Helgoland: leading scientists reflect on 100 years of quantum physics and look to the future

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Hello, and welcome to the Physics World weekly

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podcast.

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Last week, Physics World's Matin Durrani boarded a

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ferry in Hamburg

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that was bound for Helgoland,

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an archipelago

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in the North Sea, about 70 kilometers off

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the Northwest Coast of Germany.

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It was a century ago in Helgoland

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that the physicist Werner Heisenberg

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devised the mathematical

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framework

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that underpins our understanding of quantum physics.

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Matin was there with some of the world's

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leading

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quantum physicists

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for a conference called Helgoland

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twenty twenty five,

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one hundred years of quantum mechanics.

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And this conference celebrated Heisenberg's

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brief stay on the archipelago's

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main island.

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Matin caught up with three eminent scientists

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and asked them to reflect

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on Heisenberg's

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contributions to quantum science and also

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to look forward to the next

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one hundred years of quantum

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science and technology.

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Here are those conversations.

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My name is Tracy Northup. I'm a professor

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at the University of Innsbruck in Austria.

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I'm a professor in experimental physics. My group

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works on quantum interfaces,

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between,

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light and matter.

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And we're in Helgoland,

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in Germany at this conference celebrating a hundred

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years of quantum mechanics.

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And is this your first visit to Helgoland?

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Have you, felt any

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inspiration from Werner Heisenberg from all those years

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ago? It is my first visit to Helgoland.

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It's a very remote island. It's beautiful, and

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it's so certainly inspiring to be here.

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And we've heard a lot about fundamental questions

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in or the foundational questions in quantum mechanics.

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Do those interest you, and what do what

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most inspires you about those questions?

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I think these foundational questions are absolutely interesting.

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It's it's not what I work on myself.

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I'm an experimental

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researcher where we work with trapped ions and

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trapped nanoparticles.

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But it's fascinating to hear about these questions

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that my colleagues are engaging with and also

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to think about what the repercussions of those

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questions are for experimental physics. You know, how

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does our

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interpretation of quantum mechanics, how does that shape

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how we think about quantum mechanics, how we

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think about our measurements,

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how we think about this interplay between experiment

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and theory?

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So tell me about the panel that you're

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chairing on the last day of the conference,

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Saturday. Who who who who's going to be

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on it, and what will you be discussing?

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Right. So on Saturday, at noon, I'll chair

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a panel. It will be the the last

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event at the conference, and it will be

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about the next hundred years of quantum mechanics.

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So that's an exciting topic. It's a daunting

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topic. And, the panel members are Peter Zoller,

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Gerd Leichs, Lorenzo Mccone, and Ramon Schnabel. So,

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really leading,

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theorists and experimental physicists, in quantum mechanics, and,

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I'm looking forward to their insights.

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So, I mean, how are you gonna pack

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the next hundred years into an is it

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an hour? That sounds really, really ambitious. I've

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I've good luck to you. How are you

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going to do that? Yeah. It is an

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hour. So

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we'll we'll start by having,

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each panelist comment for a few minutes on,

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you know, some of their thoughts,

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and then we've put together some questions that

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we've discussed in advance that we thought would

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be interesting to to kind of see some

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different counterpoints on.

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And so we've, we'll have a couple of

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different panel members address each question.

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And, yeah, I think we're we won't maybe

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tackle the whole hundred years all at once,

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but, but I think maybe also kind of

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in the shorter term, what are we looking

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forward to seeing?

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What are some trends that that we see?

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So where do you think most progress will

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be made in the next hundred years? What

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do you think? Where where's your money on?

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What what what's what progress will we see

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the quickest pace of change?

