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Speaker 1: I'm horhitch Ham, and today we're doing the impossible. We
Speaker 1: are going to basically teleport through walls, and we're going
Speaker 1: to do this using something called quantum tunneling, which is
Speaker 1: a phenomenon that's being used to make quantum computers a reality.
Speaker 1: Today we're going to talk to a couple of physicists
Speaker 1: about this, including one of the people who want the
Speaker 1: Nobel Price this year for this technology. I'm going to
Speaker 1: ask him what it was like to win and what
Speaker 1: advice he has for future scientists to get ready to
Speaker 1: tunnel to the quantum world. As we answer the question
Speaker 1: what is quantum tunneling? Hey, everyone, Today we're taking another
Speaker 1: trip to the quantum world. We've talked before about what
Speaker 1: a quantum computer is and how it might basically make
Speaker 1: passwords and things like cryptocurrency totally useless. Today we are
Speaker 1: covering how those quantum computers are being made, and most
Speaker 1: of the big ones, like the ones at Google and Amazon,
Speaker 1: use something called macroscopic quantum tunneling. So we're going to
Speaker 1: explore what that is. And the cool thing is that,
Speaker 1: thanks to a collaboration with Physics magazine, we're going to
Speaker 1: talk to one of the people who won the Nobel
Speaker 1: Prize for it this year. But before we do that,
Speaker 1: I reached out to doctor Shohini Ghosch, a professor of
Speaker 1: physics and computer science at Wilfred Laurier University and the
Speaker 1: chief Technology officer at the Quantum Algorithms Institute in Canada.
Speaker 1: I asked her to help us explain what quantum and
Speaker 1: quantum tunneling are. Well, thank you, doctor Ghosh for talking
Speaker 1: with me.
Speaker 2: I'm glad too, thank you for inviting me.
Speaker 1: So maybe for those of us who are not familiar,
Speaker 1: how do you describe what quantum is?
Speaker 2: Yeah, so, quantum mechanics is actually the theory that underpins
Speaker 2: the behavior of fundamental particles and light in the universe. So,
Speaker 2: for example, if you look at the periodic table, there's
Speaker 2: a whole bunch of elements, but all of those items
Speaker 2: are also built up of fundamental particles like electrons. And
Speaker 2: if you look at the nucleus, there are particles within
Speaker 2: the nucleus too. Every single such microscopic particle in the
Speaker 2: universe we can actually describe using this amazing theory called
Speaker 2: quantum mechanics, and we can describe even particles of light,
Speaker 2: which we call photons. So essentially this is our description
Speaker 2: of all the matter and energy in the universe.
Speaker 1: It's no big deal, right, That's a small theory. I
Speaker 1: guess you could say, oh, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2: The other important thing I'd wanted to say about quantum
Speaker 2: mechanics is that we feel like this might be something
Speaker 2: not connected to our everyday lives. But think about one
Speaker 2: of those very very important elements in that periodic table,
Speaker 2: which is silicon. Understanding silicon is essentially why we now
Speaker 2: have Silicon Valley, semiconductor industry, all of our electronics, all
Speaker 2: the devices we use every day. So it's actually part
Speaker 2: of our lives. And we've been involved in this amazing
Speaker 2: technology revolution which started back one hundred years ago when
Speaker 2: this theory was first developed.
Speaker 1: Amazing and phones are definitely a big part of my
Speaker 1: teenagers's lives. Maybe sometimes too.
Speaker 2: Much, that's true, There could be too much quantum mechanics
Speaker 2: in some people's lives.
Speaker 1: Okay, So things at the level of super small particles
Speaker 1: act very differently from what we experience in our everyday lives.
Speaker 1: They have strange properties that you might have heard of before,
Speaker 1: like the idea that you can never tell exactly where
Speaker 1: they are and where they're going. That's called the Heisenberg
Speaker 1: uncertainty principle. Or that they have a probability of being
Speaker 1: in several places at the same time. That's called superposition.
Speaker 1: And there's something called entanglement, which is the idea that
Speaker 1: these weird quantum properties can spread out when you mix
Speaker 1: different quantum things together. Well, a result of some of
Speaker 1: these properties is something called quantum tunneling.
Speaker 2: So quantum tunneling is a very very fundamental property that's
Speaker 2: part of this model, and what it is is it
Speaker 2: describes the behavior of these quantum particles. It's kind of
Speaker 2: like walking through walls. I don't advise anybody to try
Speaker 2: it in our real world, but yes, electrons and other
Speaker 2: quantum particles can do it, and that's quantum tunneling.
