WEBVTT - TechStuff Tidbits: What the Heck is a Qubit?

0:00:04.440 --> 0:00:12.280
<v Speaker 1>Welcome to tech Stuff, a production from iHeartRadio. Hey there,

0:00:12.280 --> 0:00:15.720
<v Speaker 1>and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host, Jonathan Strickland.

0:00:15.720 --> 0:00:19.119
<v Speaker 1>I'm an executive producer with iHeartRadio. And how the tech

0:00:19.200 --> 0:00:25.120
<v Speaker 1>are you. Today's tech stuff tidbits is what's a cubit? Well,

0:00:25.280 --> 0:00:28.880
<v Speaker 1>he's this little orange guy who jumps up and down

0:00:28.880 --> 0:00:33.120
<v Speaker 1>a pyramid like structure while trying to avoid snakes. He

0:00:33.159 --> 0:00:38.520
<v Speaker 1>also has a habit of cursing. Wait, sorry, I'm being

0:00:38.520 --> 0:00:44.000
<v Speaker 1>told by the Yeah, okay, no, sorry, guys, got that

0:00:44.120 --> 0:00:49.120
<v Speaker 1>totally wrong. That's Cubert. A cubit is something else entirely,

0:00:50.159 --> 0:00:54.640
<v Speaker 1>I know cringe jokes. Also, Originally I thought maybe I

0:00:54.640 --> 0:00:56.920
<v Speaker 1>would go a different way with that, and I would

0:00:57.120 --> 0:01:02.080
<v Speaker 1>talk about cubits being a unit of measurement used to

0:01:02.240 --> 0:01:06.800
<v Speaker 1>build arcs in Biblical times. But you see that joke

0:01:06.920 --> 0:01:10.360
<v Speaker 1>about what a cubit is, Well, it existed in two

0:01:10.480 --> 0:01:14.160
<v Speaker 1>states simultaneously, but ultimately, when it came time for me

0:01:14.200 --> 0:01:18.200
<v Speaker 1>to choose which joke to use, it had to collapse

0:01:18.280 --> 0:01:22.560
<v Speaker 1>into a single state, which is the Cubert joke. And

0:01:23.000 --> 0:01:26.160
<v Speaker 1>that whole bit about collapsing into a single state. I

0:01:26.200 --> 0:01:28.840
<v Speaker 1>can't promise it'll make more sense later. But I can

0:01:28.959 --> 0:01:32.720
<v Speaker 1>promise we're gonna talk about it all right. So to

0:01:32.880 --> 0:01:36.840
<v Speaker 1>understand what a cubit is. Cubit, by the way, actually

0:01:36.840 --> 0:01:40.679
<v Speaker 1>stands for quantum bit. Well, it stands to reason that

0:01:40.720 --> 0:01:44.119
<v Speaker 1>first we have to understand what a bit is. Now.

0:01:44.160 --> 0:01:47.200
<v Speaker 1>Way back in nineteen forty eight, in the early days

0:01:47.640 --> 0:01:51.600
<v Speaker 1>of computer science, a man named Claude Shannon published a

0:01:51.640 --> 0:01:57.400
<v Speaker 1>work titled A Mathematical Theory of Communication. Shannon was mentored

0:01:57.440 --> 0:02:01.640
<v Speaker 1>by a guy named Van Var Bush that I really

0:02:01.680 --> 0:02:05.680
<v Speaker 1>need to dedicate at least one episode, but probably multiple

0:02:05.720 --> 0:02:11.080
<v Speaker 1>episodes two at some point, very important person in tech

0:02:11.160 --> 0:02:14.600
<v Speaker 1>in general played a large part in some really historic

0:02:15.720 --> 0:02:21.400
<v Speaker 1>and sometimes terrible technological events in history. I have actually

0:02:21.400 --> 0:02:24.040
<v Speaker 1>dedicated an episode to Claude Shannon in the past, so

0:02:24.080 --> 0:02:26.119
<v Speaker 1>if you go and do a search in the Tech

0:02:26.120 --> 0:02:30.960
<v Speaker 1>Stuff archives, you'll find an episode just about him. But anyway,

0:02:31.160 --> 0:02:36.040
<v Speaker 1>in this work, Shannon proposed a basic unit of information,

0:02:36.520 --> 0:02:41.520
<v Speaker 1>a binary digit or bit. The bit exists in one

0:02:41.880 --> 0:02:46.680
<v Speaker 1>of two states. It is either a zero or a one.

