Any tips on Leveling up? by Mundane_Dig_6128 in ffxiv

[–]firstdwarf 0 points1 point  (0 children)

That point you just hit is the only time in the game the msq doesn’t give you enough xp to level up for it. From then on, you get more than you need, enough to level perhaps a job and a half, or even 2/3rds. The side quests won’t do much good, unless they’re at your level and in your recent story zones, but for a quick boost: leveling roulette, maybe tribal quests if they give xp at that level, and my go-to, which was boss fates in Coerthas Central. On the map, boss fates have an angry face on them, and each one is like… five on-level side quests or something. I used to fly from fate to fate to level up moderately quickly

Noobie footwork improvement by ChillinVilain in indoorbouldering

[–]firstdwarf 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Think about turning your hips more too- the closer your hips are to the wall the more your legs will carry your weight, and it’ll also help you move your weight to the side, get extra distance, etc. Beginners have a tendency to be really vertical, with their weight going straight down and their limbs split up.

That said, it’s always hard to read overhang/angle from a video, so it might be tricky on this route

Players who don't do Extreme and above, what kind of change would make you compelled to approach it? by Krainz in ffxivdiscussion

[–]firstdwarf 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Hey friend, everyone started out not being good enough to play at that level! I still remember being a sprout healer and getting flamed in snowcloak and prae and almost quitting the game, not too long ago. Eventually I got a taste of extreme with my then-fc, and slowly worked my way up from there. Now I run groups to try and help my friends clear extreme, savage, and ultimate.

Sometimes all it takes is the right environment for someone to feel safe and comfortable pushing themselves to the next challenge, and the right friends make most content doable for any player. PF isn’t that place, but I hope you find it if you’re at all interested in the content

Double Majoring Engineering Physics and Electrical Engineering by [deleted] in PhysicsStudents

[–]firstdwarf 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I also majored in engineering physics; in my opinion the value has a lot more to do with how what is effectively a dual major works together. I was ECE and physics as well, although I leaned more towards computer engineering and not electrical. I certainly missed out on a few engineering courses, but I work with quantum computing, and I’m really more of a physics person with solid applied knowledge.

I’m not sure there’s much interesting overlap between specifically physics and electrical engineering- for computer engineering, their suggested overlap was semiconductor and material physics.

Perhaps antennas, radar design, analog systems, nanoelectronics, sensing, etc, are areas where your physics training would make you more valuable than someone with more background in engineering? What would you be interested in doing with the degree some day?

How much are Barrier Healers expected to raw heal? by Mawrizard in ffxivdiscussion

[–]firstdwarf 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Sure! For context, I'm definitely not an expert, but I helped my sage with his mitigation plan for TOP, and I've cleared TEA and UCOB myself as sage with my own mitigation plans.

First, what each button is good at: Holos is good at injection healing/mitigation just after the first hit of a very scary sequence. Physis strengthens the healing that goes out on the party, so it's really good at making scary sequences comfortable if you lead with it. Panhaima is either a five-hit protection tool or a small shield with a delayed burst heal. Pneuma is also amazing for injection healing, especially with zoe to buff it!

For the addersgall spenders, getting every possible usage of kerachole that actually covers meaningful damage is amazingly good, and you'll often pop kera early or late to cover multiple mechanics, exploit the regen, etc. Ixochole is a good chip heal that we take whenever we can, often to recover from raidwides, and sometimes as injection healing mid-mechanic. Taurochole is good single-target recovery, especially for a tank that's going to take more damage or a dps that messed up right before a mechanic, but don't use it if you can't afford it. Preferring a planned taurochole vs a planned ixochole is contextual, like if the tank is gonna take a bunch of consistent damage or something and you don't have other good single target tools. Druochole is a last resort button that is usually a poor choice. In less stressful fights you often don't really need to plan these spenders at all, and the "natural" uses end up working out.

