I just saw The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy and now I wonder whether the big computer, Deep Thought, is a quantum computer or a usual binary computer.
Does anyone know?
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2I'm not very familiar with quantum computers, but don't they require electricity to operate as well? I thought the difference between a non-quantum computer and a quantum one was in how they made computations, not in the power source.– Monty129Commented Aug 23, 2014 at 13:17
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Yes they do. By saying "electrical computer" I mean usual computers as everyone has them at home.– MinecraftShamrockCommented Aug 23, 2014 at 13:26
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I don't think it says in the books what sort of computer Deep Thought was, but we do know that the computer that was built by the mice to replace it was biological.– userCommented Aug 23, 2014 at 18:22
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You would have to ask the mice :)– Jane SCommented Oct 5, 2015 at 0:30
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3 Answers
Timeline
- A quantum computer with spins as quantum bits was also formulated for use as a quantum space–time in 1969.1
- The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is a comedy science fiction series created by Douglas Adams. Originally a radio comedy broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 1978..2
- The field of quantum computing was first introduced by Yuri Manin in 1980[2] and Richard Feynman in 1982.1
Conclusion
Given the first mention (in '69) was of an academic paper, I doubt Douglas Adams would have heard of it. AFAIU 'comedy and satire' were far more important to him than 'scientific accuracy' (IMO - that was fortunate).
Refs. from Wikipedia
answered Aug 23, 2014 at 12:26
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1Maybe... but Adams was known as a keen observer of all things relating to computers and computation. If any non-scientists were keeping track of such things back then, I expect he would have been. Besides, rewrites happened for both the novel (1979) and TV series (1981), so who knows what Adams was thinking about by then.– JulesCommented Nov 18, 2017 at 4:57
No in-universe answer exists, and even asking the question seems to rather miss the point. Technology in the Hitchhiker's series exists only to serve the narrative and humor of the stories and has little relationship to actual technology that exists on Earth at this point in time.
Consider that these books include
- Infinite Improbability drives
- The sub-etha faster than light communication system
- Matter transference beams
- Mind-reading drink dispensers (which admittedly don’t work well)
...to name just a few.
It’s not absolutely impossible that Deep Thought is based on a technology currently known to human beings, but in the context of this books it doesn’t seem very likely. If nothing else, the fact that Deep Thought keeps working for so long puts it strongly into the realm of science-ish fantasy rather than any currently known technology.
Just thought I'd add this tidbit. Deep Thought knows the answer, he spent years calculating it. But can not tell you what question he was calculating or how he got from step 1 to step:FINAL. This looks closer to a Quantum computer then a binary one. A Binary computer can logically take you from step 1 to step:Final. If a Quantum one tries to do this it destroys the equation that it is processing and cannot get an answer. This is due to the fact that trying to observe a quantum system causes it to collapse.
Deep Thought can't tell you what the question was, because he couldn't know both it and the answer.
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Part of the problem lies in the catch-22 of quantum computing: The quantum features only work when they’re not being observed, so observing a quantum computer to check if it’s exploiting quantum behavior will destroy the quantum behavior being checked. “It’s hard to devise a physics experiment to study something you aren’t allowed to observe,” www.quantamagazine.org/computings-search-for-the-best-quantum-questions-20160602/ Commented Nov 21, 2017 at 18:53