Quantum Control Machine: The Limits of Control Flow in Quantum Programming
summary
Proves that a straightforward conditional jump impossibility holds: lifting classical conditional jumps into superposition is nonrealizable, with a formal reversible-semantic proof and counterexamples showing entanglement collapses data. Presents a complete characterization (reversibility + separability requirement) and an ISA called the quantum control machine that adds reversible jump metadata, gives compilation sketches, and supplies reproducible artifacts demonstrating the ISA expresses control flow correctly without reverting algorithms to classical behavior.
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chapters (10)
- 0:00Quantum control programs
- 2:30Quantum programming challenges
- 5:19Limits of quantum languages
- 6:48No conditional jumps in quantum
- 9:38Measurement fails for control flow
- 11:43Reversibility and semantics
- 14:10Proof: no conditional jumps
- 16:38Implications for lambda calculi
- 18:04Reversible instruction sets
- 20:29Summary and future directions
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