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User:Mcatalano26/Quantum supremacy/ColeDU Peer Review

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Peer review

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This is where you will complete your peer review exercise. Please use the following template to fill out your review.

General info

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  • Whose work are you reviewing? (provide username)
  • Link to draft you're reviewing:

I'm reviewing users Mcatalano26 and Ctaitz's work.

I am reviewing both the main article on Quantum supremacy and Mcatalano26 and Ctaitz's Sand box draft User:Mcatalano26/Quantum supremacy.

Lead

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Guiding questions:

  • Has the Lead been updated to reflect the new content added by your peer?
  • Does the Lead include an introductory sentence that concisely and clearly describes the article's topic?
  • Does the Lead include a brief description of the article's major sections?
  • Does the Lead include information that is not present in the article?
  • Is the Lead concise or is it overly detailed?

Lead evaluation

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The lead in the main article does not appear to have been updated to reflect the content added in the sand box draft. This is understandable given this work has not been added to the main article. The lead in the main article starts strong with an introductory sentence that clearly describes the articles topic. The following sentences in most of the first paragraph go into a bit more detail describing important features of the topic. I think starting at about the last sentence of the first paragraph of the lead would fit better into a background section directly after the lead.

There is also a bit of redundancy in at the end of the lead with the subsection Sampling the output distribution of random quantum circuits in the Proposed experiments section. The wording and information given about Google's claim of quantum supremacy and ho IBM disputes the claim are very similar. I don't think both are needed.

There isn't much of a description of the articles major sections in the lead.

The only information that appears in the lead that is not present in the rest of the article would be some of the information that I think is more suited to a background section anyway. Being that the lead is also working as the background section currently, it makes sense that this information doesn't appear in other parts of the article.

At the moment the lead is overly detailed because it is also providing a lot of background information which is often historical. I think that if the information starting from the last sentence of the first paragraph of the lead was moved to a background section or throughout other relevant sections of the article the lead would be improved and more concise. If a small overview of the major sections of the page were added to the lead as well, I think the lead would be strong, concise, and contain all of the criteria Wikipedia wants judging from the guiding questions I'm following to write this.

Content

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Guiding questions:

  • Is the content added relevant to the topic?
  • Is the content added up-to-date?
  • Is there content that is missing or content that does not belong?
  • Does the article deal with one of Wikipedia's equity gaps? Does it address topics related to historically underrepresented populations or topics?

Content evaluation

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I think both of the additions to the computational complexity section and the addition of the traveling salesman problem to the experiments section in the sand box are useful and relevant.

The sources used appear to be recent so it seems that the information added is up to date. However, the additions to the computational complexity section don't have in text citations for the first and last paragraph. So it is harder to tell if that information is up to date.

I am somewhat skeptical of the claim that IBM has simulated 56 qubits with a a classical super computer. For one the source for this claim doesn't seem to be the most reliable. The source is a website called newscientist.com and appears to be something more like popular mechanics than peer review research. Also my topic for the Wikipedia project is Quantum Complexity Theory and some of the sources I have found have said there is no known way to efficiently simulate a quantum computer with a classical computer.[1] I think the first source in your sandbox also supports. But I may wrong about this.

For a topic like this I'm not exactly sure whether Wikipedia's equity gap refers to something like an under represented contributor to the field, but I think the Criticism of the name section probably also fits what Wikipedia is looking for. I would imagine this part of the conversation is often left out.

Tone and Balance

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Guiding questions:

  • Is the content added neutral?
  • Are there any claims that appear heavily biased toward a particular position?
  • Are there viewpoints that are overrepresented, or underrepresented?
  • Does the content added attempt to persuade the reader in favor of one position or away from another?

Tone and balance evaluation

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The content added in the sand box appears to be neutral. I don't feel like it's trying to convince me one way or the other.

None of the claims in the sand box are made in such a way that frames a particular position as more valid than another. The main article does say that a collapse of the polynomial hierarchy to the third level is very unlikely. I don't think this is biased, but it is presented as something unreasonable to believe.

I think the balance of the article is pretty good. There aren't any sections or subsections that feel like a section thrown in for the sake of adding it. Each section says something of value.

I don't feel that the content in either the main article or the sand box is attempting to persuade me of a certain position.

Sources and References

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Guiding questions:

  • Is all new content backed up by a reliable secondary source of information?
  • Are the sources thorough - i.e. Do they reflect the available literature on the topic?
  • Are the sources current?
  • Are the sources written by a diverse spectrum of authors? Do they include historically marginalized individuals where possible?
  • Check a few links. Do they work?