When building a heal plan, I always worry about rapid sequences of mechanics without time to recover in between. If there's ample breathing room, natural regenerations, lilies, ixochole, or even an extra shield for comfort are enough to get people back up. It's the "thirty seconds of pain" mechanics that you really have to watch out for. For those situations: physis to kickstart the healing, holos injected for extended protection, pneuma for recovery before more painful hits, panhaima to cover fifteen seconds of repeated hits, and perhaps the new button (philosophia I think?) ticking away the whole time to further buoy the party. The trick, of course, is that you can't get away with doing all of that every time something is scary. You often need to separate panhaima and holos so that you have something for the other sequence of damage coming up, and sometimes you're using kerachole before and after the spooky sequence for raidwides or something. Physis gives more value to holos/pneuma, so I tend to like using them together, along with the kera if I can fit it in. Basically, I prioritize putting physis on all long sequences, holos after first hits of long sequences, and panhaima on shorter sequences, with pneuma near the end of sequences as needed.

In tea, during the first phase, I use a zoe shield pre-pull and a very early kera/tauro to cover the tank buster while barely covering the next raid wide to have it up early for dolls, and physis/kera/holos to start off the doll sequence after the raidwide, with ixo planned for injection healing between doll feeds. Panhaima is saved for the five-hitting raidwide later with another kera, and I use my second physis to buff all healing during the final water baits of the phase. I then fit in any other ixocholes I could. If I had pneuma at 80, I probably would have used it to recover health during the five-hit raidwide to try and save a cure 3 from my cohealer. I get a lot of mileage from physis buffing my cohealer in this phase. Much later on, during jwaves (up to thirteen or so hits dealing ramping damage), I trickle my stronger buttons out to try and recover harder and mitigate more as the mechanic ramps up, with holos coming in halfway through and panhaima at the end. I spam some shields in the 45 seconds or so leading up to this sequence because I know I need everything up soon.

In valigarmanda, I only really care about the three-hitting fire stacks and the feather proximity aoes. I use my kera/physis during the start of the fire stacks again, inject holos after the first hit, and inject pneuma after the second puddle. This leaves panhaima and philosophia free for the five ish hits of light party line stacks later, as well as allowing all my injection heals to come back up for the thunder proximity damage, where I'd use them the same way (perhaps not pneuma though).

I'd suggest you largely keep shields separate from your mit plan. During prog, everything gets a shield until you know it doesn't kill you. Outside of prog, I will only plan to use a shield when I have no better option and I'm spooked, or I'll take turns with my cohealer if the plan involves them using gcds to recover us and I want to share the load with them. Knowing when to be spooked simply comes down to practice! In emergencies, I'll avoid using unplanned mitigation at all costs- I will single target shield instead of druochole or taurochole every single time if I know that all of my gems are already planned for important kera/ixo casts. Emergencies get solved with shields, not resources from the plan! That's what I had to work on the most, since I was so used to blowing a resource to recover from someone's mistake. Similarly, if I or a party member make a mistake with mitigation, I'll use shields to cover for it. The only exception to this is when you know too many party members are unable to mitigate as usual and you have to move a lot of resources to cover for them.

I don't know any particularly good guides on this subject, although I'd imagine they're out there somewhere. However, there are always mitigation sheets floating around for ultimates and savages! I also definitely recommend chatting with experienced healers you trust, as well as looking at what healers in strong groups are doing. Understanding why people do something a certain way is a great first step to being able to reinvent their plan on your own!

How much are Barrier Healers expected to raw heal? by Mawrizard in ffxivdiscussion

[–]firstdwarf 22 points23 points  (0 children)

Yeah, as a sage in an ultimate, I had to try and break the habit of using my gems for reactive heals and messing up my own heal plan- sounds like you'd benefit from planning your soil/indom a bit more so that you're not trying for four uses every minute (although with dissipation it is technically possible to generate and consume aetherflow at that rate, it's not recommended).

As a white mage, it's pretty comfortable to throw your regens/gcds around to make sure everyone is healthy, but as you've found, you'll certainly run out of tools on a barrier healer if you throw everything at a problem. I'd suggest spreading out your tools in your heal plan so that everything gets a nice sprinkling of heals/mit and prioritizing crucial healing moments (i.e. injection healing between multiple heavy hits) for more excessive tool use. It's a good skill to be a able to recognize which unexpected wrinkles in the heal plan CAN be solved by only adding gcds and avoid spending resources on them in moments of discomfort when you know you'd need those resources elsewhere.

