https://hackerpaper.kaipfister.de/p/quant-ph_9710043/Collected HN comments and submissions linking this paper.enMon, 02 Nov 2026 11:16:22 GMThttps://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7799002urn:hackerpapers:mention:quant-ph_9710043:7799002Mon, 26 May 2014 07:23:23 GMT<p>There is another more fundamental limit, credited to Margolus and Levitin [1], which puts the maximum speed of a (quantum) gate at 2E / h operations per second for a system of energy E and Planck constant h. Given the energy of the sun quoted in the article, this puts the upper limit of bit flips per second at 2^193. Seth Lloyd&#x27;s &#x27;Ultimate physical limits to computation&#x27; [2] goes into further detail on this subject. However, the notion of zero energy dissipation (scalable quantum computers will likely need error correction, which implies bit erasure) on any real system is ludicrous, and I…</p><p><a href="https://hackerpaper.kaipfister.de/p/quant-ph_9710043/">Paper and discussion history</a>. A mention is not an endorsement.</p>quant-ph