0:02:47.280 --> 0:02:49.760
<v Speaker 1>Shannon's work goes into a lot of other territory with

0:02:49.840 --> 0:02:54.399
<v Speaker 1>a fascinating treatment on communication theory that fundamentally changed how

0:02:54.520 --> 0:02:58.120
<v Speaker 1>communication engineers think about the subject, but it gets really

0:02:58.360 --> 0:03:01.760
<v Speaker 1>technical really quickly, and I honestly would have to study

0:03:01.800 --> 0:03:04.760
<v Speaker 1>it for days to feel comfortable even talking about it

0:03:04.800 --> 0:03:07.640
<v Speaker 1>in a way where I didn't feel I was getting

0:03:07.639 --> 0:03:12.200
<v Speaker 1>it all wrong. So rather than blindly lead you into

0:03:12.320 --> 0:03:15.440
<v Speaker 1>a discussion that I would likely get completely wrong, we're

0:03:15.480 --> 0:03:19.079
<v Speaker 1>going to move on to something else that's equally complicated.

0:03:19.600 --> 0:03:22.520
<v Speaker 1>But for our discussion, the important thing is the bit

0:03:23.040 --> 0:03:26.280
<v Speaker 1>zero or one. You can think of it as no

0:03:26.919 --> 0:03:31.280
<v Speaker 1>or yes, or off or on. It's as basic as

0:03:31.280 --> 0:03:34.600
<v Speaker 1>you can get. By grouping bits together, you can express

0:03:34.639 --> 0:03:39.080
<v Speaker 1>more complex information. So one bit has two states. If

0:03:39.120 --> 0:03:42.280
<v Speaker 1>you have two bits, you have four states. You can

0:03:42.360 --> 0:03:47.400
<v Speaker 1>express zero, zero, zero, one, one, zero, and one one.

0:03:48.000 --> 0:03:51.440
<v Speaker 1>With three bits, you've got eight possible states. Four bits,

0:03:51.640 --> 0:03:55.400
<v Speaker 1>you've got sixteen possible states. By the time you get

0:03:55.480 --> 0:03:58.360
<v Speaker 1>up to eight bits, it's two hundred and fifty six states.

0:03:58.400 --> 0:04:01.560
<v Speaker 1>So you see how adding one bit to a string

0:04:02.160 --> 0:04:06.040
<v Speaker 1>doubles the number of states that string can express compared

0:04:06.040 --> 0:04:09.440
<v Speaker 1>to when it was one bit fewer. All right, So

0:04:10.080 --> 0:04:12.800
<v Speaker 1>then we get into an era in which computer scientists

0:04:13.000 --> 0:04:17.200
<v Speaker 1>start working with this concept in a practical way, and

0:04:17.279 --> 0:04:21.479
<v Speaker 1>after a while, computer scientists begin to agree on other stuff,

0:04:21.880 --> 0:04:25.880
<v Speaker 1>like the idea of eight bits representing a bite. This

0:04:26.240 --> 0:04:28.919
<v Speaker 1>wasn't always the case. There were some who proposed six

0:04:28.960 --> 0:04:32.479
<v Speaker 1>bits rather than eight, et cetera. But we're gonna skip

0:04:32.520 --> 0:04:36.840
<v Speaker 1>way ahead and talk about processors for a moment. Processors

0:04:37.160 --> 0:04:41.120
<v Speaker 1>take data in the form of bits and execute operations

0:04:41.400 --> 0:04:45.919
<v Speaker 1>on that data to create output, like mathematical operations, and

0:04:45.960 --> 0:04:49.000
<v Speaker 1>those operations come from a program. The program is really