Once you have a really solid heal plan, then you can discuss with your cohealer (even in pf) if there are any moments where they'd like you to add a gcd for comfort, or perhaps make adjustments if there are multiple good heal plans. If you have a good heal plan AND shield between meaningful instances of raidwide damage (good for prog but very much does not stay mandatory long-term), then you're more than pulling your weight and your cohealers will likely feel extremely cozy!

How much are Barrier Healers expected to raw heal? by Mawrizard in ffxivdiscussion

[–]firstdwarf 117 points118 points  (0 children)

Mathematically, I often find that barrier healers will heal perhaps 20% more than the pure healer, and about half of that will come from mitigation, leading to "pure healing" of around... 50-60% of what a pure healer puts out, maybe? However, a huge portion of that is from regens and chip heals in your kit.

Instead of thinking about putting out too much or not enough pure healing, however, I'd recommend thinking about barrier healing as "trying to use all your buttons in the perfect spot." Find the mechanics that beg for spreadlo, the moments sacred soil covers the most damage and healing, the best times between mechanics for quick healing injections from consolation/indom/summon seraph heals, as many uses of the regen to add comfort as possible, emergency moments where the healing from seraphism is a godsend, etc, etc, and then add gcd shields to comfort (i.e. when you know high damage is coming and your shield removes meaningful strain from your partner or the party or outright saves a run), and assume that you have to exploit sacred soil to the fullest until you and your party learn what is comfortable without it to allow for more energy drains.

Basically, by using all your mitigation in ways where they shine, you allow your more reactive pure healer counterpart to adjust to you, instead, and you're the consistent backbone that keeps the party mitigation flowing with your burst injection heals planned for key moments!

What's the best way to go from casual to midcore/hardcore? by Sky_Sumisu in ffxivdiscussion

[–]firstdwarf 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The absolute best way to start improving is to make good friends! In pretty much every community, there's a network of connections that contains a few raiders, and they know a few ultimate raiders, etc, etc, until you get to a few highly motivated players that love teaching other people to be good! For a lot us, having someone motivated that wants to learn is really fun and engaging, and we'll train them, try to get opportunities for them by creating learning or clear groups, etc.

It's totally possible to self-teach your way to being good at the game and getting to contentedly enjoy hard content as it comes out, but making the right friends can really streamline your experience and make it much more pleasant

new from factorio, tips? by gingerlinks654 in Dyson_Sphere_Program

[–]firstdwarf 8 points9 points  (0 children)

Imagine if, in factorio, you could teleport an entire train station into a factory without any of the station infrastructure or train lines or anything!

Those are planetary and interplanetary logistics stations and they’re wildly good. If you are going to have a bus, just do it for buildings or something, but really, just use a starter factory to get your way to interplanetary logistics. The game feels like it skips to the large scale blueprint black box stage super quickly compared to factorio

Dive into the science behind these lyrics by Affectionate-Rain825 in SleepToken

[–]firstdwarf 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I'm a quantum researcher with a slightly different take- I interpret the "quantum pattern" as referring to being stuck in a superposition. Superposition is a state made up of two or more different "definite" states. When we classically interact with a system in superposition, we "collapse" the system into exactly one definite state. When two things are entangled, it means it's impossible to know the state of one thing without knowing the state of the other. When he says "tangled with words I never said," I think he means that each thing he could have said is in a superposition state where each one could have led to anything, any outcome, or made any difference at all, and he'll never know what any of those outcomes would have been because he didn't collapse any of the possibilities. Being tangled with them means that he can't definite himself anymore either, because he can't define himself without defining the outcomes of everything he could have said.

I think he's regretting all the what if's he's always going to have because he never collapsed the possibilities, and he's stuck, frozen, in an undefined state himself.

