SIO357: Quantum Computers Part 2 - Inevitable Game Changer or... Hyperloop?

Transcript

This transcript was generated automatically and may contain errors — the audio is the record.

0:00:16 Thomas: To Serious Inquiries Only. This is episode 357. I'm your host Thomas Smith here and I'm excited to get you part two on quantum computing. This part is more about the current state of things and if you're not in the know here, it might not be what you think. It's kind of interesting, I was blown away by some of this information. Information. Excited to get you back over with our expert, Anne, who I'd love to tell you more about, but I don't know because she works in the government and can't really tell us. She can tell us what she thinks about quantum computing and the current state of things. So why don't we get right on over to that? Here we go. Was a struggle and I apologize, but now let's just talk about that so I'm following at least enough to know the things we're talking about here. And you're saying this doesn't exist yet. But I thought I saw a picture of a refrigerator, of a dill fridge. Am I being a real dill fridge? Or did I see exactly see a picture of a quantum computer? Or is that fake?

0:01:04 Anne: So have quantum computers in the sense that we have, you So, like, like we can take a CD-ROM and you can read out a 1 or a 0 and you can encode that as your phase or your photon polarization, or you could use a trapped ion, whatever your flavor of choice is to have a qubit. Exist, but we are not at the point where somebody has built a quantum computer that could demonstrate Grover's algorithm and certainly not Shor's algorithm.

0:01:31 Thomas: Okay.

0:01:44 Thomas: Haven't even gotten to Shor's algorithm. Okay.

0:01:46 Anne: I say, I don't know if probably a lot of people out there have heard of Shor's algorithm because, ah, have

0:01:51 Thomas: Now, figure that no, even if someone's heard of it, it doesn't... I mean, is it Polly Shor? Is that who's...

0:01:58 Anne: You heard about how, you know, quantum computers are going to break all your passwords? Yes. Shor's algorithm.

0:02:01 Thomas: Yes. Well, okay.

0:02:03 Anne: It

0:02:03 Thomas: So that's specific. That's not just like the default, any quantum computer would be so cool that it would be able to break all that stuff. That specifically Howard Shore's algorithm, whatever, you tell me what Shor is, but that's a specific kind of these logic gates that we haven't implemented yet or nobody successfully implemented yet, okay?

0:02:24 Anne: Implemented the gates, they don't have enough qubits to do the algorithm. I'm gonna look up what Shore's name is. Oh, and it's from the 90s too, so it really does fit. Oh,

0:02:25 Thomas: Ah. Okay. Gotcha, like A cubit buddy, I was trying to, yeah, you get Pauly Shore is such a dated reference, but like I Yeah. But that the two people, people from Encino Man have won Oscars. Maybe Encino, you know, maybe Pauly Shore, who was in Encino, maybe that's going to make a comeback. We'll see. He's next. He could be the next for an Oscar.

0:02:51 Anne: He's due It's Peter Shor, different.

0:02:53 Thomas: OK, so different. OK. Well, we solved that one. So what's the world record for Qubits now? How many Qubites has anybody got on the ship anyhow?

0:02:56 Anne: Shor, I Believe that's somewhat controversial because I, I have... people would be surprised how sensitive people can get. So, Yeah.

0:03:10 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah. Qubit envy. OK., I'm not asking for, you know, like a subpoena or anything, like just roughly, are we talking like five or like a million? Like what is the dozens?

0:03:21 Anne: So, Believe we're, we're solidly into the dozens, um, I know that there's... there's claims of, um, oh, we have, we have 10 cubits, but, or cubits, pero. But it's really like, you know, 10 qubits over here and 10 qubit's over here. And, you if we had two 10 qubit computers talking to each other, does that constitute a 20 qubit computer? And, and I'm not taking a side on that debate.

0:03:24 Thomas: Okay. Hmm. Is the equivalent roughly classical computing power of 10 qubits? Are we in like 1987 or are we in, you like what? Do you translate that?

0:03:53 Anne: Much. And the about it is that it doesn't translate very well because the, like, you know, if you get a quantum computer to, say, calculate, you know, three times two, it's not going to do it as well as a classical computer because classical computers are very good at that sort of thing.

0:04:03 Thomas: Mm hmm. OK. Yeah. Yeah, that's fair. I mean, yeah. OK, so quick. So classical computers will still handle the easy stuff, probably.