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Oh, you know, I think it's it's so

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hard to say. So maybe I will I

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will stick with what I know best. You

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know, this morning actually here at the conference,

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we heard about,

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macroscopic quantum mechanics, about people,

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like Marcus Arndt and Marcus Asplemaier,

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looking at,

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we quant sorry. The the weave dynamics of

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of of

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of of of matter and also asking, you

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know, can we build experiments to test the

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interplay of gravity and quantum mechanics? And so

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I find this frontier

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of trying to build

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macroscopic

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quantum states really compelling. And,

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because there's been so much progress, you know,

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it's something I, it's it's a field that

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we also work on in my group,

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and and I'm I'm really excited to see

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what comes in the next few years. So

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if we were here in a hundred years'

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time, there was another conference celebrating two hundred

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years of quantum mechanics. What would you think

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would be the,

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you know, the the big questions on the

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horizon in a hundred years? Or what would

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be what would be celebrating in a hundred

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years? Sorry. That's a really difficult question. I

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don't envy you trying to answer it. Yeah.

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I think I think the most honest answer

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is I just don't know. You know, something

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I was thinking about today is

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where would where would people have been in

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previous centuries? You know, when we think so

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in 1925,

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it's Heisenberg here making this this breakthrough in

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the development of quantum mechanics. When we think

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a hundred years before that,

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people were just sort of figuring out that

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electricity and magnetism were were two aspects of

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the same thing. And so, you know, for

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those for that those people to have imagined

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quantum mechanics, you know, that was so far

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beyond

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where they were, and and they they didn't

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yet have,

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Maxwell's equations and electromagnetism.

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And then, you know right. So it's interesting

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to imagine what

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Heisenberg and and Born and Pauli and the

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set of people in in the nineteen twenties

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would have imagined for now.

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I,

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I yeah. Is it now perhaps in terms

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of these foundational questions, you know, how do

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we interpret quantum mechanics? Perhaps that's something where

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they might have thought we would be a

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lot further along.

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But until yeah. I feel the same that

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same gap in in saying, you know, I'm

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sure that in in a hundred years, we

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will be somewhere that none of us can

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picture right now. So will we all all

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be sitting here with quantum computers on our

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laptops and,

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you know, sending messages, you know, with QKD

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and, you know, what will we be doing?

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How what sort of technologies can you imagine

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us having ordinary people having?

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Right. I mean, I think we're we're still

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quite clear that we expect quantum computers to

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be used for very specialized tasks.

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So it's it's hard for me to imagine

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us having quantum computers, you know, sitting on

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our laps because I I I I I

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can't imagine the need for them. But I

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I do picture

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that we would have access, you know, via

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the cloud, via secure communication channels,

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two powerful quantum computers that that maybe we

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would be using, you know, researchers here at

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that conference would be using to be running

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simulations or calculations in in parallel with with

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with meeting here. And I think these kind

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of channels for secure communication, quantum communication,

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will become, right, cheap and accessible. That's something

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that we're we're hoping. Because

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because some people are quite interested in the

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sort of ethical questions about quantum. Is that

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something that concerns you, or do you give

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much thought to that?

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So I think, right, ethical questions of any

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new technology are are crucial and important.

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But it's also a question of when is

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the right time that you start writing those

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regulations. You know? And and, for example, if

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if if we were trying to regulate

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AI,

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you know, twenty five years ago,

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would that have made sense?

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And so I I think people are with

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quantum. I would say that with quantum knowledge,

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people are quite

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aware of or thinking about

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questions about ethics and regulation

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in,

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in a nice way. I mean, I see

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those discussions already happening.

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But I think the point at which you

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start

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start regulating that in in a,

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that that we're we're not that's it feels

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too early for that for me. But you

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definitely think we'll be here in a hundred

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years. Do you think we will still have

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meetings that we will come together and, we'll

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be going up to the Heisenberg monuments in

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a in a 100 years' time?

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But it's also a great question. Yeah. Right?

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Will it will it still make sense that

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you bring everybody together,

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for these kind of meetings? You know, I

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I think what you see after the pandemic

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is that people kind of value meeting in

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person in in a in a special way.

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Right? We say, look, there are things that

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where it's really worthwhile

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not to do this over Zoom,

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but also to to take the time, right,

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to carve out time in our schedules to

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just have these discussions.