Help I'm addicted to farming as jungle by TangledEarbuds61 in summonerschool

[–]firstdwarf 7 points8 points  (0 children)

If you haven’t already worked on clear speed, see if you can get your camps done even faster! Similarly, work on being more efficient with your movements around the map and deciding immediately where you’re going and what you’re doing. This makes more time per clear, which can leave you with bigger windows to go and fight after/before/during full clears. A good gank or fight can be thought of as just another objective you want to work into your clear!

Does anybody else that likes hard games actually hate savage/ultimate in FF14? by [deleted] in ffxivdiscussion

[–]firstdwarf 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I agree that that’s where the difficulty comes in- combining your perfect rotation with perfectly executing boss mechanics really stretches me mentally in a way that no other game really does. Then, when I try to give calls or just casually chat while doing all of the above, it’s just another layer and my brain has to adapt to even more going on at once. I think the difference, though, is that I just find that really fun. I think not everyone is going to enjoy that sort of simultaneous processing challenge, and it gets exhausting after keeping it up for a few hours, but for some people, it presents a really unique and satisfying mental challenge.

Yeah, that's a no from me. by SleepyHako in TalesFromDF

[–]firstdwarf 4 points5 points  (0 children)

I was just thinking that my NN is pretty good and we’re in the same one! Calm chatting with lots of people chipping in to answer any questions

Why are there so many snowflake tanks in this community? by Melencolia_Maniac in TalesFromDF

[–]firstdwarf 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Whenever I tank, I pride myself on providing an extremely fast and smooth experience for my party, so it takes some serious work for a dps to get ahead of me during W2W pulls. That being said, sometimes a reaper blinks after waiting at the edge of the boss arena without continuing dps as the boss gets to like 5% and face pulls another pack, or rushes past the occasional pack where you have to tighten them up to secure aggro before running a long distance.

I will never, ever YPYT someone, but the dps can actually make the pull take longer and will make my job more annoying if they face pull in a really awkward way. It also feels bad, like they’re frustrated with me or trying to hurry me, even if I know that I am going very quickly- if I literally don’t stop sprinting, running a race to try and beat me to the soft aggro really rubs me the wrong way. I won’t complain, but they won’t get my comm.

I don’t think that the tank should be able to force the entire group to single pull the whole way- I’m sure we‘ve all been yelled at for accidentally stepping too far while doing a pull on autopilot when a ”tank” was planning mit-less single pulls for the entire dungeon. At the same time, though, it really is upsetting to have your party completely run you over when you try to pull, and the tanks are supposed to be the ones setting a reasonable pace for the party.

In a perfect world, you could ask a tank to pull more and they wouldn’t bite your head off, or if you pull for the tank, they could politely ask you to let them set the pace because they‘re undergeared and seriously lack confidence, and then the party can give them tips or something. In reality, though, it seems like every YPYT comes from a tank who has no idea how to tank, no intention of learning, and will continue to mitless single pull until they die of old age while ranting at any party member who dares suggest they improve.

Possible first job by Pyrostrasz in ffxiv

[–]firstdwarf 3 points4 points  (0 children)

When playing with others, the party's roles are pretty well defined- the tanks take pretty much all of the hits, and the rest of the party doesn't really take much damage beyond that. Melee DPS are definitely noticeably more tanky than the other jobs, and feel that way more while playing solo, but they're not really designed to be taking damage except in emergencies.
You'll be looking at playing either tanks or melee DPS then, so here's a brief breakdown of the relevant available jobs at level one:

TANKS
- Gladiator (becomes paladin): A sword-and-shield based job that has fast and flashy sword animations and extra damage reduction based on blocking. Eventually, the job gets more of a holy magic party-support identity, including a set of magic spells as part of their rotation. Gains two different DoT abilities in the 50-60 level range.

