Google发布量子计算新芯片Willow，疑似“借力平行宇宙”

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周一，Google发布了最新的量子计算芯片Willow。据称，这款芯片不仅速度飞快，可靠性也极高，这些本身就足以成为头条。然而，真正让科技圈炸开锅的，是博文里藏着的一句惊人宣言。

On Monday, Google introduced Willow, its latest and supposedly greatest quantum computing chip. Sure, its speed and reliability claims were impressive enough to make headlines, but what really got the tech world buzzing was an eyebrow-raising statement buried in the blog post.

Google Quantum AI的创始人Hartmut Neven表示，Willow芯片快得离谱，快到可能是从平行宇宙借来了算力。是的，你没看错——其他宇宙。

Hartmut Neven, founder of Google Quantum AI, dropped this bombshell: Willow is so outrageously fast it might be borrowing computational power from parallel universes. Yes, you read that right—other universes.

Neven甚至进一步表示，这款芯片的表现可能证明我们生活在多重宇宙中。他的原话是这样的：

Neven boldly claimed that this chip’s performance is evidence we live in a multiverse. Here’s the mic-drop moment from his blog post:

Willow的性能令人震惊：它用不到五分钟完成了一个当今最快超级计算机需要10²⁵年（也就是10千万亿亿年）才能完成的计算。这一数字远超物理学已知的时间尺度，更远超宇宙的年龄。这支持了量子计算发生在多个平行宇宙中的观点，与David Deutsch首次提出的“我们生活在多重宇宙”预测相吻合。

Willow’s performance on this benchmark is astonishing: It performed a computation in under five minutes that would take one of today’s fastest supercomputers 10²⁵ or 10 septillion years. This mind-boggling number exceeds known timescales in physics and vastly exceeds the age of the universe. It lends credence to the notion that quantum computation occurs in many parallel universes, in line with the idea that we live in a multiverse, a prediction first made by David Deutsch.

当然，这个“爆麦”时刻让多重宇宙的支持者欢呼雀跃，但也引来了不少怀疑的声音。批评者指出，Google用的是自家设计的基准测试来验证Willow的性能，因此这并不足以证明平行宇宙的存在。

Cue gasps and applause from the multiverse enthusiasts—and a fair bit of skepticism from others. Critics pointed out that Google used its own benchmark to prove Willow’s speed, so maybe the parallel-universe theory isn’t ready for prime time just yet.

如果你对量子计算不太了解，这里是简化版：传统计算机的比特是0或1的二进制状态，而量子计算机使用的是量子比特。这些比特不仅可以是0或1，还可以是介于两者之间的状态。此外，它们还利用量子纠缠，粒子之间的状态可以跨越任何距离保持关联。

For those not fluent in quantum jargon, here’s the short version: Classical computers deal in binary—bits that are either 0 or 1. Quantum computers, however, rely on qubits. These tiny bits can be 0, 1, or somewhere in between, thanks to quantum mechanics. They also leverage quantum entanglement, which links particles’ states even across vast distances.

不过问题来了：量子比特越多，计算中出现错误的几率也越高。目前来看，量子计算机是否真的能够稳定且强大地发挥作用，还有待验证。Google称Willow在降低错误率方面取得了进展，但这是否足以实现突破，还得交给时间（也许还有平行宇宙）来证明。

The real catch? The more qubits you add, the more errors creep in. So far, it’s unclear whether quantum computers can ever be stable and powerful enough to live up to the hype. Google claims Willow is a step closer, with improved error correction. Time (and perhaps other universes) will tell.