classical
Explanation
The Joke
The comic shows a man who looks like a computer scientist or physicist speaking into a microphone, saying: "Look, the PC police won't tell you this, but 'classicals' are INFERIOR at factoring large numbers, okay?" The caption below reads: "Due to a hot mic, Dr. Aaronson is revealed to be a quantum supremacist."
The joke is a multi-layered pun built on the concept of "quantum supremacy," which is an actual technical term in quantum computing. In the real world, quantum supremacy refers to the point at which a quantum computer can perform a calculation that no classical computer can do in a reasonable timeframe. Google claimed to have achieved quantum supremacy in 2019 (around the time this comic was published). The comic reframes this technical concept as a form of bigotry -- "quantum supremacism" -- as if believing quantum computers are better than classical computers is akin to a hateful ideology. The "PC police" line plays on political correctness discourse, and "classicals" is used as if it were a slur for classical computers.
The Humor
The humor comes from the perfect structural parallel between real-world controversies about supremacist ideologies and the entirely benign technical debate about quantum vs. classical computing. The phrase "factoring large numbers" is a specific reference to Shor's algorithm, which would allow a quantum computer to break RSA encryption by factoring large numbers exponentially faster than any known classical algorithm. The joke works because every element of the inflammatory rhetoric maps precisely onto an actual, legitimate computer science discussion. The reference to "Dr. Aaronson" is likely a nod to Scott Aaronson, a real quantum computing researcher at UT Austin who has written extensively about quantum supremacy on his blog "Shtetl-Optimized."
References
- Quantum supremacy: The milestone in quantum computing where a quantum device performs a task infeasible for classical computers. Google's Sycamore processor claimed this in October 2019.
- Shor's algorithm: A quantum algorithm for integer factorization that runs exponentially faster than the best known classical algorithms, threatening RSA cryptography.
- Scott Aaronson: A prominent theoretical computer scientist known for his work on quantum computing complexity theory.