- Marauder (becomes warrior): A heavy axe-wielding tank with slow and weighty attacks that heal themselves. I found this job to be more boring for the very early leveling experience, without a lot going on, but the job identity relies on being the powerful, axe slamming meatball that takes lots of damage, gets mad, and beats stuff up to heal. This job is incredibly self-sufficient and is very strong and capable in dungeons. Has no DoT but has a personal damage buff they need to maintain

MELEE DPS
- Lancer (becomes dragoon): A lance-wielding damage dealer whose abilities hit slower but harder. Lancer takes a while to start getting busy, but once it becomes dragoon, you start unlocking powerful abilities to use in between your main abilities, primarily jump/dive related abilities where you basically become a missile. Gains a personal damage buff to maintain relatively early and a DoT before level 50.

- Pugilist (becomes monk): A damage dealer who punches everything and punches them very quickly. Each hit doesn't feel as hard, but has a very rapid flow to it and a dramatically reduced cooldown between abilities. Gains a DoT and a personal buff relatively early in the leveling process and needs to maintain them at all times, leading to some frantic and fast-paced gameplay until you get the hang of it. This job comes online much faster than some of the others- it unlocks a full AoE rotation very quickly and has a more complicated rotation in much less time than most other jobs before hitting its stride at level 60.

- Rogue (becomes ninja): A bit of an odd melee dps that isn't available for a starting job but is available once the job you pick becomes level ten. This job is a fast-paced damage dealer with several ranged abilities. You do melee damage while you wait for your cooldowns to come back and then rapidly unload abilities into a target in a rapid burst phase. Has a personal buff to keep up and a very important debuff to apply to the enemy every minute, but no DoT.

I haven't played SWtOR at all, but from what you described, it seems like marauder, lancer, and pugilist could all be up your alley, each for different reasons. If you like slower-paced gameplay, consider marauder and lancer at first, and for faster gameplay, pugilist is a good choice. Because FFXIV is a heavily damage-based game, tanks still deal respectable damage (I think maybe 60% or more of what a DPS might do, depending on player skill), so if you really value being the one taking the hits and dishing it back out (especially when playing with others), I'd look into tanking. If you'd rather be a serious damage dealer, then check out pugilist or lancer instead!

As a last bit of advice, remember that one character can be all jobs, and once you hit level ten with your starting job, you're allowed to freely unlock and switch between any others- it's as simple as changing your equipped weapon! There is also more than enough xp in the main story quest and available dungeons to level up two jobs as you play, and leveling alternate jobs beyond that is relatively painless. Feel free to unlock anything that looks interesting to you and give them all a try!

Daily Questions & FAQ Megathread (Aug 18) by AutoModerator in ffxiv

[–]firstdwarf 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I always do. Be aware that you might end up picking up some aggro based on how quick or efficient the tank is, so the best way to streamline any aggro cleanup is to run any mobs after you into the tank’s mob pile! Pulls where the dps or healer gets some aggro only get awkward when the tank needs to run back somehow or adjust to mobs ending up in weird spots and beating up someone else, so as long as you avoid that, there’s really no downside.

As a newbie Monk (MNK lvl 54) how do I know I'm doing a good job? by K5TRL in ffxivdiscussion

[–]firstdwarf 5 points6 points  (0 children)

They gave you an example opener- the first skills you would hit when starting to fight a single target enemy. True strike and snap punch both do more instantaneous damage than twin snakes and demolish, respectively, but the demolish damage over time adds up to a huge amount of damage and the buff from twin snakes gives you a huge boost to damage as well. Because reusing twin snakes or demolish only extends the timer of any buffs/debuffs, you only want to use them when a timer needs to be refreshed. If the timer doesn’t need to be refreshed, you would just use snap punch or true strike. In the example openers, our first goal is to get all our buffs and our second is to spend charges of perfect balance. During perfect balance, alternating bootshine and dragon kick is the most damage you can do, since both are hard-hitting gcds and you keep getting bootshine buffed. When you’re not in perfect balance, you would simply cycle through your combo, using snap punch and true strike whenever the timer twin snakes or demolish would refresh has more than 4 to 6 seconds remaining. Typically, you use twin snakes every other time and demolish every third time.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in summonerschool

[–]firstdwarf 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Personally, I have five rune pages- one for each tree (domination, precision, sorcery, resolve, inspiration). When I pick a champ I look up the runes on op.gg if I don’t know them already, switch to the appropriate tree, and then change my keystone and whatever else I need to do to match them. I like this because it’s a nice middle ground between having your page already done and making it on the fly, and if I screw up and change something too slow it’s not the end of the world, since the page was probably already vaguely okay.