Speaker 1: Okay, here's how doctor Goes explains what quantum tunneling is.
Speaker 1: Let's say you're standing in front of a mountain. Now
Speaker 1: you are where you are, but if you were a
Speaker 1: quantum particle, where you're going to be is kind of fuzzy.
Speaker 1: There's a probability that you're going to be one meter
Speaker 1: ahead of you, and another probability that you're going to
Speaker 1: be two meters ahead or three meters behind. That cloud
Speaker 1: of possibilities is called a wave function. You can think
Speaker 1: of it as kind of a fog or a cloud
Speaker 1: that hovers around you that tells you where you might
Speaker 1: be next. Well, mathematically, part of that cloud could be
Speaker 1: on the other side of that mountain in front of you.
Speaker 1: Your wave function can sort of leak to the other side,
Speaker 1: and so there's a wisp of a possibility that's where
Speaker 1: you're going to be next. So if you stand in
Speaker 1: front of that mountain long enough or enough times, you
Speaker 1: might suddenly find yourself appearing on the other side without
Speaker 1: having to climb the mountain.
Speaker 2: If that electron doesn't have that energy, then it shouldn't
Speaker 2: be able to climb to the top of the mountain,
Speaker 2: and yet it can make it to the other side.
Speaker 2: So this very surprising way to somehow be able to
Speaker 2: not have the energy and still be able to walk
Speaker 2: through the mountain because there's no way it can climb
Speaker 2: to the top since it doesn't have the energy. That's
Speaker 2: what quantum tunneling is. It's like if we walk through
Speaker 2: the mountain.
Speaker 1: Or it's like we created a tunnel through the mountain
Speaker 1: that's not really there. It's a quantum tunnel exactly.
Speaker 2: There's actually no probability of being inside the mountain.
Speaker 1: Okay, this is the strange part. It's not like you
Speaker 1: or the particle go through the mountain, because if you do,
Speaker 1: that would mean you're inside the mountain at some point.
Speaker 1: It really is like you just appear on the other side.
Speaker 2: What's really weird about this quantum tunnel is that if
Speaker 2: you ever try to observe this particle tunneling through this mountain,
Speaker 2: you'll never find it actually ever spending any time inside
Speaker 2: the mountains. It's either on one side or the other,
Speaker 2: but it's never actually in the mountain. So that's what
Speaker 2: makes it even weirder. Okay, every time you think quantum
Speaker 2: is not weird, it gets even weirder.
Speaker 1: Okay, you might be wondering at this point, like I was,
Speaker 1: how is this possible? How can something just be on
Speaker 1: one side of the mountain in one moment and then
Speaker 1: be on the other side of the mountain in the
Speaker 1: next moment. That seems impossible. Well, interestingly, that's something not
Speaker 1: even people who study quantum physics all their lives can't explain. Well,
Speaker 1: why do I have a probability of being on the
Speaker 1: other side of the mountain If it's impossible.
Speaker 2: Well, I'm not saying is the next instance. It could
Speaker 2: take some time before you find the particle on the
Speaker 2: other side, but what it's doing during that time is
Speaker 2: not to dwell inside the mountain. When you say, why
Speaker 2: does it do it?
Speaker 1: That is the.
Speaker 2: Great mystery of quantum mechanics. Our theory tells us that
Speaker 2: this is how the description when we go and do experiments,
Speaker 2: so when we go and measure it, we can confirm
Speaker 2: whether the theory is correct or not. So in a way,
Speaker 2: the universe is showing us that this is how it works.
Speaker 2: In this universe, these kinds of robberties are possible and
Speaker 2: we can observe it. And if all this sounds very confusing,
Speaker 2: it's okay because I think quantum scientists and physicists since
Speaker 2: the early nineteen hundreds, this is something physicists have also
Speaker 2: debated about. Is this particle actually just disappearing and appearing
Speaker 2: on two sides of a barrier? How come it doesn't
Speaker 2: spend time in the barrier. These are still things that
Speaker 2: we are grappling with.
Speaker 1: So not even Einstein figured out what it all means.
Speaker 2: No, I think Einstein was always deeply disturbed the implications
Speaker 2: of this serial.
Speaker 1: He wasn't able to quantum tunnel out of No, that's
Speaker 1: good work.
