Quantum Computers
| Winfried Hensinger is a leader in Quantum, Atomic and Optical Physics at the University of Sussex. In the TED video above, he talks about the future of quantum computers and the role the team he is part of has in their development. |
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n the paradox of Schrödinger's Cat, a series of cats are placed into deadly rooms (poisoned rooms or explosive rooms), with a 50% chance of a deadly outcome. Wihout looking in the rooms, the person observing deduces the cat is both potentially alive and dead. Just so, quantum theory predicts that a cat can be in limbo between being dead and alive.
This Quantum spookiness stunned many scientists – most notably Albert Einstein. Since its creation in the early twentieth century, many experiments have proved the validity of quantum mechanics. Quantum mechanics also allows teleportation, like in Star Trek, however so far only with individual atoms.
Computers built with quantum technology — a quantum computer — would be much faster than today's computers. For example, a quantum computer would be able to crack the encryption we use to send our credit details over the internet in a matter of hours, where our current super computers would take thousands of years.
Quantum computers would also potentially help us to better understand the world around us. For instance they may help us to understand chemical reactions that would allow us to create new medicines.
Winfried Hensinger is a leader in Quantum, Atomic and Optical Physics at the University of Sussex. In the TED video above, he talks about the future of quantum computers and the role the team he is part of has in their development.
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Hensinger obtained his undergraduate degree at the Ruprechts-Karls University in Heidelberg, Germany and then moved to the University of Queensland in Brisbane, Australia where he was awarded a Master's in Physics. He continued on and obtained his PhD at the University of Queensland under guidance of Halina Rubinsztein-Dunlop, Norman Heckenberg and Gerard Milburn in the field of experimenal nonlinear quantum dynamics with ultracold atoms.
During his PhD candidature he spent an extended period at the National Institute of Standards and Technology in Gaithersburg, USA in the group of Nobel laureate William Phillips demonstrating dynamical tunneling in a sodium Bose-Einstein condensate. He obtained a Graduate Certificate in Higher Education (Tertiary Education) at the University of Queensland concurrent with his PhD studies. After completing his PhD he spent three years as a FOCUS Research Fellow in the group of Chris Monroe at the University of Michigan, USA developing ways to scale ion trap quantum information processing, leading into a still ongoing collaboration. He is now a Reader at the University of Sussex.
For a more in-depth discussion of his team's approach to quantum computing, there is also an interview with (a younger-looking) Hensinger available here.
SOURCE TEDxTalks
For a more in-depth discussion of his team's approach to quantum computing, there is also an interview with (a younger-looking) Hensinger available here.
SOURCE TEDxTalks
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