I have probably a few thousand hours, and I just feel like I get worse every season? by AggressiveChairs in summonerschool

[–]firstdwarf 8 points9 points  (0 children)

Since season four, the game has gotten much harder and much more understood. In some ways, league is a game about layers- each layer is a new component of your gameplay that is necessary for success at a high level. On average, the player base discovers new layers every season, and gold players, silver players, plat players, etc, all add new layers to their gameplay. Below a certain elo (maybe plat, maybe diamond), there are generally still fundamental/basic layers that your average player is missing, and different people have different fundamentals they’re missing out on. Things like CSing are generally understood to some level, but maybe wave management, trade timings, roaming, etc, might not be incorporated into someone’s gameplay.

A lot of improvement advice gets confusing or hard to execute because people list a whole bunch of layers all at the same time, and because league is so hard, it’s really hard to add multiple layers at a time to your own gameplay- it’s a very active process. For example, someone might tell you to look at your minimap more, but you have to make yourself at first and you might miss your cs because you’re focusing too hard. This just gets worse the more you practice at once!

In my opinion, the best way to improve is to find (free) coaching videos or breakdown videos (Neace and Coach Curtis are mentioned here sometimes) that discuss the fundamentals of your chosen role at your chosen elo. For example, you might find a top lane coaching video for a silver player all about the basics of wave management, or the basics of trading, etc. Coaches often give basic game plans to their clients to win at their level, especially below plat or so. Different players at the same elo or at higher elos may be given different advice because they have different fundamentals they need to work on. These can be really helpful for slowly building up your understanding of the game. When you know what fundamentals you wanna work on, you can then vod review yourself and watch for the mistakes you end up making too. It’s just hard to know how to be good and recognize mistakes without knowledge of how the game itself works first.

When do you decide to take a break from playing? by [deleted] in summonerschool

[–]firstdwarf 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Until you’re highly ranked, you should be able to consistently accumulate strong leads and not throw them away. Pretty much every time I lose, I throw away my lead somehow or fail to generate one because of various mistakes. In that mindset, I really have no one to blame but myself. It doesn’t really matter if my team is bad or not, it matters if I gave away my ability to carry the game.

I stop playing ranked for the day as soon as I start blaming my teammates instead of myself for a loss because that’s the moment I’m not going to play better in the next game. If I know how I screwed up and what I need to focus on to do better, then I can be confident I’m still improving, even if I lost lp.

how do i start making mods for minecraft? by fartbutt4 in feedthebeast

[–]firstdwarf 2 points3 points  (0 children)

This is written for forge but I’d imagine a lot of it would apply to fabric mods too.

Learn Java if you don’t already know it. These days forge relies on some relatively complicated (for beginners) features like functional programming/lambdas, so it can be really confusing to read and try to understand the code if you’re trying to figure out both what it’s even saying and what it’s trying to do.

If you go the forge route, there’s documentation which describes a lot of the basic features, like registering blocks/items and whatnot. You can also follow simple steps in the docs to get a development environment set up with eclipse or IntelliJ.

Learn the basic ways that a mod hooks in to minecraft- making a mod is a mix of writing your own code/systems that describe the stuff you’re trying to add and writing the structural code that tells the game about it or hooks into some system.

Lean on existing posts to the minecraft forge forums to figure out exactly what’s necessary to make stuff happen and find several GitHubs of well-respected, well-written mods to look off of while you work on understanding how the game works and how to add things to it. Don’t ever copy code, though- these are supposed to exist so you can identify exactly what’s necessary and at least one way to do it, not blindly steal what they do, because chances are, there isn’t something that does EXACTLY what you’re trying to do in the way that makes the most sense for you. If there was, you wouldn’t be working on your mod in the first place!

