The Dracarys Award: Fire Opal
For Withstanding The Quantum Dragon's Relentless Assault
WHEREAS, on July 21, 2020, after using the original version of Black Opal, which is introductory level, I privately messaged Prof. Michael Biercuk, CEO of Q-CTRL, on Twitter to request more information about Fire Opal, which is for algorithm developers and quantum computing end users;
WHEREAS, on November 18, 2021, I was invited to participate in the beta testing of Fire Opal, which began with a call with Dr. Michael Hush on December 3, 2021, after which I submitted some dirty, nasty circuits for up to seven qubits, including classification circuits with Fredkin gates and Grover’s algorithm;
WHEREAS, on March 9, 2022, I published “Q-CTRL’s Fire Opal is Awesome” on Medium with the beyond-my-expectations results on real hardware that had been returned to me from Dr. Hush and the Fire Opal team;
WHEREAS, on December 15, 2022, I published “Review: Q-CTRL Fire Opal” on Medium with a “The Good. The Bad. The Ugly.” review of hands-on experimentation with Fire Opal;
WHEREAS, on December 28, 2022, I published “Quantum Phase Estimation!” on Medium with the impressive results of executing a generic QPE circuit on real hardware with Fire Opal, which returned sheer noise on the same hardware without Fire Opal;
WHEREAS, on January 1, 2023, I published “Precision Quantum Phase Estimation” on Medium with the results from using the same generic QPE algorithm to determine how much precision is possible with QPE using Fire Opal on real hardware, while also showing sheer noise when executing the same circuits on the same hardware without Fire Opal;
WHEREAS, on January 9, 2024, I published “Simulating Oxygen on Real Hardware” on Medium with the results of executing actual QPE circuits up to 13-qubit molecular oxygen, comprising 11 data qubits and 2 of the 17 counting qubits, which went well beyond my prediction of probably molecular hydrogen and possibly lithium hydride;
NOW, THEREFORE, I, Brian Siegelwax, with the power vested in me by absolutely nobody, do hereby proclaim Fire Opal the inaugural recipient of The Dracarys Award.
IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand and caused the Seal of The Quantum Dragon to be affixed this January 1, 2025.
Brian Siegelwax, the least qualified person in quantum