0:04:23 Anne: Stuff that fits into their world, you know, calculating This number times this other number, I see a world where a quantum computer would ever take that over from a classical computer, because that's a sort of calculation that lends itself very well to, you gates. Quantum computing for babies again, what doesn't lend itself so well to classical bits is starting with six and asking what the factors are. That's when you need something like a search algorithm, and quantum computers are good at search algorithms.

0:04:25 Thomas: Mm hmm, mm hmm. Right. Yeah? Mm. OK? That's interesting. Thing. Well, I don't know if it's a good example, but it's sort of how human brains are fucking amazing. If you ask the average person to multiply, I don't know, 327 by 594, they're going to be like, fucking God damn it. All right. Can I use my phone?

0:05:13 Thomas: No, can't use your phone. All right. And s fascinating because a calculator, calculator is really goddamn old and simple technology, and yet can do that so much better and faster than humans, with a few exceptions, can do. But, you know, so, like, I don't think that's a knock on quantum computers per se, like, you be better at, at more difficult things, but, um, the basic stuff, calculator stuff, you know, leave that to the calculators.

0:05:12 Anne: Yeah, get a calculator. Or just different things. I don't even know if I would call it more difficult, like, you know, to talk about human brains, like humans are usually very good at recognizing faces, like babies Can recognize a face. And you ask a computer to do it. And, you you have to do is, like up any of those and they can't see black people, because they didn't get that training data. Know, their are terrible at that sort of thing. It's just a difference I would Say not a not a judgment call, yeah.

0:05:37 Thomas: Yeah. Oh, okay. Yeah, right. Right. That's fair. I guess it's hard to say what's harder. I don't know if I was making I mean I would think facial recognition is harder than number crunching, but I guess maybe there's no reason to even make that call. We'll just say different things. That reason it's It's hard to say, yeah, we're in 1987 in terms of quantum computing, because you might be in, you know, 1603 in terms of number crunching because quantum computers suck at that. But the year 2525 is still a lot in terms of something else, because quantum computers are very good at that something else. Is

0:06:32 Anne: Yeah, and and there I I don't think we're really gonna have like you're never gonna have a quantum computer that works alone, it's Always gonna need a classical computer because We already have them.

0:06:39 Thomas: Right. Yeah. And makes sense. Hmm.

0:06:42 Anne: Now, maybe some aliens out there invented quantum computers first and are working really hard to make a classical computer.

0:06:49 Thomas: Would be funny. Well, so but but I mean, roughly speaking, though, so how can you give us a sense of how strong, if we're somewhere in the dozen, let's say the current record, just to stipulate for the sake of the conversation, is 10 qubits, can you tell me, how many Noah's Ark's does that mean? No, like how powerful is that? Like, is there some way you can give us an indication, assuming that technology is working great, like someone's got that fridge, it's got, they took all, cleared all the beer out and they're like, this fucking fridge is 10 cubits and works perfectly, what do you think we could do with that right now?

0:07:21 Anne: Yeah. So right now, like you'll see headlines a lot of, you know, so-and-so demonstrated quantum supremacy. And what you probably don't see is then 20 other people are complaining about that, that headline and getting really mad about it. But like, hard because there's no one benchmark. So what you'll have is like Google will come out and and say, here's this algorithm that can only be done on a quantum computer. And look, we did this out. We did this calculation that, you theorized. And here was supposed to be the input. Here was the output. Look, we didn't. Hooray, us. Some cases, people will go, all right. And then they will figure out a way to do it on a classical computer.

0:07:27 Thomas: We Got

0:08:04 Anne: So then that kind of, you you know, gets to the, what's the point?

0:08:08 Thomas: The John Henry situation.

0:08:10 Anne: Have, you know somebody go like, yeah, that, that great. But, the but thing that you did can't scale to anything useful. Like that, That's a cute quantum problem that you Did, but there's no way to take that cute quantum problem and turn it into a real problem. These are the debates that people like to have behind closed doors.

0:08:18 Thomas: Yeah.