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And so,

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yeah, I I certainly,

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imagine that that will still be the case,

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that that's something fundamental to to being human.

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But we also think about you know, we

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have also have to be aware of the,

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you know, the ecological cost of travel. Right?

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You know, to this, how often does it

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make sense for for for us as a

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community to come together and to travel over

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great distances to do that?

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But I think these these meetings are very

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special opportunities.

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And how did you enjoy the ferry ride

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over? You know, that was quite exciting, wasn't

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it? It was quite about three and a

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half hours from Hamburg. Three and a half

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hours from Hamburg. You know, most of it

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was on the Elbe, which is quite quiet.

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It's, you know, the river. But then when

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we got into the open sea, it was

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a little choppy.

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I was outdoors, so I felt, like, you

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know, getting a little wet, but I think

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I, didn't get too seasick.

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It's funny to think about Heisenberg doing his

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calculations because he wouldn't have had anything other

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than sort of textbooks and then his pen

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and paper, and there would have been no

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telephones, no any way of communicating, no radio.

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It's really bizarre to think that, you know,

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the progress he made with no technology at

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his fingertips.

271
00:09:42,629 --> 00:09:44,070
Right. It's a sort of picture that he's

272
00:09:44,070 --> 00:09:45,830
kind of over here where he's brought some,

273
00:09:45,830 --> 00:09:48,470
you know, books and paper, and that mostly

274
00:09:48,470 --> 00:09:50,550
he's kinda wandering around the island, you know,

275
00:09:50,550 --> 00:09:52,090
recovering from his allergies,

276
00:09:52,550 --> 00:09:53,610
getting some exercise,

277
00:09:54,605 --> 00:09:57,105
but then, yeah, kinda sitting down and scribbling

278
00:09:57,164 --> 00:09:58,924
and and working things out in his head.

279
00:09:58,924 --> 00:10:00,764
Yeah. Do do you worry about AI or

280
00:10:00,764 --> 00:10:02,924
anything? Sorry. Going off completely off, of quantum.

281
00:10:02,924 --> 00:10:04,605
But AI, is that something that worries you

282
00:10:04,605 --> 00:10:06,044
about how we all sort of learn and

283
00:10:06,044 --> 00:10:07,424
do physics in the future?

284
00:10:08,019 --> 00:10:10,259
I mean, it's I I think it's certainly

285
00:10:10,259 --> 00:10:12,179
something that we all have to engage with.

286
00:10:12,179 --> 00:10:12,919
Right? What

287
00:10:13,779 --> 00:10:15,860
how can we use it to help our

288
00:10:15,860 --> 00:10:17,379
work? You know? And that's, of course, not

289
00:10:17,379 --> 00:10:19,539
just for physics. That's for everybody in the

290
00:10:19,539 --> 00:10:21,375
world. You know? How how does it how

291
00:10:21,375 --> 00:10:22,034
do we

292
00:10:22,735 --> 00:10:24,674
use it to, you know,

293
00:10:25,695 --> 00:10:27,294
to allow us to do things that maybe

294
00:10:27,294 --> 00:10:28,434
we couldn't do otherwise?

295
00:10:28,975 --> 00:10:30,735
But but also to acknowledge that what are

296
00:10:30,735 --> 00:10:32,735
the things that we are currently doing well

297
00:10:32,735 --> 00:10:34,095
and that where we don't think it can

298
00:10:34,095 --> 00:10:36,290
replace us. Of course, the tricky question is,

299
00:10:36,290 --> 00:10:38,690
you know, the answer in six months or

300
00:10:38,690 --> 00:10:40,210
a year is gonna maybe be different than

301
00:10:40,210 --> 00:10:41,830
what what what we know now.