Speaker 2: Yes, he was unable to.
Speaker 1: Okay, two recap. This is what quantum tunneling is. It's
Speaker 1: a phenomenon that you see quantum particles like electrons or protons,
Speaker 1: where if you have a particle that's up against a
Speaker 1: wall or some kind of energy barrier, that particle can
Speaker 1: sort of tunnel through that wall and appear on the
Speaker 1: other side if there is a mathematical probability that it
Speaker 1: can do that. Even though it may seem physically impossible,
Speaker 1: physicists aren't quite sure how it happens, but it does,
Speaker 1: and it's all around us. It's what makes scanning tunneling
Speaker 1: microscopes work. And flash memory, which basically every phone and
Speaker 1: computer in the world uses. Flash memory works by pushing
Speaker 1: electrons to quantum tunnel in and out of little electronic
Speaker 1: cages that are completely insulated. When an electron is inside
Speaker 1: the cage, it's storing in of one and it stays
Speaker 1: there until you quantum tunnel it out. The device you're
Speaker 1: using right now most likely uses quantum tunneling to store
Speaker 1: the audio file you're listening to right now. And all
Speaker 1: of this raises two questions. One, if quantum particles can
Speaker 1: tunnel through walls and barriers, could bigger objects do it too?
Speaker 1: And two, if bigger things can do this tunneling, what
Speaker 1: can you do with them? Well, as it turns out,
Speaker 1: this year's Nobel Prize for Physics was awarded to three
Speaker 1: scientists who prove that this is possible and who are
Speaker 1: using it to make quantum computers. So when we come back,
Speaker 1: we're going to talk to one of the winners to
Speaker 1: hear how they did it, and I'm going to ask
Speaker 1: them what's it like to win a Nobel prize. Stay
Speaker 1: with us, we'll be right back.
Speaker 3: Welcome back.
Speaker 1: We're talking about quantum tunneling, which is something that happens
Speaker 1: in the quantum world. Small particles like electrons can sort
Speaker 1: of tunnel through walls and appear on the other side
Speaker 1: of them, almost by magic. And as I mentioned, it's
Speaker 1: what's used in scanning tunneling microscopes to take pictures of
Speaker 1: extremely small things, and it's how flash memory in your
Speaker 1: phone and computers work now. For a long time, people
Speaker 1: thought that this strange behavior could only happen for small
Speaker 1: particles like single electrons or protons, and that once you
Speaker 1: got to bigger things, things made of millions or billions
Speaker 1: of particles, this behavior couldn't happen because of something called decoherence,
Speaker 1: which basically means the quantum information is lost. But in
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty four, three physicists at the University of California
Speaker 1: at Berkeley showed that this assumption was wrong, and for
Speaker 1: that this year they got the Nobel Prize in Physics.
Speaker 1: To tell us what happened, here's doctor John Martinez, one
Speaker 1: of the three Pece people who won the price. Well,
Speaker 1: thank you so much, doctor Martinez for joining us. It's
Speaker 1: such a pleasure and an honor to be speaking with you.
Speaker 3: Yeah, thank you.
Speaker 1: Could you tell us just generally who you are and
Speaker 1: what do you do?
Speaker 3: Well, okay, John Martinez. I've been a physicist researching quantum
Speaker 3: devices quantum computing for many decades. Right now, I was
Speaker 3: a professor at UC Santa Barbara. I've retired recently. I
Speaker 3: also worked for the Google Quantum AI team until about
Speaker 3: twenty twenty and for a couple of years. Now I've
Speaker 3: started my own company called Collab, and I'm the chief
Speaker 3: technology officer and we're just basically trying to build a
Speaker 3: useful quantum computer.
Speaker 1: It sounds like you're very busy.
Speaker 3: Ah, yes, I'm super busy right now after the Nobel Prize.
Speaker 3: But it's been nice, it's been wonderful. I can't complain.
Speaker 1: What was it like to receive the announcement that you
Speaker 1: had won the prize?
Speaker 3: Well, I wasn't expecting it at all, and this I
Speaker 3: was just so busy. I knew something was coming up,
Speaker 3: but I then thought about the date or anything. And
Speaker 3: actually my wife found out about it through email. She
Speaker 3: was up late and then she let me sleep in
Speaker 3: till five thirty in the morning, which I love my wife.