0:08:30 Thomas: And I would say that in general it seems like humanity has gone the direction where the people who are like, oh, that's great, but you get, what can you really do with it, they're pretty much always wrong, but like, maybe not, so I guess the ultimate question I really have wanted to get at with this whole episode is, based my conversations with you, I'm really wondering how much we've been sold a bill of goods, as they say, with quantum computing. On a scale of one to Elon Musk's hyperloop, is this? Is this the kind of thing where Elon Musk is going to keep promising us like, oh yeah, we'll have quantum I'm computing by the end of the day, actually, maybe, maybe by Friday, you and then it just never happens.

0:09:12 Anne: He's not in quantum computing, is he? I haven't heard anything from him.

0:09:14 Thomas: Yeah. He couldn't, he couldn't do any harm. It sounds like it was.

0:09:19 Anne: Already so much hype around everything that's quantum that it's just a matter of time. Yeah. And I think the thing is that there's a lot of hype and lot of that hype is probably not going to come true, but probably what will happen is going to be something that none of us have thought of right now, but it will be really cool. It's analogy that comes up a lot with us is like, we're in the days of ARPANET, where we're like, We're just gonna build it, and then see what we can do with it later.

0:09:19 Thomas: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Hmm. Hmm, and, then, it'll be made into porn, and that'll be, yeah.

0:09:53 Anne: And nobody saw that coming. Nobody in 1970 was like, One day there will be Pornhub. And this will, this will change movie theaters forever I There's... there's

0:09:58 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah. Only one Nostradamus was like, listen, I'm telling you, porn will be on the computers. That, that would be, yeah.

0:10:09 Anne: Probably there Had to be somebody

0:10:10 Thomas: They were laughed out of, but now, now they're the one laughing and masturbating. No. So, but okay. But

0:10:10 Anne: But But Nobody Saw Like Instagram filters, you know, no, Who would have, nobody saw that coming when they were thinking, hey, wouldn't it be cool to have two computers talk to each other and I think, I think that's what's going to happen with quantum computers, is that, um, I'm, I'm a big believer in, in human, human creativity, where it's like, we, we have to that is true, um, where humans, like, we need to build things so that regular people can get a hold of them and start creating on them, because

0:10:17 Thomas: Right. Yeah, yeah, mm -hmm. And capacity to to create porn, yeah, for sure. Yeah, Yeah,

0:10:50 Anne: Like, that's what happened with computers, like, I don't think we really had a big explosion until you had the personal computer, or you had computers be accessible, and then all of a sudden, when you have a million people working on something, they invent some amazing and terrifying things.

0:10:50 Thomas: Right. Sure. Oh, It's crazy. It's Crazy, I mean, I know this is probably a weird example, but I see that just with, like, video games, it's actually, it's fucking insane. Like, a video game gets released, and back in the day when it was like Nintendo and, like, you know, me, and, yeah, I watched my big brother play it, you know, it was like, oh, okay, he could, now got on this level and it's impossible, can't really do it.

And then you get to this day and age where, like, actually even some of those Nintendo games, like, now that, now that everybody can share everything and stream everything and, and work together and work on stuff, you come to find out that, like, oh no, this person, they actually beat Mario 1 backwards with, they're holding, used two sticks and using two chopsticks on the, for the buttons, and they beat the whole thing.

Like, the stuff people can do once everybody has gotten, gotten ahold of it and is, you no, lives apparently, is really amazing. I actually think it is as funny as that example is, I actually think it's the same thing. Like, it's just crowd, crowdsourcing but almost, in a way, that's just, it is so powerful. It's actually incredible.

0:12:02 Anne: And I know there's a name for this when it's like when people like they can't do something, can't Do something, and then they hear that somebody else did it. And then all of a sudden they can do it without even seeing the solution. And I know there is a lot of like bullshit out out there about it.

0:12:10 Thomas: Yeah, yes. That's used to do this exercise in, in college. I was an RA and we had this dorky exercise we do where it's like you give people challenge and you tell them, um, see if you can do this in, you know, 10 minutes or something. And then they do it. And then you're like, ah, see, if you didn't do it in a minute. And they do. And just telling them that there's a different, like a better time threshold totally changes how they do. It's really fascinating.

I think that's the thing you're talking about. It's sort of like, I, um, don't know if this is the same thing, but once someone ran a sub four four minute mile, like it, like, everybody could do it somehow. It's like that kind of thing. Once you, once humans figure out it's possible, somehow they just do it. I don't, I don't really understand it. I still can't run a sub minute you mile. But whatever.