302
00:10:42,690 --> 00:10:44,470
So, yeah, I think it's,

303
00:10:44,929 --> 00:10:45,590
and and

304
00:10:46,210 --> 00:10:48,290
so it's it's this very positive development, but,

305
00:10:48,290 --> 00:10:49,335
of course, plenty of

306
00:10:49,894 --> 00:10:53,095
ethical questions there and just questions about how

307
00:10:53,095 --> 00:10:54,855
does this change the way we work? How

308
00:10:54,855 --> 00:10:57,014
do we evolve as scientists? So do you

309
00:10:57,014 --> 00:10:58,455
use AI in your work at all? Is

310
00:10:58,455 --> 00:10:59,654
there any way you use it for helping

311
00:10:59,654 --> 00:11:02,730
with your experiments or with your research papers?

312
00:11:03,190 --> 00:11:04,230
Right. So in,

313
00:11:04,949 --> 00:11:06,009
not really currently.

314
00:11:06,709 --> 00:11:07,190
Is I,

315
00:11:07,829 --> 00:11:10,069
I think maybe people in my research group

316
00:11:10,069 --> 00:11:12,009
would be using it perhaps for kind of,

317
00:11:12,549 --> 00:11:15,174
for help with with coding, with programming something,

318
00:11:16,014 --> 00:11:16,514
or

319
00:11:16,855 --> 00:11:17,355
for,

320
00:11:19,174 --> 00:11:21,735
checking, spelling or grammar on a paper, that

321
00:11:21,735 --> 00:11:22,955
they're writing. But but,

322
00:11:23,495 --> 00:11:25,914
I think we we haven't kind of implemented

323
00:11:25,975 --> 00:11:27,195
any kind of

324
00:11:28,250 --> 00:11:30,029
structured use of it in our room.

325
00:11:30,570 --> 00:11:32,089
Alright. Well, let's hope maybe in a hundred

326
00:11:32,089 --> 00:11:34,089
years someone's gonna listen back to this conversation.

327
00:11:34,089 --> 00:11:35,450
Who knows? I wonder what they make what

328
00:11:35,450 --> 00:11:36,970
they make of it. Thank you very much,

329
00:11:36,970 --> 00:11:38,990
Tracy. You're welcome. Thank you so much.

330
00:11:46,085 --> 00:11:48,884
So I'm Michelle Simmons. I'm the CEO and

331
00:11:48,884 --> 00:11:51,625
founder of Silicon Quantum Computing in Sydney, Australia,

332
00:11:51,845 --> 00:11:54,480
and we're currently at the hundredth anniversary of,

333
00:11:55,120 --> 00:11:56,339
quantum physics in Helgoland.

334
00:11:56,720 --> 00:11:58,419
And this is your first visit to Helgoland.

335
00:11:58,480 --> 00:12:01,220
What's been your impressions of, following in Heisenberg's

336
00:12:01,360 --> 00:12:01,860
footsteps?

337
00:12:02,959 --> 00:12:04,500
This it's been pretty amazing

338
00:12:04,879 --> 00:12:07,365
mainly because of the, variety of the talks.

339
00:12:08,084 --> 00:12:09,225
But also, I think,

340
00:12:10,084 --> 00:12:11,924
Heisenberg came here to get away from the

341
00:12:11,924 --> 00:12:14,084
rest of the world and to have clarity

342
00:12:14,084 --> 00:12:16,245
of thought by being in a beautiful location,

343
00:12:16,245 --> 00:12:18,164
and so it certainly is that. And have

344
00:12:18,164 --> 00:12:20,250
you had any clarity of thought yourself?

345
00:12:20,649 --> 00:12:22,649
I have. So I'm known to be a

346
00:12:22,649 --> 00:12:23,149
workaholic,

347
00:12:23,690 --> 00:12:25,370
and so I have very much enjoyed I

348
00:12:25,370 --> 00:12:27,529
get up very early walking across the island

349
00:12:27,529 --> 00:12:28,990
and looking at the wildlife,

350
00:12:29,769 --> 00:12:32,169
looking at the little fairy birds that are

351
00:12:32,169 --> 00:12:32,970
out there, and,

352
00:12:33,495 --> 00:12:35,575
and then basically being in the North Sea

353
00:12:35,575 --> 00:12:37,914
wind, which is strong and refreshing.

