Putting Wierdness to Work: Quantum Information Science

Prof. John Preskill
California Institute of Technology

Quantum information (information encoded in a quantum system) has weird properties that contrast sharply with the familiar properties of classical information. Physicists, who have relished this weirdness for many years, have recently begun to recognize that we can put the weirdness to work --- there are tasks involving the transmission and processing of information that are achievable in principle because Nature is quantum mechanical, but that would be impossible in a less weird classical world. The security of cryptographic protocols that use quantum information instead of classical bits can be founded on principles of fundamental physics rather than assumptions about the resources available to a potential adversary. A quantum computer, which processes quantum information, could easily perform certain types of calculations that would take far longer than the age of the universe on today's supercomputers. However, constructing practical quantum computers will be tremendously challenging.

Bio:

John Preskill received the A.B. degree in physics from Princeton University in 1975, and the Ph.D. degree in physics from Harvard University in 1980. In 1983, he joined the faculty of the California Institute of Technology, where he is now the John D. MacArthur Professor of Theoretical Physics and Director of the Institute for Quantum Information. His research interests include elementary particles, the very early universe, gravitation, and quantum computation.

Date:  Thursday, June 5, 2008
Engineering Bldg, Unit 2, Room 138
Time: 3:40 PM
Coffee served in the Physics Bldg. - Barkas Lounge @ 3:10 PM