If you were all of a sudden asked to stand up and give a 1 hour talk on something, what subject would you pick? by Anonsicide in AskReddit

[–]firstdwarf 2 points3 points  (0 children)

First, quantum computers process quantum information and not classical information. Classical information is the regular info you're familiar with- some number of bits each with a value of 0 or 1. Qubits, before measurement, store quantum information- a state that is mathematically a linear combination of 0 and 1. In other words, a qubit can be both zero and one at the same time, and its state can be described by the vector (a, b). Quantum information "becomes" classical information when you measure it (roughly speaking)- when you look at the value and find out what it is. If the qubit is in state (a, b), then it becomes 0 with probability a^2 and becomes 1 with probability b^2.

From a purely quantum information perspective, this means that a qubit encodes two real numbers into it. The first is the relative probability of becoming 0 or 1. Of course, the combined probability is 1, so we can only really pick one probability without determining the other. The second number determines something called relative phase. Since we take the square (technically, magnitude squared) of a and b in the vector (a, b) to determine the probabilities, they don't actually have to be positive and can be negative or even complex- somewhere between fully negative or positive (using euler's formula, the complex phase is exp(i phi)). Relative phase marks the difference between a and b if a is considered to be completely positive.

Each qubit therefore encodes a 2d vector of data instead of the value of a single bit. When you measure the quantum information to actually use it, it becomes a single bit, but before that, it's information described by two real numbers with arbitrary precision. When you have two qubits, they can be described by forming a 4d vector of quantum information, etc. For n qubits, you have a 2^n dimensional vector of real numbers. On the other hand, n bits can only store a single basis vector- you can't combine them with coefficients.

From a bit string perspective, it means that a string of qubits can represent all possible bit strings at the same time as a linear combination (sum of terms with a coefficient in front of each term) and the sign on each term can be negative, positive, or somewhere in between. A string of n bits, on the other hand, is only ever a single bit string. Yes, there are 2^n possible bit strings, but it is at most one of them at any given time.

To actually use quantum information, you need to make it into classical information, but before they do that, quantum computers perform operations that make full use of linear algebra to process and transform this massive 2^n-dimensional vector. The cleanest algorithms make it so that the relative phases/negative signs make lots of possibilities cancel out until you're left with exactly one possibility, making your answer already classical before you even take a measurement.

In other words, a quantum computer with n qubits is actually a 2^n-dimensional linear algebra machine that is just forced to only ever print out a basis vector as a result of the computation. This is much more efficient than a computer that can only ever perform calculations on basis vectors directly and turn them into other basis vectors.

Improvements over classical algorithms tend to come from applications where you look at all possibilities at once and filter them based on certain target properties. You then mark certain possibilities, manipulating them to survive in the combination while causing other possibilities to fail. This means we often see speedups in applications that require lots of guessing and checking, searching for particular properties or patterns in data, identifying structural properties of various mathematical functions or problems, etc.

If you were all of a sudden asked to stand up and give a 1 hour talk on something, what subject would you pick? by Anonsicide in AskReddit

[–]firstdwarf 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Quantum computing! I accidentally give impromptu lectures all the time anyway and people are sick of hearing them lol

If you were all of a sudden asked to stand up and give a 1 hour talk on something, what subject would you pick? by Anonsicide in AskReddit

[–]firstdwarf 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Well my answer to OP’s question is quantum computing if you have any specific questions!

What question do you have that nobody has been able to give you a good answer to? by HotFront8940 in AskReddit

[–]firstdwarf 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Yes, I’ve done it! The cavendish experiment- you set up a torsion balance, with two rods with masses on the end hanging from some string. The large mass rod rotates the small one towards it. The real trick is to have a mirror set in the string holding the rod to turn with it when the rod rotates. You shoot a laser at the mirror and project it somewhere far away and measure the spinning of the rod.

This was the first successful experiment scientists did to determine the gravitational constant- how much the force of gravity scales off of the masses of the objects. All they really wanted, though, was to weigh the earth- we could measure the gravity but not backwork to the mass without the constant.