Speaker 3: She knows exactly what I need. I need my sleep. Yeah,
Speaker 3: And then she just woke me up in bed and said, hey,
Speaker 3: there's some reporters outside you want to talk to you.
Speaker 3: And it was like, what, okay, you know, so I
Speaker 3: looked on I opened my computer and you know, lo
Speaker 3: and behold with John Clark and Michelle Deverey, and there
Speaker 3: was the announcement with me, So that was just a
Speaker 3: great honor. And it just took a kind of stunned
Speaker 3: for a few minutes and kind of got ready and
Speaker 3: I talked to some reporters. He showed up early in
Speaker 3: the morning to film me and get my immediate reaction
Speaker 3: and the like. But yeah, it's you do science because
Speaker 3: it's great, it's interesting. There's an artistic element to it.
Speaker 3: There's a communication element, answering questions all that's really fun.
Speaker 3: But you know, getting this award is an honor, not
Speaker 3: not something one should expect. Okay, that's the best way
Speaker 3: to approach it.
Speaker 1: Amazing live go back to you when you first did
Speaker 1: the experiment, right, and I believe at the time quantum
Speaker 1: tunneling had been proven for small particles electrons, that was
Speaker 1: well known. To take us back to before you did
Speaker 1: the experiment, somebody had proposed that it might be possible
Speaker 1: to prove quantum properties in more complicated systems, but it
Speaker 1: was a big unknown. What were you thinking at the
Speaker 1: time you and your colleagues.
Speaker 3: First of all, I decided to join John Clark's group
Speaker 3: as a graduate student. That was in nineteen eighty because
Speaker 3: he was already doing experiments seeing quantum noise effects in
Speaker 3: electrical devices. And I thought this was really fascinating because
Speaker 3: I liked electronics. I like devices, that was my hobby
Speaker 3: and whatever, and of course quantum mechanics fascinating. So I
Speaker 3: went to a conference down in UCLA and it was
Speaker 3: clear people were talking about it was really interesting, but
Speaker 3: people really didn't understand the experiment very well yet.
Speaker 1: Oh what was the question?
Speaker 3: Well, the question was could you see this macroscopic quantum
Speaker 3: tunneling effect?
Speaker 1: Okay, here's the question, doctor Martinez, doctor John Clark, and
Speaker 1: doctor Michelle Deveray. Where tackling was could you get something
Speaker 1: bigger than an electron, maybe something millions of times bigger
Speaker 1: to quantum tunnel So instead of having one electron passing
Speaker 1: through a wall and appearing on the other side, could
Speaker 1: you get a whole bunch of them acting together to
Speaker 1: tunnel through.
Speaker 3: And at the time, it was just murky and not
Speaker 3: very clear in the light. And I remember talking to
Speaker 3: John Clark about that and he said, yeah, well, there
Speaker 3: were some experiments that are already done, but you know,
Speaker 3: if we're going to do this, we're going to have
Speaker 3: to do something new.
Speaker 1: How did you go about designing this experiment? He said,
Speaker 1: something new was needed.
Speaker 3: So what the experiment is very simple. You'll have this
Speaker 3: weak link adjosin junction and you put current through it,
Speaker 3: so in some condition it looks like a superconductor. And
Speaker 3: then as you raise the current more and more, at
Speaker 3: some point it switches to the voltage state. Okay, it
Speaker 3: looks like a normal metal wire.
Speaker 1: This is a little hard to explain, but it's basically
Speaker 1: the same picture we had before. Imagine a wire where
Speaker 1: you have electrons flowing through it, but now in the
Speaker 1: middle of the wire you put up a wall, a
Speaker 1: thin piece of something that doesn't conduct electricity. So now
Speaker 1: the electrons can flow through the wire unless the quantum
Speaker 1: tunnel through the wall. Now, as I mentioned, getting one
Speaker 1: electron to quantum tunnel through is not that hard. Happens
Speaker 1: all the time on the flash memory of your phone.
Speaker 1: But that's only one electron at a time. To get
Speaker 1: more than one electron tunnel at the same time, you
Speaker 1: need to make the wire a super conduct.
Speaker 3: All the electrons in a normal mettle are kind of
Speaker 3: moving around independently. But what happens is when you go
Speaker 3: into the superconducting state, they lock together and it's like
Speaker 3: they condense into what it's called a BCS state. Then
Speaker 3: it behaves like a single it's a ball if you like.
Speaker 3: So you really needed the superconducting state to see a
Speaker 3: macroscopic state.