354
00:12:38,455 --> 00:12:40,615
So you originally, you did you you're from

355
00:12:40,615 --> 00:12:42,534
The UK, aren't you originally? You studied at

356
00:12:42,534 --> 00:12:44,455
Durham. Is that right? And, in fact, you

357
00:12:44,455 --> 00:12:45,654
were at the Cavendish, I think, when I

358
00:12:45,654 --> 00:12:47,279
was there in the nineties, so maybe we

359
00:12:47,440 --> 00:12:49,279
brushed past each other. But you've been in

360
00:12:49,279 --> 00:12:51,519
Australia for quite a long time now. Yeah.

361
00:12:51,519 --> 00:12:53,040
So, yeah, I grew up in London, went

362
00:12:53,040 --> 00:12:54,560
up to Durham, and then, as you say,

363
00:12:54,560 --> 00:12:56,740
was in Cavendish from '92 to '97.

364
00:12:57,040 --> 00:12:59,200
Oh, sorry. '92 to '99. And then, yeah,

365
00:12:59,200 --> 00:13:00,480
I went to Sydney, and I've been there

366
00:13:00,480 --> 00:13:01,784
for twenty five years now.

367
00:13:02,504 --> 00:13:05,144
Very much focused on one big mission, and

368
00:13:05,144 --> 00:13:07,304
that is to build a quantum computer using

369
00:13:07,304 --> 00:13:08,684
atom qubits in silicon.

370
00:13:09,144 --> 00:13:10,904
And are there many people doing that sort

371
00:13:10,904 --> 00:13:12,365
of project who are here at Helgoland?

372
00:13:13,144 --> 00:13:14,824
So that there's actually a lot of theorists

373
00:13:14,824 --> 00:13:16,649
here mainly. So but there are a few

374
00:13:16,809 --> 00:13:19,210
experimentalists hidden amongst them. And a lot of

375
00:13:19,210 --> 00:13:21,290
those experimentalists are right at the forefront of

376
00:13:21,290 --> 00:13:23,309
their respective field. So either,

377
00:13:23,610 --> 00:13:26,009
in ion trap quantum computing or superconducting qubits.

378
00:13:26,009 --> 00:13:28,170
So it's quite fascinating to be here. There's

379
00:13:28,170 --> 00:13:29,370
been a lot of talk about sort of

380
00:13:29,370 --> 00:13:31,865
foundational work. Is that sort of relevant to

381
00:13:31,865 --> 00:13:33,404
what you're doing in your group?

382
00:13:34,105 --> 00:13:36,345
Yeah. So in quantum physics, obviously, it's a

383
00:13:36,345 --> 00:13:38,184
field that's very rich. It's, you know, 100

384
00:13:38,184 --> 00:13:41,784
years old. It is, mainly academic and theoretical,

385
00:13:41,784 --> 00:13:43,019
has been for a long time.

386
00:13:43,420 --> 00:13:44,940
But I call it the golden age of

387
00:13:44,940 --> 00:13:46,779
the experiment. This in the last twenty five

388
00:13:46,779 --> 00:13:49,179
years or so, we now have the tools

389
00:13:49,179 --> 00:13:51,019
that allow us to manipulate the world at

390
00:13:51,019 --> 00:13:53,259
the very smallest length scales. And so we're

391
00:13:53,259 --> 00:13:55,100
able, really, for the first time, to try

392
00:13:55,100 --> 00:13:57,605
and control quantum states and then see if

393
00:13:57,605 --> 00:13:59,605
we can use them for different types of

394
00:13:59,605 --> 00:14:01,464
information encoding or for sensing.

395
00:14:02,085 --> 00:14:03,605
And then sorry. I can't remember. Are you

396
00:14:03,605 --> 00:14:05,544
presenting a talk at, Helgoland?