0:04:49.040 --> 0:04:51.880
<v Speaker 1>just a set of instructions that the processor is meant

0:04:51.880 --> 0:04:56.440
<v Speaker 1>to follow while working with this data, and it generates

0:04:56.480 --> 0:04:59.400
<v Speaker 1>some sort of result. And a lot of factors determine

0:04:59.400 --> 0:05:02.839
<v Speaker 1>how fast the processor is, like how much data it

0:05:02.880 --> 0:05:07.039
<v Speaker 1>can process within a given amount of time. Now, generally speaking,

0:05:07.440 --> 0:05:10.720
<v Speaker 1>the more bits the processor can accept at once, and

0:05:10.760 --> 0:05:13.680
<v Speaker 1>the higher the clock speed of the processor, which really

0:05:13.720 --> 0:05:17.400
<v Speaker 1>means the number of operational steps the processor can complete

0:05:17.440 --> 0:05:20.120
<v Speaker 1>in a second. Well, then the more powerful the computer

0:05:20.279 --> 0:05:23.839
<v Speaker 1>is and the faster it will solve problems to a point,

0:05:24.320 --> 0:05:27.920
<v Speaker 1>but there are some computational problems that are much harder

0:05:27.960 --> 0:05:31.760
<v Speaker 1>to solve than others, and even a fast processor can

0:05:31.800 --> 0:05:35.240
<v Speaker 1>get bogged down by them and it becomes impractical or

0:05:35.320 --> 0:05:40.839
<v Speaker 1>even impossible to compute that problem. So, for example, there's

0:05:41.000 --> 0:05:44.720
<v Speaker 1>the famous traveling salesman problem, which is a type of

0:05:45.000 --> 0:05:51.320
<v Speaker 1>NP hard computational problem. The NP stands for nondeterministic polynomial time.

0:05:51.920 --> 0:05:53.800
<v Speaker 1>But we don't need to really get into all of that.

0:05:54.440 --> 0:05:57.680
<v Speaker 1>The traveling salesman problem presents a list of cities and

0:05:57.680 --> 0:06:01.680
<v Speaker 1>it asks the question, what is the shortest route starting

0:06:01.720 --> 0:06:06.000
<v Speaker 1>from the salesman home city to each of these cities

0:06:06.480 --> 0:06:10.000
<v Speaker 1>and then back to home without visiting a city twice.

0:06:10.440 --> 0:06:13.279
<v Speaker 1>What's the shortest route that you can take? Well, for

0:06:13.320 --> 0:06:15.720
<v Speaker 1>a computer to solve that question, it would need to

0:06:15.760 --> 0:06:20.719
<v Speaker 1>calculate the route using every possible combination, and that route

0:06:20.720 --> 0:06:24.039
<v Speaker 1>obviously gets more complicated as you add more cities to

0:06:24.120 --> 0:06:26.720
<v Speaker 1>the list, and a sufficiently large list would keep a

0:06:26.760 --> 0:06:32.880
<v Speaker 1>computer busy for a really long time, like months or years,

0:06:33.279 --> 0:06:36.600
<v Speaker 1>or decades or centuries, depending on the complexity of the problem.

0:06:37.160 --> 0:06:42.400
<v Speaker 1>So that's an issue, right. You cannot easily solve this

0:06:42.600 --> 0:06:47.120
<v Speaker 1>class of computational problems with a classical computer. But what

0:06:47.240 --> 0:06:50.039
<v Speaker 1>if you could design a computer that could potentially solve

0:06:50.080 --> 0:06:57.000
<v Speaker 1>this problem in a flash by essentially calculating every route simultaneously.

0:06:57.760 --> 0:07:00.680
<v Speaker 1>Now we're getting into the possibilities offered up by quantum

0:07:00.720 --> 0:07:05.159
<v Speaker 1>computing and the cubit. The cubit is a quantum bit,

0:07:05.279 --> 0:07:08.120
<v Speaker 1>and like a bit, it can have a value of

0:07:08.400 --> 0:07:12.200
<v Speaker 1>zero or one, though we represent them asket zero and

0:07:12.360 --> 0:07:14.600
<v Speaker 1>cut one states. But I'm gonna leave it there because

0:07:15.120 --> 0:07:19.680
<v Speaker 1>describing representation and notation in an audio only podcast is futile.