Speaker 1: This gets a bit technical, but if you make your
Speaker 1: wire a superconductor by making it out of a special
Speaker 1: material and making it super cold, then all the electrons
Speaker 1: and the wire start to sort of bunch together and
Speaker 1: they get linked in a quantum mechanical way so that
Speaker 1: they act like one giant electron. And that's what doctor
Speaker 1: Martinez and his colleagues were able to show. Can quantum
Speaker 1: tunnel not just one electron or a pair of electrons,
Speaker 1: but a synchronized blob of millions of electrons. Now the
Speaker 1: secret sauce here was two things. One they added some
Speaker 1: new bells and whistles to the experiment that nobody had
Speaker 1: tried before, better filters in a microwave resonator. And two
Speaker 1: they had a lot of moxie. I love to ask
Speaker 1: you about the moment of discovery.
Speaker 3: Well, the moment of discovery was when we did this
Speaker 3: initial experiment it didn't work, and then we discovered how
Speaker 3: to fix it, and then we got it to work,
Speaker 3: and that's when we really felt we were going to
Speaker 3: get this to work. And then it just took a
Speaker 3: lot of effort to get it to work and understand everything.
Speaker 3: It took some time to get there, but you just
Speaker 3: did experiment after experiment and it made.
Speaker 1: Sense interesting, and so you didn't give up. Do you
Speaker 1: remember that moment where you're lifted on You're like, oh,
Speaker 1: it's working.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I kind of remember that, the one of this
Speaker 3: initial experiment us being very pleased with that. The one
Speaker 3: moment I do remember is we were just from turning
Speaker 3: on that sample, cooled it down, I set it up,
Speaker 3: and I had an assilloscope that was tracing when it
Speaker 3: switched from the zero voltage to the vaulted state, and
Speaker 3: I could see those three peaks. Okay, up until then,
Speaker 3: I only saw one peak. Those three peaks are just
Speaker 3: the smoking gun of quantum mechanics, to have three distinct
Speaker 3: frequencies in this system, and that's a property of quantum
Speaker 3: mechanics that tells you there's something very unusual going on
Speaker 3: with this kind of wave nature. Okay, there's something you know,
Speaker 3: really quantum going on there. But when I saw those
Speaker 3: three peaks. I knew that when I analyzed the data,
Speaker 3: this would be a totally clear explanation what was going on.
Speaker 3: So I do remember the joy of seeing that and
Speaker 3: knowing that you know, this would be the really conclusive
Speaker 3: proof that it was the main quantum mechanics.
Speaker 1: So that's the story of a Nobel Price winning discovery. Next,
Speaker 1: we're gonna talk about what was so significant about this
Speaker 1: discovery and how it's creating a boom in the rays
Speaker 1: to create the first really functional quantum computer. Stay with us,
Speaker 1: we'll be right back, and we're back. We're talking about
Speaker 1: quantum tunneling. And we just heard one of the winners
Speaker 1: of this year's Nobel Prize in physics describe how he
Speaker 1: and his colleagues were able to prove that the weird
Speaker 1: properties of quantum physics don't just happen at the level
Speaker 1: of single particles like electrons or protons. If you set
Speaker 1: things up right, you can see quantum properties in bigger objects,
Speaker 1: big enough to hold in your hand. Now the question
Speaker 1: is what can you do with that. Here's Professor Shohini Coach.
Speaker 1: So we've been talking about fundamental and small particles, but
Speaker 1: this year's Nobel Price went to a quantum tunneling of
Speaker 1: bigger things, things that are bigger than microscopic objects exactly.
Speaker 2: So the reason that this was an important step was
Speaker 2: not because this was anything new about tunneling. This was
Speaker 2: something that was perhaps the next step in a long
Speaker 2: series of theoretical and experimental studies that were exploring quantum effects.
Speaker 2: But all of those were being done at that very
Speaker 2: very small, individual particle level. So measuring the current generated
Speaker 2: by one electron is extremely difficult, but measuring the current
Speaker 2: generated by a million is a million times higher current,
Speaker 2: So that immediately makes the engineering piece much much easier.
Speaker 1: Well, first of all, thank you for making things easier
Speaker 1: for engineers. I'm an engineer. We always appreciate when the
Speaker 1: physical world is easier to design for.
