Taking a break from hands-down-sports, look to the technology side for a bit. IBM, or the International Business Machine, recently released the world's first quantum computer. Some of you might ask why another computer has been created. After all, the world already has regular main-frame computers, supercomputers, micro-computers, and a few more types. But quantum computers are a whole different world. Quantum computers deal with the special behavior of quantum particles including entanglement and superposition, and can manipulate quantum bits. However, the connection, if any, between this and soccer? To understand, you need to comprehend the basics of quantum physics.
Quantum physics deals with the strange behavior of subatomic particles such as photons, electrons, and other particles, and quantum computers can manipulate these quantum bits (qubits) as a regular computer handles its bits. Now, quantum particles have been the topic of many movies and tv shows including Ant Man and the Wasp 2 and The Flash. The reason for the fascination surrounding them relies on their two main wacky behavioral phenomenons, superposition and quantum entanglement. First of all, quantum superposition deals with a particles ability to exist in two or more states at once. Entanglement is the correlation between two quantum particles. If something happens to one, something will happen to the other.
Scientists believe that there are 2 major applications for quantum computers. Firstly, quantum cryptography seems a future possibility. Due to quantum superposition and the many states a bit can exist in at one time, quantum cryptography could potentially be "un-hackable." However, on the flip side, if quantum hacking methods are invented before the cryptography part, modern-day encryption would be virtually obsolete against a computer that can run different possible keys all at once, unlike the hard-break a normal computer would have to perform trying all the possibilities one by one. Sadly for all of us, we have not yet developed a quantum computer capable enough of being able to process many Qubits without overloading. But, humankind has always prevailed, and it will again. However, for sports fans, that could be the problem.
Whilst many will still not have heard much about quantum at this time, raise awareness, for it is a truly amazing piece of technology and can do much to advance human life and its vast complexity. However, a growing misconception is that it can help predict probable outcomes in sports. It is impossible, and this is for one simple reason. It's not the point of the quantum computer. The quantum computer is more focused towards large calculations in mathematics and the sciences, as well as running multiple solutions at once for cryptography related problems. It cannot take in input for a game, and then provide output on how the game will end up. But. There is a but. It can advance the technology needed to do so. Quantum computing has been predicted to be able to help facilitate Machine Learning.
First of all, what in tarnation is machine learning. First quantum computers and now this. Chill, take a break, and prepare. Basically, machine learning is the use of collected input and data to help provide output. For example, if you visit blahblahshoestore.com and click on a certain model of shoe, this provides Google with input that you may be interested in this shoe type. Google may then give output by listing the shoe on many ads you see, and therefore hopefully for them, you will buy it. Another example is your email. If you continue to receive mails that you aren't for you or aren't related to you, you can mark them as spam. Eventually, your computer will learn from this, and classify many emails like these as spam. Machine learning is considered to be the closest thing to a true Artificial Intelligence system. Knowing this, you may be able to infer what we are about to get to.
Quantum computing has been foreseen to be able to advance machine learning. For an AI System to process input data, and then continuously be tested over and over again, the process takes years. But, with some sort of quantum technology, an AI system could process such data within minutes. The output would be calculated just as fast, with no delay. This brings us to soccer. Theoretically, if we had algorithms that studied regular games, we could save that info per team to a database. Every team would have these repositories with information such as how many passes they make, the distance run by a player. However, we could also study the movements of a player and maybe relay information on if a player tends to overcommit forwards or to the side. Using all these stored info, a quantum enhances AI system could predict and analyze potential goal-scoring plays. However, it would have to adjust its calculations as a game goes on, and this is because it cannot predict the game. Only use what it knows, to infer. Quantum computing is based on probability, not certainty. Therefore, although it can't predict a game, it can still give coaches vital information for attacking and defensive strategies. The computer might be especially adept for calculating where a PK will be taken, and will help improve goalie guessing accuracy.
As a result, AI systems won't hurt sports, they might just enhance the biggest form of recreation in the world. Sports as we know them will remain intact. After all, no machine can predict the game winning comeback from Tom Brady, the stunning skill from Messi, or the buzzer beater from Kyrie. In fact, sports are much like the quantum universe. They are both unpredictable. Sure, some things are probable, like Brady winning a seventh, but nothing is certain.
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