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  • JASON: Who was it that said if you think you understand

  • quantum physics, you don't understand quantum physics?

  • [MUSIC PLAYING]

  • ERIC: Consciousness, intelligence--

  • JASON: Free will, determinism--

  • ERIC: Blackholes, protecting the planet from asteroids--

  • MASOUD: Heisenberg uncertainty principle--

  • ERIC: Atoms, ion traps, nuclear magnetic resonance,

  • superconductors, photons--

  • HARTMUT: Artificial

  • intelligence, machine learning--

  • JASON: Past and future, classical physics, time

  • travel, the whole thing.

  • I can tell it's going to get very hot as I start speaking.

  • So tell me if I start to look really shiny.

  • [MUSIC PLAYING]

  • JASON: Quantum physics puts everything into question.

  • ERIC: It defies every intuition you have about the

  • natural world.

  • PETE: Quantum is a very strange regime of physics.

  • JASON: Things can exist in this state of superposition,

  • where they can be ghosting on each other-- where they could

  • be this and that at the same time.

  • VADIM: Entanglement.

  • ERIC: Quantum entanglement.

  • SUZANNE: Two objects, if they're quantum mechanically

  • entangled, are still strongly related to each other, even

  • though they can be a vast distance apart.

  • HARTMUT: There's a notion of the multi-verse.

  • There's a whole family of Hartmuts in different states.

  • And they're going through different experiences and

  • different life trajectories.

  • MASOUD: The famous one is quantum tunneling.

  • ERIC: Tunneling.

  • PETE: Tunneling.

  • Tunneling.

  • GEORDIE: Tunneling is the slippage between universes.

  • ERIC: For a long time, people thought those effects only

  • existed in the microscopic domain.

  • HARTMUT: Like atoms, electrons, photons.

  • ELEANOR: But really, it's the theory of our universe.

  • ERIC: So if you want to build a quantum computer, you want

  • to incorporate those new phenomenon into information

  • processing.

  • JASON: Maybe quantum computation is one of those

  • instruments that's going to allow us to see quantum

  • effects at the human scale.

  • REPORTER: Google and NASA have teamed up to share one of the

  • world's first commercial quantum computers.

  • This machine, made by Canada's D-Wave, will be installed in a

  • NASA research center in California.

  • [MUSIC PLAYING]

  • JEREMY: This is the inside of one of our dilution

  • refrigerators.

  • All of this infrastructure is to basically operate the chip

  • at a temperature that's two orders of magnitude colder

  • than interstellar space.

  • The processor is a quantum computer.

  • REPORTER: --but uses things called cubits.

  • As well as being either one or zero, a cubit can also be both

  • at the same time, therefore bringing about a quantum leap

  • in terms of power.

  • JASON: Harnessing principles of reality that are, up until

  • very recently, completely not observable by us is just

  • fascinating in ways that I can't completely articulate.

  • GEORDIE; The overwhelmingly obvious killer app for quantum

  • computation is optimization.

  • JEREMY: Optimization problems are

  • extremely difficult problems.

  • HARTMUT: Actually, all Google server centers together will

  • not be capable of coming up with the best solution to

  • these optimization problems as they get larger.

  • So now, what is an optimization problem?

  • Here, I'll give you an example.

  • You want to do a trip through South America and you want to

  • visit a number of cities.

  • And then you ask, what is the cheapest ticket I can get to

  • visit, let's say, 20 cities?

  • And you can, of course, different routes

  • and different airlines.

  • And imagine I list all the different options I have from

  • different routes to travel to these cities.

  • ERIC: We currently, as a civilization, generate vast

  • amounts of data.

  • It could be climate data, genomic data.

  • But it's very difficult to generate useful insights,

  • oftentimes, from that data.

  • HARTMUT: If you can solve optimization problems better,

  • you have an important resource at your hand.

  • SERGIO: I think, at least, it teaches us that we shouldn't

  • be naive about the world, that we shouldn't think about the

  • world as a simple machine.

  • It forces us to consider more sophisticated notions of how

  • the reality around us is actually [? set. ?]

  • ELEANOR: I can't ask it how long I'll live or

  • the meaning of life.

  • Really, we don't know what the best questions

  • are to ask that computer.

  • That's exactly what we're trying to understand now.

  • PETE: To me, the most important

  • question is, are we alone?

  • And I have a feeling that quantum computers, as they

  • mature, are going to help us answer that question.

  • HARTMUT: This is, of course, a more

  • long-term research endeavor.

  • And there are still tremendous obstacles and big questions.

  • Some of those will be addressed in D-Wave, some will

  • be addressed at NASA, and some at Google.

  • ELEANOR: I wasn't sure I would be able to experiment with a

  • quantum computational device in my lifetime.

  • And now, I'm confident that I will be able to.

  • GEORDIE: How amazing it is that we, with our monkey

  • heritage and monkey brains and monkeys fingers, have somehow

  • lucked into a brain that allows us to ask legitimate

  • questions about the nature of physical reality.

  • That's so cool.

  • JASON: It's that human risk to go forth into that unknown

  • frontier, whether it's space exploration or quantum

  • exploration.

  • We do it because we must.

  • We do it because that's what it means to be human.

JASON: Who was it that said if you think you understand

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