A New Leap Forward
By Jack Ross
If you think Quantum Computing sounds like science fiction, no one would blame you. Most scientists from even just ten years ago wouldn't have blamed you either. "Pie in the sky." is what Doctor Annaleigh Chen told me when I asked her about it while covering a story on the particle physics lab in CERN not even five years prior. "A dream that we like to talk about, but we can't really see happening for another twenty years at the earliest." And yet here I am, standing outside the Chicago Science Center where President Barack Obama stands with the Honorable Mayor Richard M. Daley and Doctor Herman Leight, the man being called the father of Quantum Computers.
"You did it Chicago," started the president's speech to screams and applause, "this right here is the beginning of the end for the recession"
The crowd is electrified by the statement, Chicago has felt the pinch of the recession as much as the rest of the country, and for them to be known for something other than gun crime is certainly something worth celebrating. Now, I'm not going to pretend to understand all of this, but in the demo outside the CSC, a long formula used to calculate gravimetric energies across the solar system was plugged into a high end PC linked to a databank of servers inside of the building, while the same formular was plugged into a single Quantum Computer beside Doctor Herman Leight. The two huge screens hung in front of the CSC showed a projection of each monitor. The Quantum Computer completed the calculations almost instantly, showing a series of graphs and 3D models that you and I will never hope to understand. [Oh, the databank of servers? Still working at it as of print date - Note from the Editor]
Now, before anyone gets too excited—Because I can just sense how excited you are—there's still a process for this. "Naturally my work will be made available to my peers to go over and examine, but I am most confident." Doctor Leight told me during our interview. The man looks like an eccentric grandfather, white hair with patches of grey, and a big bushy beard. He's a lot more comfortable than most scientists I've interviewed, and the Star Trek and Star Wars pins on his pocket sets me even more at ease. He's the Bill-Nye of quantum computers. "This technology will bring about brand new industries and technologies. AI Robot projects like Assamo or the work done in Boston Dynamics have all faced the same insurmountable roadblock; the processing power to truly make the technology work just wasn't there. Your brain and my brain make thousands of calculations a second just to move our bodies from one end of this room to the other. How we move our legs, the height with which we raise them, the speed that we go, and even how we balance ourselves with every step. These things may seem simple to us, but in truth our brains are working overtime to compute each command it's sending to our nervous system. Quantum computers will be able to make and adjust millions of those calculations in a nanosecond."
Can I just admit how disappointed I was when he didn't say 'Parsec'? Doctor Leight is hopeful for what this technological breakthrough will mean. "Years down the road, this moment, this place, this technology..." He pauses, and I begin to realize his flair for the dramatic, "It will be the birthplace of," he smiles, "the future."
Defense, robotics, aviation, space exploration, self driving cars, advances in medical science, even energy usage; Doctor Leight feels there is no industry in the world his technology won't touch. While that remains to be seen, one cannot help but be drawn in by his enthusiasm. Who knows what the future holds? Farms run by robots? Settlements on the moon? Maybe a digital assistant that reminds me that I meant to order pizza from O'Hare's on 43rd, not O'Malley's on 12th? Either way, this reporter waits on baited breath for what the future holds.
-JR
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