0:07:20.120 --> 0:07:22.760
<v Speaker 1>I'd be like, okay, then you have a little squiggly line.

0:07:23.040 --> 0:07:25.120
<v Speaker 1>None of that would make any sense, so we're gonna

0:07:25.200 --> 0:07:27.680
<v Speaker 1>leave it there for now. But here's the thing. A

0:07:27.760 --> 0:07:32.240
<v Speaker 1>cubit can also have both values at the same time

0:07:32.280 --> 0:07:36.760
<v Speaker 1>and technically all values in between, and hold those values

0:07:36.840 --> 0:07:41.400
<v Speaker 1>in superposition until the system collapses and the cubit assumes

0:07:41.520 --> 0:07:44.720
<v Speaker 1>one or the other states. And which one it assumes

0:07:44.800 --> 0:07:48.280
<v Speaker 1>is based on probabilities. So it may be that it's

0:07:48.320 --> 0:07:50.360
<v Speaker 1>a fifty to fifty, which means half the time the

0:07:50.400 --> 0:07:52.080
<v Speaker 1>cubit would be a zero and half the time the

0:07:52.120 --> 0:07:54.200
<v Speaker 1>cubit would be a one. It doesn't have to be

0:07:54.280 --> 0:07:56.520
<v Speaker 1>fifty to fifty, however, so this is one of those

0:07:56.560 --> 0:08:00.880
<v Speaker 1>weird quantum effects that Schrodinger wanted to poke at with

0:08:01.040 --> 0:08:06.840
<v Speaker 1>his cat thought experiment see Early quantum physicists theorized about

0:08:07.080 --> 0:08:14.200
<v Speaker 1>superposition that certain quantum stuff can hold multiple states simultaneously

0:08:14.840 --> 0:08:17.560
<v Speaker 1>until something disturbs them, at which point they collapse into

0:08:17.640 --> 0:08:22.480
<v Speaker 1>a single state. Schrodingsher's absurd example was that of a

0:08:22.560 --> 0:08:25.640
<v Speaker 1>box containing a kitty cat and then a time release

0:08:25.720 --> 0:08:29.720
<v Speaker 1>method of making the kitty cat unalive, as you might

0:08:29.760 --> 0:08:34.520
<v Speaker 1>say on TikTok. But this time release method would be unpredictable.

0:08:34.840 --> 0:08:38.480
<v Speaker 1>It might trigger five minutes in or it might hold

0:08:38.480 --> 0:08:42.439
<v Speaker 1>off for hours. So you've got this box, thirty minutes

0:08:42.440 --> 0:08:46.319
<v Speaker 1>have passed. Is the cat alive or dead? Well, if

0:08:46.360 --> 0:08:48.040
<v Speaker 1>we were to think of the cat as being in

0:08:48.080 --> 0:08:51.000
<v Speaker 1>a quantum state, you could argue the cat is both

0:08:51.120 --> 0:08:54.160
<v Speaker 1>alive and dead at the same time. And it's only

0:08:54.200 --> 0:08:57.400
<v Speaker 1>when you open the box and observe the system do

0:08:57.480 --> 0:09:01.480
<v Speaker 1>the possibilities collapse into one reality. And in this reality

0:09:01.520 --> 0:09:03.800
<v Speaker 1>we're gonna say the kitty cat lives. Because I've always

0:09:04.000 --> 0:09:08.640
<v Speaker 1>hated this thought experiment, Shrodinger was trying to say this

0:09:08.800 --> 0:09:12.480
<v Speaker 1>idea was ridiculous, And of course, on the classical level

0:09:12.480 --> 0:09:15.600
<v Speaker 1>of cats and cars and cigar boxes and stuff like that,

0:09:16.160 --> 0:09:18.840
<v Speaker 1>all the stuff we can see and touch and manipulate,