Speaker 2: So I think the big advance was it led to
Speaker 2: this new possibility of creating devices and doing engineering at
Speaker 2: a larger scale, and that would lead to technologies for
Speaker 2: the future, and that's really what happened.
Speaker 1: So the big breakthrough here is in making it easier
Speaker 1: to make quantum devices. As we said, quantum objects have
Speaker 1: some strange properties that almost seem like magic, and before
Speaker 1: this discovery, we thought the only way to make them
Speaker 1: was by handling and manipulating hiny, little fragile particles or
Speaker 1: individual atoms. But what doctor Martinez and his colleagues discovered
Speaker 1: was that you can get that same quantum magic with
Speaker 1: larger objects that are easier to work with and put together.
Speaker 1: And one of the biggest applications so far is in
Speaker 1: making quantum computers. If you're interested in learning more about
Speaker 1: quantum computers, we did a whole episode on them earlier
Speaker 1: this year, so check that out. But the main takeaway
Speaker 1: is that quantum computers could be used for lots of
Speaker 1: interesting applications, including breaking encryption, which would make all your
Speaker 1: passwords and all that cryptocurrency out there useless. And the
Speaker 1: idea here is that you can build quantum computers using
Speaker 1: the very same devices that the Nobel Price winning researchers made.
Speaker 2: This became the basis for creating all kinds of devices,
Speaker 2: the most important of those being what we call these
Speaker 2: quantum computing devices that are new types of computers that
Speaker 2: use these superconducting circuits as a fundamental unit of what
Speaker 2: we call a quantum bit, which is, like, you know,
Speaker 2: we have regular bits that drive our regular computers. Quantum
Speaker 2: bits are what are driving our quantum computers. So big
Speaker 2: companies now like IBM and Google and others are using
Speaker 2: that same idea to build out these quantum devices.
Speaker 3: So this has led to an enormous field of people
Speaker 3: trying to build the quantum computer. Right now, there are
Speaker 3: a few thousand people who are trying to build the
Speaker 3: super conducting quantum computer.
Speaker 1: Now here's an interesting historical fact. The idea to use
Speaker 1: this super conducting circuit doctor Martinez and his colleagues made
Speaker 1: for quantum computers may have been sparked by a chance
Speaker 1: encounter with none other than the famous physicist Richard Feynman.
Speaker 4: So you're demonstrated your artificial atoms that can be connected
Speaker 4: by and controlled by wires.
Speaker 1: That's Matterini, the editor of Physics magazine.
Speaker 4: Was very clear in your mind, Oh, this is going
Speaker 4: to be a cute bit. I'm going to make quantum computers.
Speaker 4: I remember reading somewhere you were at a conference where
Speaker 4: Fineman was presenting his quantum computing ideas.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's right. At the end of my PhD, I
Speaker 3: came to Santa Barbara for a conference and they were
Speaker 3: talking about this physics and then Viinman gave a talk
Speaker 3: where he kind of talked about a quantum computer, and yeah,
Speaker 3: it was clear that this was really interesting and this
Speaker 3: would be something physicists would love to figure out how
Speaker 3: to do. And then it wasn't until the Factory Now
Speaker 3: algorithm by Peter Shore, which is the beginning of the nineties,
Speaker 3: that people saw that there was a way to do this,
Speaker 3: or at least a motivation to do this. And then
Speaker 3: sometime after that there was a funding going on so
Speaker 3: that when the funding was available, we could start doing
Speaker 3: things pretty effectively.
Speaker 1: Actually, doctor Martinez has been at the forefront of making
Speaker 1: quantum computers.
Speaker 3: Now these systems can now form quantum bits, and we
Speaker 3: can build these systems and make a quantum computer out
Speaker 3: of it. And you know, I've been doing this for
Speaker 3: forty years now, and it took, you know, many decades.
Speaker 3: And the big culmination of all this was in twenty
Speaker 3: nineteen when I was working for Google. We did this
Speaker 3: quantum supremacy experiment of fifty three cubits where we showed
Speaker 3: for a very mathematical problem that we could do a
Speaker 3: quantum calculation that would be very very difficult, very costly
Speaker 3: to simulate with a classical super So we show that
Speaker 3: a quantum computer was powerful. Eventually, if we build a
Speaker 3: useful quantum computer, this is going to be used to
Speaker 3: solve real problems, and it might be part of artificial
Speaker 3: intelligence and helping with large language models kind of things.
