Bob Henderson is a reporter for the Wall Street Journal. Like other reporters he also has a PhD in theoretical physics from the University of Rochester, an MFA in writing from Columbia University, degrees in electrical engineering from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and the University of Southern California, and in photojournalism from Syracuse University. Just kidding.
He is special. His recent article covers the work of several experts on quantum computing: Quantum Computing Gets Real: It Could Even Shorten Your Airport Connection.
Quantum Model
One expert is Angelo Bassi who has a degree in Physics from the University of Trieste in 1998 and the PhD in Physics in 2001. He has a neat model of what makes quantum computation different from classic. Imagine a surfer who is about to hit a rock in their path. The surfer can go left or right with respect to the rock. But compare the surfer to a wave: the wave can do more since it can go both ways. It could go some to the left and some to the right. This is perhaps more powerful since a wave can effectively go both ways. This seems like a terrific way to see quantum’s advantage.
Another expert in the article is Scott Aaronson—our long time friend. He is a professor of computer science at University of Texas at Austin and director of its Quantum Information Center. Scott is famous for his blog which is on theory and especially on quantum computers.
Scott thinks current quantum tricks are likely to be still modest but in the future who knows?
Open Problems
What do you think? Do you like the surfer analogy?
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