0:09:19.600 --> 0:09:22.920
<v Speaker 1>it is absurd. But at the quantum level, it holds

0:09:23.000 --> 0:09:28.160
<v Speaker 1>true quantum effects can exist in two states simultaneously. It's wild,

0:09:28.720 --> 0:09:32.320
<v Speaker 1>but it is true. So if you could harness something

0:09:32.360 --> 0:09:36.440
<v Speaker 1>that works on the quantum level, like electrons, for example,

0:09:36.920 --> 0:09:39.800
<v Speaker 1>and you could use some feature of electrons such as

0:09:39.840 --> 0:09:43.600
<v Speaker 1>their spin where they spin up or spin down, you

0:09:43.640 --> 0:09:46.560
<v Speaker 1>could use that to serve as a cubit, And in

0:09:46.600 --> 0:09:49.720
<v Speaker 1>a properly isolated system, you could use a bunch of

0:09:49.800 --> 0:09:54.679
<v Speaker 1>cubits to run algorithms specifically designed for quantum systems, and

0:09:54.720 --> 0:10:00.280
<v Speaker 1>these cubits, by occupying all states simultaneously, could generate all

0:10:00.320 --> 0:10:03.080
<v Speaker 1>possible outcomes in the time it would take to solve

0:10:03.280 --> 0:10:06.160
<v Speaker 1>you know, the hardest one. Another way to think about

0:10:06.160 --> 0:10:08.200
<v Speaker 1>it is that if you have a bite, that is

0:10:08.400 --> 0:10:11.480
<v Speaker 1>eight bits that are strung together, you can have one

0:10:11.960 --> 0:10:14.880
<v Speaker 1>of two hundred and fifty six values. If you have

0:10:15.440 --> 0:10:19.520
<v Speaker 1>eight q bits, then you can have all two hundred

0:10:19.559 --> 0:10:23.160
<v Speaker 1>and fifty six values at the same time, at least

0:10:23.200 --> 0:10:26.200
<v Speaker 1>until you measure it, at which point it loses coherence

0:10:26.200 --> 0:10:29.160
<v Speaker 1>and settles into a single value and becomes one of

0:10:29.200 --> 0:10:31.840
<v Speaker 1>the two hundred and fifty six possibilities. But while in

0:10:31.920 --> 0:10:37.800
<v Speaker 1>superposition it's all of them. However, it gets weirder, and

0:10:37.840 --> 0:10:51.040
<v Speaker 1>I'll explain after we come back from this quick break. Okay,

0:10:51.080 --> 0:10:54.120
<v Speaker 1>what could be weirder than superposition? Well, I haven't talked

0:10:54.160 --> 0:10:59.160
<v Speaker 1>about entanglement yet. All right. For this explanation, let's imagine

0:10:59.200 --> 0:11:02.360
<v Speaker 1>that we have two cubits, and we'll say our cubits

0:11:02.360 --> 0:11:06.400
<v Speaker 1>are in the form of electrons and their direction of spin,

0:11:06.760 --> 0:11:09.360
<v Speaker 1>so the electrons can spin either up or down. And

0:11:09.440 --> 0:11:12.320
<v Speaker 1>let's say I've prepared the cubits so that right now

0:11:12.360 --> 0:11:16.160
<v Speaker 1>they're both spinning down, and we'll call that the zero

0:11:16.320 --> 0:11:19.760
<v Speaker 1>state versus the one state for this example, So both

0:11:19.840 --> 0:11:24.040
<v Speaker 1>cubits are spinning in the zero state, cubit A and

0:11:24.120 --> 0:11:28.959
<v Speaker 1>cubit B. Now, if I apply an oscillating magnetic field

0:11:29.160 --> 0:11:33.200
<v Speaker 1>to cubita a magnetic field at a frequency proportional to

0:11:33.280 --> 0:11:36.360
<v Speaker 1>the energy difference between cubit a's zero state and its

0:11:36.360 --> 0:11:40.600
<v Speaker 1>one state, I can actually rotate cubit A. I can

