How close are we to a scalable quantum computer? How do they work? Why is it so difficult for women in science? Is that changing?

In this episode we have the fascinating new technology of Quantum Computers to get our heads around. They’ve been in the news a lot recently for the extraordinary computing power they could offer if harnessed properly; and also in conjunction with misleadingly named ‘teleportation’ technologies that can encode information in a quantum key and have it appear at the destination almost instantaneously and unshackably using quantum entanglement. But how do they work?

Our guest today Shohini Ghose explains beautifully, she studies them as a professor of Quantum Physics at the Wilfrid Laurier University in Toronto, Canada. She is also a Senior Fellow at TED and her TED talk, ‘A beginners guide to Quantum Computers’ has been viewed almost 5 million times. She’s a passionate advocate for women in science which she’s just released a new book on, ‘Her Space, Her Time’ and which we’ll be getting into around the 45min mark, and she’s the Chair for women in Science at the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada. She is also the author of the 2019 book ‘Clues to the cosmos’.

I couldn’t let such a brilliant since communicator get away without asking her what the measurement problem means for the nature of reality too. Fascinating stuff!

What we discuss:

00:00 Intro

06:50 A beginners guide to quantum computers

09:50 The difference between binary 0/1 opposite and quantum superposition ‘probabilistic’ states

13:20 Integrating sensitive quantum systems into a practical computing technology

15:00 Harnessing cubits connecting them via entanglement for processing power

15:30 Avoiding the ‘noise’ of entanglement with external particles: near absolute zero conditions 

20:40 The applications of quantum computing

21:30 Encryption via ‘no cloning’ keys

22:10 A quantum enhanced internet - more security

25:40 Developing new chemical compositions via quantum simulations 

30:10 Quantum ‘teleportation’ 

35:40 Clarifying the role of light photons in quantum teleportation - it isn’t instantaneous

40:30 The limitations: When will we have a practically useful quantum computer (VS Neural network computers, see Vitaly Vanchurin episode)

45:30 Women in Science throughout history and the appropriation of their success by men

47:10 “Her Space, Her Time”, Shohini’s new book

47:40 The Mathilda effect: When men get credit for women’s work

52:30 Skew in The Nobel Prize and awards in general, and the risk of tokenism now

56:10 There is a lower ratio of women choosing science careers, but is that culturally biased data? See study

01:03:10 “Clues to the Cosmos” Shohini’s first book 

01:05:10 The way new experiments force us to update our theories step by step

01:09:05 The implications of non-local probabilistic quantum phenomena 

01:12:10 Matter is not fixed, reality is fluid

01:13:55 Measurement problem’s meaning: Even the separation between classical and quantum scale is fluid

References:

Shohini Ghose “Her Space, Her Time: How Trailblazing Women Scientists Decoded the Hidden Universe” 2023

https://g.co/kgs/bt9h63

A Beginners Guide to Quantum Computers, TED talk

https://www.ted.com/talks/shohini_ghose_a_beginner_s_guide_to_quantum_computing?language=en

Nobel prize for experiments confirming non-local realism and entanglement

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-universe-is-not-locally-real-and-the-physics-nobel-prize-winners-proved-it/

Vitaly Vanchurin - Neural network computers

https://www.chasingconsciousness.net/episode-38-vitaly-vanchurin-the-world-as-a-neural-network

A celebration of women scientists, TED talk

https://www.ted.com/talks/shohini_ghose_a_celebration_of_women_scientists_and_why_we_need_more_of_them

Scientific Careers and Gender differences, A qualitative study

https://jcom.sissa.it/article/pubid/Jcom0701(2008)L01/

Shohini Ghose, “Clues to the Cosmos” 2019

https://g.co/kgs/PiuqF6