But let, but let's pin this down a little bit, because the thing about like, oh, all our passwords are belong to us now because, or not belong to us, because quantum computer is so powerful that like all the cryptography, all that crap's going to to break down, how big of a threat is that? And if it sounds like you're you're saying that so far is not panned out, or is not going to pan out, maybe can you explain that a little bit? Oh

0:13:21 Anne: I think that'll happen. It's not happening right now. Might not happen in the next few years. You know, 10 plus years? Yeah, I Think eventually we'll get to where we can have a quantum computer that can do that.

0:13:23 Thomas: Okay. Hmm. Oh, okay, well, that's singing a different tune then from a minute ago. That that sounds like a thing that quantum computers will do then.

0:13:44 Anne: What I was saying about like quantum quantum computers taking over is like, I don't think they're like, you're not going to have where your personal computer is replaced with a quantum computer and everything's quantum and it's bigger, faster internet. And it's, does, you know, you your PlayStation 15 is, is a quantum machine. Um, but these niche capabilities, that's, that'S where quantum computers are going to do stuff is like even breaking your passwords. That's very, very niche which that's, that's because there's, you way that we do cryptography now is based on what call an asymmetric function. You have a function that's very easy to solve one way and very difficult to solve the other way. So like you're saying that the multiplying two large numbers together for a computer, that'S very easy TO multiply those two together. It's very hard for it to factor them out. Like, um, you know, what it? Middle school, high school algebra, where you had to do like the factoring of polynomials and you wondered, why am I doing this? This is so stupid. And it's like, that's what all of your, you accounts are based on.

0:14:01 Thomas: Right, yeah. Right. Okay. Yeah. Oh. Wow, oh.

0:14:53 Anne: That's what all your security is based on is the ability to factor numbers. Yeah.

0:14:57 Thomas: Because it, because it's so hard to factor them out that, like, and I actually, I've learned a little bit about cryptography, because it is so fucking interesting, I took a class, but it's also really difficult. It's easy to do those inputs, it's easier to multiply a bunch of numbers together, but then it's, it's a lot harder to to figure out precisely what was multiplied together necessarily. And that's kind of what you're saying, the the asymmetrical.

0:15:17 Anne: Sure.

0:15:18 Thomas: Okay, but the Pauly Shore's algorithm, you're seeing. That's The one that is the this, that's the the all all your passwords are belong to us one, but we, of yet, is it a question of when, when you say they, no one's done that yet. Is it a questions? Is it question of how many qubits they have or something about the qubits and how they're working that we haven't figured out? Like which, which part of that haven't we figured out.

0:15:20 Anne: The Pauly Shore algorithm. Yeah.

0:15:40 Anne: I it's mostly a scaling problem. Right now. Of the individual gates that you would need to do that, you been shown and worked out, not necessarily working together. You don't just have a qubit scaling problem, you kind of have a sustainability problem. It all has to exist long enough in to work. And what happens with the quantum computer, when I say long enough is, is get a lot of error in quantum computers right now. So there's significant places where these operations can and will go wrong. So then you have to do error correction on those. And that's another factor that's holding it back right now. I do think these are surmountable problems. I think they're going get solved next week or maybe in five years, but eventually.

0:15:42 Thomas: Hmm. Hmm. Hmm. Okay. Hmm. Ah, Hmm.

0:16:36 Thomas: What's all causing the air? Is it as stability problem? It's just hard to keep everything stable in this sub-zero temperature, smoky world.

0:16:45 Anne: Effectively. And that's why you want the cold temperature, because things are more stable at a cold temperature. Yeah.

0:16:49 Thomas: Yeah, right. That's what I meant. Sorry, I sounded like, yeah. So what creates that instability. Is there like a time record like, here's how long we've kept a qubit going? Or that gives us a sense of the there?

0:17:03 Anne: And I believe the, I believe it's a trapped ion, and in, you very special nurse circumstances that I'm talking about, an optical table filled with equipment and like three sleepless grad students nursing it, it, you're, you're on the order of microseconds. So,

0:17:22 Thomas: Wow, really? Really? That long enough to do anything? Interesting. So again, trying to assess as a layperson the problem here in terms of like, why isn't this real yet? Now it sounds like it's a couple different things. It's like not only the stability and the time, but also the quantity of qubits. Is all those things together? Or

0:17:43 Anne: These things together. And, and more, because you also have, like, the, the type of qubits that are good at lasting for a long time, are you, we don't have all the gates worked out for those, um, don't really have a way to get a trapped ion qubit to talk to a superconducting qubit. You know, one lives in a, a cryostat, one lives on an optical table. That's, yeah.