397
00:14:06,404 --> 00:14:08,105
So I'm actually on a panel tonight.

398
00:14:08,644 --> 00:14:10,699
And that panel, I think, is gonna hopefully

399
00:14:10,699 --> 00:14:12,299
have a little bit of controversy, but really

400
00:14:12,299 --> 00:14:14,700
talking about, quantum physics in the future. So

401
00:14:14,700 --> 00:14:16,059
if we came back in a hundred years'

402
00:14:16,059 --> 00:14:18,620
time to Helgoland in, 2125,

403
00:14:18,620 --> 00:14:20,220
what do you think where would be with

404
00:14:20,220 --> 00:14:22,779
quantum physics, quantum computing? Can you can you

405
00:14:22,779 --> 00:14:23,894
even look that far ahead?

406
00:14:24,535 --> 00:14:26,455
I I don't think I can. So I'm

407
00:14:26,455 --> 00:14:29,254
a very pragmatic and practical person. So I

408
00:14:29,254 --> 00:14:31,335
think I have always tried to plan my

409
00:14:31,335 --> 00:14:32,934
life ten years ahead of where I am

410
00:14:32,934 --> 00:14:33,434
today.

411
00:14:33,735 --> 00:14:35,735
And so I think the next ten years

412
00:14:35,735 --> 00:14:37,254
are certainly gonna be very exciting for the

413
00:14:37,254 --> 00:14:39,929
field. You can see that there are companies

414
00:14:39,929 --> 00:14:41,389
setting up all across the world,

415
00:14:41,769 --> 00:14:44,190
really making practical systems now.

416
00:14:44,649 --> 00:14:46,889
So we believe we've got some processes in

417
00:14:46,889 --> 00:14:49,290
the quantum machine learning space that are showing

418
00:14:49,290 --> 00:14:51,870
advantage today, and that's something we didn't anticipate

419
00:14:52,009 --> 00:14:54,115
until another four years from now. And so

420
00:14:54,115 --> 00:14:56,355
I think the field is rapidly accelerating, so

421
00:14:56,355 --> 00:14:58,115
it's gonna be hugely exciting over the next

422
00:14:58,115 --> 00:15:00,274
five, ten years. And what sort of skills

423
00:15:00,274 --> 00:15:02,115
do you think, you know, physicists need if

424
00:15:02,115 --> 00:15:03,795
they want to go into the quantum sector?

425
00:15:03,795 --> 00:15:05,475
I mean, you've obviously set up your own

426
00:15:05,475 --> 00:15:07,495
company. There's obviously lots of opportunities.

427
00:15:08,320 --> 00:15:10,159
Huge opportunities in this field at the moment.

428
00:15:10,159 --> 00:15:11,299
I think, obviously,

429
00:15:11,679 --> 00:15:13,600
having a background in physics and maths is

430
00:15:13,600 --> 00:15:15,940
is fantastic for this field, but also statistics

431
00:15:16,240 --> 00:15:18,720
and coding are two areas that are are

432
00:15:18,720 --> 00:15:19,220
fundamental.

433
00:15:19,839 --> 00:15:22,639
But as it becomes very experimental and practical,

434
00:15:22,639 --> 00:15:24,754
then you need skills right across the board

435
00:15:24,754 --> 00:15:26,834
of people that manufacture things, people that make

436
00:15:26,834 --> 00:15:28,934
instruments, that measure things very precisely.

437
00:15:29,554 --> 00:15:31,074
There's a lot of theory that comes quite

438
00:15:31,074 --> 00:15:32,995
embedded in a lot of the experimental work,

439
00:15:32,995 --> 00:15:34,995
so getting very close to the experimentalist as

440
00:15:34,995 --> 00:15:36,454
a theorist would be ideal.

441
00:15:36,914 --> 00:15:38,914
But then, yes, with companies, you have products.