Speaker 3: I'm thinking about how we can simulate chemistry and materials,
Speaker 3: maybe to use materials that are more ecologically mind or
Speaker 3: cheaper to mind, so that these new materials can be
Speaker 3: more common for people. That would be quite the benefit
Speaker 3: to humanity.
Speaker 1: All Right, you magically appeared at the end of the episode.
Speaker 1: Hopefully that'd give you a good sense of what this
Speaker 1: strange quantum phenomenon is, how it impacts your everyday life,
Speaker 1: and how it might change your future. So the next
Speaker 1: time you use your phone or a computer, think about
Speaker 1: the mountain of challenges that scientists and engineers had to
Speaker 1: tunnel through to get to the other side. Thanks for
Speaker 1: joining us, See you next time you've been listening to
Speaker 1: science stuff. Production of iHeartRadio written and produced by me
Speaker 1: or Y cham dited by Rose Seguda, executive producer Jerry Rowland,
Speaker 1: and audio engineer and mixer Kasey Pegram And you can
Speaker 1: follow me on social media to search for PhD comics
Speaker 1: and the name of your favorite platform. Be sure to
Speaker 1: subscribe to Science Stuff on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
Speaker 1: or wherever you get your podcasts, and please tell your
Speaker 1: friends we'll be back next Wednesday with another episode. Hey
Speaker 1: for a post credits bonus. I thought i'd played for
Speaker 1: you two interesting moments in our conversation with doctor John Martinez.
Speaker 1: After all, it's not every day you get to interview
Speaker 1: a Nobel Prize winner. The first moment is when I
Speaker 1: asked him what it was like to make this Nobel
Speaker 1: Prize winning discovery as a graduate student and what advice
Speaker 1: he has for future young scientists. And after that, I'll
Speaker 1: play you the moment doctor Martinez said he learned something
Speaker 1: new from me. I mean, it's definitely not every day
Speaker 1: you get to teach a Nobel Price winner anything enjoy.
Speaker 1: I'm interested in the idea that you were a graduate
Speaker 1: student when you did this work. I think that's a
Speaker 1: little rare. What was your state of mind back then
Speaker 1: as a graduate student? Were you even dreaming of a
Speaker 1: Nobel Prize or were you just interested in the problem
Speaker 1: in front of you?
Speaker 4: No.
Speaker 3: Bell Prize is just so unobtainable, even if you're super smart,
Speaker 3: it's not a goal anyone should have. But what a
Speaker 3: goal one should have is to do a good thesis experiment. Okay,
Speaker 3: you know I went to the conference and people were
Speaker 3: talking about it. It seemed absolutely fascinating because it was
Speaker 3: answering a very fundamental question. I don't know why lots
Speaker 3: of other people didn't jump on it, but you know,
Speaker 3: John was kind of set up to jump on it
Speaker 3: because he was looking at quantum effects and devices at
Speaker 3: the times. And I would say also the funding at
Speaker 3: that time. He had enough general funding so that we
Speaker 3: could just do it. So it was very lucky about that.
Speaker 1: Amazing. Well, you've been super generous with your time, John.
Speaker 3: It's fun and I liked it very much because I
Speaker 3: think I have a better way to describe how tonly works.
Speaker 1: Wait, what was the new way to explain it that
Speaker 1: you came up with today.
Speaker 3: Oh, it's the fact that you just think about going
Speaker 3: through a wall, it's going to take energy to get
Speaker 3: inside that wall. You can think of as an energy
Speaker 3: argument why you bounce off.
Speaker 1: Meaning you have to push your way through the.
Speaker 3: You have to push your way through and there's some
Speaker 3: force and you know it's just not going to do
Speaker 3: that However, quant mechanically, you can borrow the energy to
Speaker 3: get through that for a short amount of time, and
Speaker 3: then if you go through the wall in that short
Speaker 3: amount of time, then you can pay back the energy
Speaker 3: and you're okay. So that's the way to explain it.
Speaker 3: That's great, and we should work on this in the comics.
Speaker 1: Yeah. You know, if you send me like doodles, like
Speaker 1: napkin doodles or any kind of doodles, I can't.
Speaker 3: Well, I'm too busy now to do that because besides
Speaker 3: doing all the nobel things, I have to go to
Speaker 3: Washington next week to meet with people and talk about quantum,
Speaker 3: and I'm trying to raise money for my company. I
Speaker 3: have like three or four jobs right now, so I
Speaker 3: can add the job of a cartoonist.