0:17:45 Thomas: Oh. Oh. There's two, there's different kind. Oh, okay. So there's different kinds, there's not one cubit, there's like several different kinds of them. Oh.

0:18:13 Anne: And, and some are good at some things and some are Good at other things, you know, so ones that I know, um, so like, uh, superconducting qubits, which I believe are all Josephson junctions. Um, so that's where you have like a superconductor metal and a little, very, very little, um. Insulator and then another other superconductor and your, specialness is in the electron flow, like across that, that So I believe that's the only type of superconducting qubit, but I, maybe I'm missing one. So there's, there's superconducted qubits and then there's a, you can have trapped ions and you can Have photons. And I guess you could probably have spin too. I mean, anything that can be in a superposition could be a qubit. Think all the major advancements for quantum supremacy at all are superconducting qubits. Are very, very cold. So all the advancements

0:18:16 Thomas: Geez, roughly speaking, how many kinds of cubits are there that have been working or functional or that anyone's tried? Hmm.

0:18:45 Thomas: Well, Okay.

0:19:14 Anne: That you hear that this quantum computer did this amazing thing, like Google's quantum computer did something great, that's going going to be something that lives in your friend Dilfridge's world. The thing about those, like those tend to be pretty stable, less prone to error because they're in a very confined environment. Qubits are fragile. That's kind of their nature. They ever interact with anything, then that's going to collapse their superposition and ruin your whole thing.

0:19:26 Thomas: Yeah.

0:19:44 Thomas: They're Real snowflakes, huh? They don't have any gumption, Why don't they just get a job? Gosh, offended by everything, um, Wow, one hand it sounds like I'm getting two distinct messages. On one side of my brain, it's like, wow, this is super cool, it's only a matter of time before someone builds a dill fridge that can hold enough cold beer that makes one of these. Or, on the other hand, it is like, no, this shit sucks and no one can do it at all. It is weird, I don't know which of those things it is.

0:19:47 Anne: Really are. So sensitive to any sort of perturbation.

0:20:14 Anne: Yeah, if you're talking about one little tiny piece of something, like factoring a large number, I think a quantum computer that can do that will happen. Don't think that's going to end up being the coolest thing that quantum computers do. I think whatever they do is going to be, you know, we haven't figured that out yet. We have to actually have a quantum supercomputer, like, you know, on a big enough scale for people to use it in order to know what it's going to be best for. Yeah.

0:20:28 Thomas: Okay. Yeah. Right, right, right. But I feel like the principle of cracking all our passwords is pretty, like, that seems like kind of inevitable based on what you're saying. Like, was going to ask, I mean, I assume people are working on this or or if there's a system that is going to be so good at breaking it. Can you use that same system to, like, make a better one or something?

0:20:56 Anne: You systems have been broken all the time. We don't use. Yeah. And all together. Yeah, I mean, this there is are people, you of people at least um job it is is to make crypto systems not a lot of people um mean that they'll work on this like full-time, this is their job.

0:21:12 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah. It's not a lot. Yeah.

0:21:26 Anne: Um, if you count the whole community, yeah, you, you definitely have thousands. Um, National Institute for Standards and Technology, um, know they have a competition for a quantum safe, safe cryptography. So post-quantum cryptography, this a little bit of a misnomer because there's nothing quantum in it. This is all math. It's, it's just math that is safe against a quantum computer.

0:21:26 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah. Okay, so it doesn't rely on like the factoring thing that that stumps normal computers? Yeah, it relies on just like multiply three times two and the quantum computer's like, fuck, I can't, I'm out. That'd be funny if that you go the other way.

0:21:54 Anne: So, Yeah, it relies on, on something totally different. Actually kind of did happen with one of the algorithms that was in this competition actually did get broken by a classical computer. And of course, like, you circles of the internet went insane over that they were like, see, this post quantum stuff is so stupid. They made something that a quantum computer couldn't do, but somebody did it on their laptop and and the the is that was kind of early in in the competition, so so what they have is a lot of, you know, people working on these algorithms and they'll put out a competition where people, you know, in academia and and in industry can come up with their their systems and they, they just, you know, red team the shit out of it until they get something that's solid, solid. And how they came up with our current system anyway. So people working on this constantly. So, the fact that, oh, it will all be broken, it's not like we made up a crypto system in 1900 and been using the same thing ever since.