0:11:40.800 --> 0:11:45.240
<v Speaker 1>rotate its spin. And the presence of cubit B complicates

0:11:45.280 --> 0:11:47.520
<v Speaker 1>things a little bit, because these two cubits create their

0:11:47.559 --> 0:11:50.439
<v Speaker 1>own magnetic fields. I have to take into account cubitb's

0:11:50.480 --> 0:11:55.280
<v Speaker 1>magnetic field as I apply this external magnetic field to

0:11:55.440 --> 0:11:58.240
<v Speaker 1>rotate cubit A. But I can do that and then

0:11:58.280 --> 0:12:01.720
<v Speaker 1>move Cubita into superpositions. So now Cubita is both zero

0:12:01.800 --> 0:12:04.840
<v Speaker 1>and one at the same time. All right, Now let's

0:12:04.920 --> 0:12:08.200
<v Speaker 1>move on to cubit B. Now, remember I started with

0:12:08.240 --> 0:12:12.240
<v Speaker 1>both cubits in the zero state. They're both spinning down. Well,

0:12:12.240 --> 0:12:15.200
<v Speaker 1>now I apply the magnetic field I would need to

0:12:15.320 --> 0:12:19.600
<v Speaker 1>use to rotate cubit B if Cubita were still in

0:12:19.800 --> 0:12:24.920
<v Speaker 1>the zero state, except Cubita isn't in the zero state anymore.

0:12:25.080 --> 0:12:27.800
<v Speaker 1>Or rather it is, but it's also in the one

0:12:27.840 --> 0:12:31.760
<v Speaker 1>state because I've put Cubita into superposition. Well, now, when

0:12:31.840 --> 0:12:35.520
<v Speaker 1>Cubita is in zero, cubit B will rotate to one

0:12:35.679 --> 0:12:39.240
<v Speaker 1>because of this oscillating field I've put on it. But

0:12:39.480 --> 0:12:42.040
<v Speaker 1>when cubit A is in the one position, cubit B

0:12:42.160 --> 0:12:45.320
<v Speaker 1>will stay in the zero state because I would have

0:12:45.360 --> 0:12:48.760
<v Speaker 1>needed to use a different frequency in my magnetic field

0:12:49.120 --> 0:12:52.319
<v Speaker 1>to make cubit be rotate if Cubita is in the

0:12:52.360 --> 0:12:57.080
<v Speaker 1>one state, so cubb also goes into superposition. If Cubita

0:12:57.520 --> 0:13:00.800
<v Speaker 1>is zero, then the rotation worked, and if cubit B

0:13:01.000 --> 0:13:05.200
<v Speaker 1>is one, then the rotation didn't work. But Cubita is

0:13:05.240 --> 0:13:08.520
<v Speaker 1>technically both, so the rotation both did and didn't work

0:13:08.559 --> 0:13:11.960
<v Speaker 1>at the same time. The two cubits are entangled, and

0:13:12.000 --> 0:13:14.520
<v Speaker 1>the state of one depends upon the state of the other,

0:13:14.679 --> 0:13:17.920
<v Speaker 1>and they're opposite. Even if we were to separate these

0:13:17.960 --> 0:13:20.600
<v Speaker 1>two cubits and we were to put them at either

0:13:20.880 --> 0:13:24.800
<v Speaker 1>end of the universe, they would remain entangled as until

0:13:24.800 --> 0:13:27.880
<v Speaker 1>we observed them or something else disturbed them, at which

0:13:27.880 --> 0:13:31.360
<v Speaker 1>point we would lose coherence and the state becomes either

0:13:31.480 --> 0:13:34.120
<v Speaker 1>zero or one, and the state of the other one

0:13:34.160 --> 0:13:36.600
<v Speaker 1>would be the opposite of the one you observed, even

0:13:36.600 --> 0:13:38.040
<v Speaker 1>if it's on the other side of the universe. So

0:13:38.080 --> 0:13:40.040
<v Speaker 1>if you went to one end of the universe and

0:13:40.080 --> 0:13:41.679
<v Speaker 1>someone went to the other end of the universe with

0:13:41.760 --> 0:13:44.080
<v Speaker 1>the other one, you've got Cubita, they've got cubit B.

