a 1 at the same time) that can supposedly perform 2*10^30 simultaneous calculations seems more like a true random number generator than anything predictably useful, to me.

If this is another thought experiment, I think it won't work. So there.