0:22:06 Thomas: Yeah. Right. Yeah. Yeah.

0:23:04 Thomas: And it, I mean, that eases my my mind, it's not like you Bauer 24 situation where like some country full of people that are the color that America doesn't like is going to get a hold of one of these things and then all our passwords are gone. Right, I mean, it feels like, although, I mean, this does sound like something that like is kind of a weapon, like, would do, imagine that you be something in terms of the bazillions of dollars we spend on, I don't know, jets that don't fucking fly or whatever, you know, nonsense. It seems like this would be a really good use, if there is a good use, of all the defense billions that the U.S spends on war, you know, like if this could be the next level of, we're already talking cyber security and you know, Russian interference, with all the blah blah blah, it feels like this kind of could be that that next arena for that kind of stuff. Yeah.

0:23:51 Anne: Funny. Yesterday, I actually had this conversation with one of my coworkers who's a reservist, and he was joking about, you know, the the military's um current ads for recruiting because they're all like cyber security, like, that's that's what gets people excited, nobody's excited by guns anymore. No, you're gonna be typing on a computer, which is probably true, um, I,

0:24:06 Thomas: Yeah.

0:24:15 Thomas: Well, I think they are excited by guns, but we don't need those anymore. It'd be like advertising for, like, you, you know, yeah, join the army and you're gonna uh cannon at somebody, it's like, no, I mean, yeah, cannons are still cannons, but it sounds like that's not the weapons of war that we're that we're using anymore. It's interesting, what if it becomes a whole different, what if totally switch, you know, typically it's like kind of Republicany people are in conservative people tend to be more military people, what if it switches over time and it's like Republicans hate the military because it's a bunch of computer nerds and then all like the left loves it, that'd be funny.

0:24:48 Anne: You know, I think we're already in that shift because people are so mad about the military being all woke and it's like like, well, that's what makes it work better.

0:24:48 Thomas: Wow. Yeah. The military being all woke Yeah, well,

0:25:00 Anne: Well,

0:25:01 Thomas: Don't we, uh, come to a close here, is there anything else, I'm sure we got to but a fraction of what you wanted to get to because that had to contend with someone trying to understand what, what this is, um, else would you like to leave people with. So it sounds like, don't, don't be too worried about a quantum computer cracking your passwords tomorrow, but like eventually, and, but when that happens, I'm sure someone will be working on the other end to fix it. Is there anything else, any other messages that you want the average person to take away from this quantum computing 101 course here?

0:25:31 Anne: I think what I really want to get across is that I like the thing that quantum is hard, but it's not. It's, you know, actually the math to do quantum mechanics is easier than the math it takes to do classical physics. Definitely not general relativity that out there. Quantum mechanics is pretty easy. And actually, when quantum computing, you algebra. Joke is that quantum mechanics is physicists reinventing linear algebra, so it's not that hard. It does take time to sit down and learn it.

0:25:39 Thomas: Wow. Wow. Now, When you say, what the thing, what is that thing, are you talking about the uh the algorithms that that make this stuff possible?

0:26:10 Anne: And and even just understanding how to prove that something's in a superposition. You don't have to know a lot of fancy math. You have to know a little fancy math, but not a lot.

0:26:16 Thomas: Huh what what math is considered fancy? Oh

0:26:26 Anne: Don't you need to do like a really complicated say integral and calculus or you know those are fun and and boson like ensembles are a lot of fun, but you don't really need that for quantum mechanics or definitely not for the quantum computing side, um

0:26:32 Thomas: I like those though yeah well I'm gonna take you up on this I love I love math already. I want to look up how Pauly Shore's algorithm works. Would I be able to, as a person who's actually kind of good at math, would I be able to figure that out?

0:26:52 Anne: I would say start with Grover's algorithm and,

0:26:54 Thomas: Okay, I'll start with Grover. Curious. I'm going to go and look at it and be like, this is fucking impossible and I'm going to call you out publicly. No. Or I'll figure it out and it'll be fun.