0:13:44.400 --> 0:13:46.840
<v Speaker 1>You observe Cubana, you see that it's zero. You know

0:13:46.920 --> 0:13:50.760
<v Speaker 1>that cubit B was a one crazy, even though they

0:13:50.760 --> 0:13:52.880
<v Speaker 1>were all the way across the universe from each other.

0:13:52.920 --> 0:13:55.600
<v Speaker 1>Einstein hated this. By the way, he couldn't get the

0:13:55.600 --> 0:13:58.440
<v Speaker 1>math to prove that it didn't work, but he hated

0:13:58.480 --> 0:14:00.959
<v Speaker 1>the idea, and he called it spook key action at

0:14:00.960 --> 0:14:06.920
<v Speaker 1>a distance in quantum computing entanglement creates a really counterintuitive opportunity.

0:14:07.320 --> 0:14:11.440
<v Speaker 1>You can code for two bits that have unknown but

0:14:11.679 --> 0:14:15.480
<v Speaker 1>opposite states, Like you don't know if cubita is a

0:14:15.559 --> 0:14:18.120
<v Speaker 1>zero or a one, but you do know that whatever

0:14:18.200 --> 0:14:21.200
<v Speaker 1>it is, cubit b is the opposite. And that might

0:14:21.240 --> 0:14:23.760
<v Speaker 1>not sound useful at the surface level, but it opens

0:14:23.840 --> 0:14:28.520
<v Speaker 1>up opportunities that simply aren't possible with classic computers. So,

0:14:29.320 --> 0:14:33.120
<v Speaker 1>for a subset of computational problems, the ones that are

0:14:33.240 --> 0:14:36.960
<v Speaker 1>really hard for classic computers, a quantum computer with sufficient

0:14:37.040 --> 0:14:41.320
<v Speaker 1>cubits and the right algorithm you need both can turn

0:14:41.400 --> 0:14:45.240
<v Speaker 1>what would be a massive challenge into a metaphorical piece

0:14:45.280 --> 0:14:49.320
<v Speaker 1>of k Now. For other computational problems, a quantum computer

0:14:49.360 --> 0:14:52.760
<v Speaker 1>would be no better than a classic computer, and depending

0:14:52.880 --> 0:14:55.600
<v Speaker 1>on the number of cubits the quantum computer has at

0:14:55.600 --> 0:14:58.840
<v Speaker 1>its disposal, it might be equivalent to a really, really

0:14:59.040 --> 0:15:03.880
<v Speaker 1>bad classical computer. The thing is, some interesting and potentially

0:15:04.000 --> 0:15:07.720
<v Speaker 1>dangerous problems might be simple for a quantum computer to unravel,

0:15:07.960 --> 0:15:12.160
<v Speaker 1>problems like classic encryption techniques. So a typical approach to

0:15:12.320 --> 0:15:16.440
<v Speaker 1>encryption involves using mathematical operations and a really large number

0:15:16.800 --> 0:15:20.600
<v Speaker 1>to scramble a message. Only someone with the proper key,

0:15:20.680 --> 0:15:24.240
<v Speaker 1>can reverse this process to get the unscrambled message and

0:15:24.280 --> 0:15:27.840
<v Speaker 1>to guess the value of the key that unscrambles everything

0:15:27.920 --> 0:15:31.000
<v Speaker 1>would take a really, really long time. How long depends

0:15:31.040 --> 0:15:33.480
<v Speaker 1>upon the strength of the encryption, but if we're talking

0:15:33.520 --> 0:15:37.520
<v Speaker 1>like military grade, you could be there forever. But with

0:15:37.560 --> 0:15:40.320
<v Speaker 1>a quantum computer that has a lot of cubits and

0:15:40.360 --> 0:15:43.560
<v Speaker 1>the right algorithm, you could potentially solve for the encryption

0:15:43.720 --> 0:15:46.960
<v Speaker 1>key in just a few minutes. This is why quantum

0:15:47.000 --> 0:15:50.480
<v Speaker 1>computers could spell the end of our current methods of encryption.