Sources and references evaluation

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Like I said earlier the additions to the computational complexity section in the sand box don't have in text citations for the first and last paragraph. Where there is intext citation the sources seem reasonably reliable. As I mentioned earlier I don't feel confident about the the source for the claim in the main article that IBM has simulated 56 qubits with a a classical super computer.

There are a good number of sources added in the sand box and for the most part they seem up to date and reliable. However, in the main article there are 58 sources many of which are from magazines and science new websites more focused on the headline than the content. Not all of the sources look unreliable but many do in the main article.

The sources added in the sand box are up to date for the most part. all but one of them are at most four years old. Most of the sources in the main article are also fairly recent almost all of them are from the 2000s and the majority are at most 5 years old.

In the sand box the sources used all have different authors. I'm not sure who would be considered a historically marginalized individual as a source for quantum supremacy, though I don't see any authors with names that in my experience I have seen to be generally given to women. I don't know if all of the authors are male, but science has often excluded women in history. So it's possible that there isn't an author that is a woman, but again I don't know this guess comes from names I have seen to be typically given to women and names typically given to men. I also have never heard many of these names before adding even more uncertainty. I could say the same things about the main article as well.

For the sources added in the sand box most of the links work. Many of the links for the sources in the main article work as well.

Organization

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Guiding questions:

  • Is the content added well-written - i.e. Is it concise, clear, and easy to read?
  • Does the content added have any grammatical or spelling errors?
  • Is the content added well-organized - i.e. broken down into sections that reflect the major points of the topic?

Organization evaluation

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All of the content added in the sandbox is well written. It is generally concise, clear, and easy to read.

In the content added in the sandbox there weren't any spelling errors I could find. The only grammatical error I could find was very minor. When the 8th source was used as an in text citation the in text citation was put before the period.

The content added to the sand box is well organized. The topics it addresses fit into the structure of the main article which is fairly well organized. The claims and information in the added content in the sand box is given in a reasonable order that makes sense.

Images and Media

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Guiding questions: If your peer added images or media

  • Does the article include images that enhance understanding of the topic?
  • Are images well-captioned?
  • Do all images adhere to Wikipedia's copyright regulations?
  • Are the images laid out in a visually appealing way?

Images and media evaluation

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The content added to the sand box did not include images or media and neither does the main page.

For New Articles Only

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If the draft you're reviewing is a new article, consider the following in addition to the above.

  • Does the article meet Wikipedia's Notability requirements - i.e. Is the article supported by 2-3 reliable secondary sources independent of the subject?
  • How exhaustive is the list of sources? Does it accurately represent all available literature on the subject?
  • Does the article follow the patterns of other similar articles - i.e. contain any necessary infoboxes, section headings, and any other features contained within similar articles?
  • Does the article link to other articles so it is more discoverable?

New Article Evaluation

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This is not a new article.

Overall impressions

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Guiding questions:

  • Has the content added improved the overall quality of the article - i.e. Is the article more complete?
  • What are the strengths of the content added?
  • How can the content added be improved?

Overall evaluation

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The content added in the sand box definitely improves the article. Expanding the computational complexity section was definitely important, although maybe I biased in that I'm working on quantum complexity theory for my Wikipedia project. The section in the main article was somewhat insufficient given its relevance to the topic. The addition of the travelling salesman problem to the experiments section also works very well as an example for possible ways to show quantum supremacy.

From what I understand computational complexity is how one would define what problems quantum computing could and couldn't solve efficiently and how one would define what problems classical computing could and couldn't solve efficiently. Being that the goal of quantum supremacy is to show that quantum computing can efficiently solve a problem which classical computing can not efficiently solve, understanding computational complexity is very important for this topic. I think the additions to the computational complexity section in the sand box do well to explain some of the more important aspects relevant to quantum supremacy without going too far into the weeds of computational complexity. I think the choice of adding the travelling salesman problem to the experiments section is also a strong addition. It seems like a more accessible example to someone who is less familiar with some concepts in physics. The example of boson sampling is probably harder to understand for someone who doesn't know what a boson is. So the inclusion of traveling salesman problem makes the article easier to understand for more people.

The content added to the sand box could be improved in a few ways. Adding more in text citations to the additions to the computational complexity section would be good. Clarification of what NP-complete problems and NP-hard problems are would help as well. Possibly some clarification on the asymptotic notation used in the addition of the traveling salesman problem could be an improvement. I'm sorry I don't have more suggestions to improve the content added to the sand box, but it is already very good over all.

  1. ^ Watrous, John (2012), "Quantum Computational Complexity", Computational Complexity, New York, NY: Springer New York, pp. 2361–2387, ISBN 978-1-4614-1799-6, retrieved 2020-10-18