0:27:03 Anne: I bet that if, if you, ifyou sat down for, you know, a few weeks, you, you could learn a good amount of quantum mechanics and be very comfortable with it.

0:27:06 Thomas: Oh, that's what's funny about this kind of thing. Like, I I don't know how much quantum mechanics you need to know depending on what thing you're doing. You know, like if you're just working with like, OK, how do we how use this logic gate? That's a little bit different than the person who's over there being like, how Do I keep this beer so cold that, you know, isn't that kind of different jobs?

0:27:32 Thomas: Like a programmer is a lot different than The person who, you Know, came up with how to make a chip.

0:27:31 Anne: It is. And Really is. And, and it's really hard when when you're working on trying to marry these things of what works great on paper and what works great in the real world. And I would say a bigger problem is making qubits that don't have to be so cold or making it easier to get so cold.

0:27:54 Thomas: Especially with global warming, can we do a warm cubit? Does anything work by being really hot? I feel like that would be better.

0:27:59 Anne: But I mean, trapped ions and photons at least work at room temperature. Well, sort of. I mean then the detector has to be cold. We're really stuck with cold.

0:28:03 Thomas: Something? Always has to be cold. What is it about cold, like, all right, I know we're trying to end, but like, actually, what is about the cold that that reason everything's got to be cool to work? I don't get it. What

0:28:12 Anne: Yeah. One, there's two different sides of it. One is like efficiencies are always better in the cold because you don't have all the noise from thermal energy, which is really just stuff vibrating. So like if you have a photodiode, it's going to work better when it's cold because it won't have, you know, the environment messing with it. Other side of it is superconductivity is just a really useful tool. And that only works when it's cold.

0:28:43 Thomas: Should have asked you this a million years ago, what exactly is superconductivity, if you can explain it quickly. If not, then we'll just do it another time.

0:28:49 Anne: It's, it's when you have a metal that has zero resistance and it ejects a magnetic field.

0:28:54 Thomas: Hmm. Okay. Well, more on that later, I guess.

0:28:58 Anne: You, you put a volt meter on something, you'll read, um, you know, 20 Ohms, uh, you turn it into a superconductor, it will read zero. And then that gives you a really nice signal to work with because you had 20 OhMS and now you have zero.

0:29:11 Thomas: Because that's resistance, right?

0:29:13 Anne: And

0:29:14 Thomas: We don't like resistance is futile or not. Apparently resistance isn't futile. I don't know.

0:29:18 Anne: Resistance, resistance is the easiest thing to measure. So

0:29:22 Thomas: We'll leave more on that for another time, I really appreciate this. This is super fascinating. I'm going to do some follow-up work and call you out on this being easy to understand, but I know I this was really helpful and um, should the takeaway message be like, this is, this is a little bit hyper loopy, like this, I, what are you looking for? Okay, if I'm, a final question, if I'm just a guy, which I am, I, these headlines all the time about quantum computing, and it makes it seem like, you know, tomorrow we're gonna have a hyper loop, what I actually be looking for? What will be a discovery or a thing or a accomplishment where you and a person who we don't know, an anonymous government person, will be like, "Oh, shit, this means stuff's working now." Like, we've got, we're got it now. All

0:30:06 Anne: Would say that it would be like, you know, a really good search algorithm. And it, don't have to be afraid of it breaking your passwords, it could be the best logistics program out there that will actually make supply chains work efficiently, or say, distribute our power grid. Great. You know, if we could quickly figure out how to root power on a smart grid, that would be an excellent use for a quantum computer. That's a very niche.

0:30:33 Thomas: Right. But I yeah, I get that. I get the uses. No, I well, that's what I'm saying. Like the uses sound amazing. It's more like how will I know when somebody's actually done that? Like when somebody's made something, you it in the fine print of these articles where it's like, yeah, so they made it work for like 0 .0001 seconds. Is that the thing? What should I look for in this popular coverage?

0:30:55 Anne: Look for when something's actually accomplished and it's not like where you have to interpret it on a graph, like where it's, hey, look, we this big number. Here are the factors. This is the result. You don't have to squint and look the the other, you know.

0:31:03 Thomas: Right.

0:31:12 Thomas: Yeah. It made the Kessel run in less than 12 parsecs. And you're like, holy shit. It actually did it.