0:15:50.920 --> 0:15:54.400
<v Speaker 1>A person with access to a sufficiently powerful quantum computer

0:15:54.720 --> 0:15:58.480
<v Speaker 1>and that pesky algorithm would then hold the skeleton keys

0:15:58.480 --> 0:16:01.400
<v Speaker 1>that fit all the digital encrypt locks that are out there,

0:16:01.840 --> 0:16:04.840
<v Speaker 1>which is kind of spooky. And for that reason, researchers

0:16:04.880 --> 0:16:08.480
<v Speaker 1>are working on quantum encryption methods that can stand up

0:16:08.480 --> 0:16:12.000
<v Speaker 1>to quantum computers that you know, uses a different approach

0:16:12.040 --> 0:16:15.040
<v Speaker 1>to scramble those messages so that they stay safe from

0:16:15.160 --> 0:16:19.480
<v Speaker 1>all but the intended recipient. Also, I started talking about

0:16:19.600 --> 0:16:23.160
<v Speaker 1>Claude Shannon as the guy who popularized the term bits,

0:16:23.160 --> 0:16:27.360
<v Speaker 1>although Shannon himself gave credit to John Tukey, whom Shannon said,

0:16:27.480 --> 0:16:30.280
<v Speaker 1>use the term bits in a memo, but Shannon's is

0:16:30.320 --> 0:16:33.600
<v Speaker 1>the first earliest you know, published work to use the

0:16:33.680 --> 0:16:37.280
<v Speaker 1>term bits. But who coined cubit, Well, that would be

0:16:37.280 --> 0:16:41.880
<v Speaker 1>Benjamin Schumacher, who submitted an article titled quantum Coding in

0:16:42.000 --> 0:16:46.000
<v Speaker 1>nineteen ninety three to Physical Review. The article actually published

0:16:46.040 --> 0:16:50.520
<v Speaker 1>in nineteen ninety five. Schumacher is a theoretical physicist. By that,

0:16:50.600 --> 0:16:53.440
<v Speaker 1>I mean he's a real physicist. He's not theoretical, but

0:16:53.520 --> 0:16:57.840
<v Speaker 1>he works in theoretical fields, including quantum information theory. He

0:16:57.960 --> 0:17:02.200
<v Speaker 1>did for quantum information theory what Shannon did for communications theory,

0:17:02.600 --> 0:17:05.280
<v Speaker 1>with about half a century separating the two, which is

0:17:05.320 --> 0:17:10.600
<v Speaker 1>pretty darn cool. And so that's the basics on cubits.

0:17:11.000 --> 0:17:12.720
<v Speaker 1>And if you were to come up to me and

0:17:12.760 --> 0:17:15.560
<v Speaker 1>say do you understand this? Do you understand why it happens?

0:17:15.560 --> 0:17:18.520
<v Speaker 1>I would honestly tell you no. But then when we

0:17:18.560 --> 0:17:22.600
<v Speaker 1>get down to quantum effects, that's just the truthful answer

0:17:22.640 --> 0:17:25.600
<v Speaker 1>for everybody. We can say that definitely happens, that we

0:17:25.680 --> 0:17:30.040
<v Speaker 1>have the experimentational evidence to show that this does happen.

0:17:31.160 --> 0:17:34.879
<v Speaker 1>Why it happens, that's a question that we're still trying

0:17:34.920 --> 0:17:37.560
<v Speaker 1>to answer, and maybe we'll never come up with it,

0:17:37.800 --> 0:17:41.440
<v Speaker 1>but it's really cool to look into it. Now, if

0:17:41.440 --> 0:17:44.480
<v Speaker 1>you'll excuse me, I have a game of Hubert to

0:17:44.520 --> 0:17:54.280
<v Speaker 1>get back to tech Stuff is an iHeartRadio production. For

0:17:54.400 --> 0:17:59.240
<v Speaker 1>more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,

0:17:59.359 --> 0:18:01.359
<v Speaker 1>or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.