0:31:17 Anne: And you have the actual time and it says, oh, look, it did it in less than 12 parsecs. Not if you look at this graph sideways, it will.

0:31:23 Thomas: Even though that's a unit of distance or whatever. Yeah. Well, OK, that's helpful. But again, thank you so much for coming on. I know it sounds like there's not anything for you to plug because you seem to be pretty anonymous, I guess. But instead of plugging your social media, we'll all look directly into this flashy bulb thingy that's going to reset our memories of ever having heard this podcast. And we don't know who you are. But thank you. Thank you so very much for having me on. Thank you for coming. You're a delight. And you really did. I hope it didn't feel futile because you really didn't help me understand this better. But, you know, helping me understand something can be a tough process for some people.

0:31:34 Anne: No. Oh, it's been a lot of fun. Thanks.

0:32:00 Thomas: All right. Thank you so much.

0:32:18 Thomas: Well, that was so much fun. What a great deep dive. As you, I guess, heard in the last episode, since I did, you know, 20, 25 minutes, I have gone down the obsessive route on figuring out Grover's algorithm. And I think I like 87% understand it, believe it or not.

I'm I don't think it's worth trying to put into words because I don't I think I need to like a hundred thousand percent understand it in order to relay it in a way that would be more helpful than not. I can say the words of what it is. I can say the words that I've read 10,000 times on 50 million different descriptions of Grover's algorithm.

I can't say those words, but I don't think I can rephrase them in my own words in a way that really helps other, like I said, I think I get it, but I actually am struggling with the implementation, like like how it actually takes a real example and solves it. Like I get the theory and it's pretty cool. It's pretty remarkable.

And I understand mathematically what it's doing, but I don't understand how you would actually start with an a database, translate it into qubits, receive the answer and translate that back into classical information.

Every example I see, like I'm actually looking it up and it's implemented, it starts with you knowing the answer, like what I am literally looking in this quantum simulator right now for a 2 qubit example of Grover's algorithm, and it gives me four different examples depending on four different answers, because for two bits there's obviously four different answers you could have, 0 0, 0 1, 1 0, 1, and it just gives you a different of quantum quantum gates for each answer.

So I don't understand how that doesn't mean you have to know the answer first before you apply the gate. So it's a, I'm struggling with a stupid part of it. I'm sure there's some obvious answer to that, but, uh, there you go. I'm not going to call Ann out and say that it was impossible to understand this. I think it is possible. I think I encourage you to look up some quantum computing videos. They're really fun. Look up some tutorials.

It's very complicated, but it's super duper cool. And I just want to thank Anne so much for kind of lighting that fuse of just enthusiasm that I've found for this topic. I'm still looking into it, even though this is long since recorded, I'm still just having so much fun. So fascinating. I just, I can't believe that all this quantum stuff that just seems so magical, it's all true. It's all verified, you solidly experimentally, and we just go about our day. It's so cool to me.

This also, I think, other experts to make submissions. I saw, I don't know, like four or five new submissions, and I have a backlog, but I promise, it not go anywhere. As I I said originally, it may be that I don't respond to your expert submission for like a year. And then one day in the year 2025 or something, I will email you and be like, hey, got to yours. And you will have been like seventh in line, but, but no, for real.

Like I it's you haven't heard from me yet, and you almost everybody has not, I can't tell you how much I appreciate your submissions. And I will get to, like, I've looked at them, and I've got have too so much good stuff. I've Tumgus. I have too many good recordings. And so it's going to take a while to get through them, but they are there. They're not going anywhere. They are in safely preserved.

They are not in a cubit because that would only last like, you they're safely stored away in regular bits, regular old ones and zeros, safe good old reliable magnetic or whatever once it's however the magic works, ones and zero, so another thank you to the experts who have submitted and to the new experts and to and for doing this episode or these two episodes that really, uh, encouraged all that, I'm looking looking forward to coming back at you very soon with another episode or two before the month ends and a bonus episodes.

So make sure to be on patreon.com/seriouspod, because that's how you will be the first to find out when that's up. Thank you so much for listening. Everybody really appreciate it and very much appreciate my patrons at patreon.com/seriouspod. You are the reason why I even exist right now. Really? Really. I mean, it's just it's means so much to me that you folks have supported the show through all this. So thank you very much, and I'll see you very soon.