442
00:15:38,914 --> 00:15:40,910
So it's really kind of expanding,

443
00:15:41,290 --> 00:15:42,570
to all the skill sets you would have

444
00:15:42,570 --> 00:15:43,549
for a new industry.

445
00:15:43,929 --> 00:15:45,450
So which sort of products are closest to

446
00:15:45,450 --> 00:15:47,690
market? People talk about sensors being very close

447
00:15:47,690 --> 00:15:49,529
or what but, obviously, maybe you you think

448
00:15:49,529 --> 00:15:50,029
differently.

449
00:15:50,410 --> 00:15:52,169
Yes. So sensing is always believed to be

450
00:15:52,169 --> 00:15:54,410
the closest. But, in the machine learning space,

451
00:15:54,410 --> 00:15:56,524
I I think that's that's real now. So,

452
00:15:56,985 --> 00:15:59,304
we have a processor that gives, an increased

453
00:15:59,304 --> 00:16:01,004
accuracy for feature identification,

454
00:16:01,705 --> 00:16:03,784
and that's something that we're selling today. And

455
00:16:03,784 --> 00:16:05,784
so lots of companies are very keen to

456
00:16:05,784 --> 00:16:08,125
increase the accuracy of their classical machine learning.

457
00:16:08,319 --> 00:16:10,159
Right. And you also won that award. Was

458
00:16:10,159 --> 00:16:11,440
it Australian of the Year a few years

459
00:16:11,440 --> 00:16:13,079
ago? Have there been any other Australians of

460
00:16:13,079 --> 00:16:15,199
the Year on Helgoland, do you think? I've

461
00:16:15,199 --> 00:16:18,019
never thought about that. It's an interesting concept.

462
00:16:18,559 --> 00:16:21,184
I would doubt it, but who knows? Who

463
00:16:21,184 --> 00:16:23,504
knows? So any final thoughts before we finish?

464
00:16:23,825 --> 00:16:25,985
What's your, what's your vision for the future

465
00:16:25,985 --> 00:16:26,644
of Quantela?

466
00:16:27,424 --> 00:16:29,764
Yeah. Look. I I have actually been reflecting

467
00:16:30,065 --> 00:16:31,664
whilst I've been here, and I think one

468
00:16:31,664 --> 00:16:32,940
of the things that I

469
00:16:33,500 --> 00:16:35,100
feel more and more as I get older

470
00:16:35,100 --> 00:16:37,500
is the ability to separate yourself from the

471
00:16:37,500 --> 00:16:39,980
herd and to think independently and get away

472
00:16:39,980 --> 00:16:41,419
from things every now and again is quite

473
00:16:41,419 --> 00:16:42,320
vital. So

474
00:16:42,700 --> 00:16:44,860
having walked around this island, I've got the

475
00:16:44,860 --> 00:16:47,524
sense that that's probably what Heisenberg did when

476
00:16:47,524 --> 00:16:49,445
he came here. So he basically detached from

477
00:16:49,445 --> 00:16:50,904
the rest of the world to have clear

478
00:16:51,285 --> 00:16:53,445
clear thoughts. And so yeah. So as a

479
00:16:53,445 --> 00:16:54,904
physicist, it's very,

480
00:16:55,684 --> 00:16:57,925
it's very compelling to work with others. That's

481
00:16:57,925 --> 00:16:59,925
a great way to expand the knowledge of

482
00:16:59,925 --> 00:17:02,799
yourself. But fundamentally, learning is an individual thing.

483
00:17:02,799 --> 00:17:04,799
And so deep learning and spending time by

484
00:17:04,799 --> 00:17:07,039
yourself really reflecting on what you know and

485
00:17:07,039 --> 00:17:08,400
what are the challenges ahead, I think, is

486
00:17:08,400 --> 00:17:09,380
quite quite important.

487
00:17:09,759 --> 00:17:11,599
Very profound. We'll we'll finish there. Thank you,

488
00:17:11,599 --> 00:17:12,099
Michelle.

489
00:17:20,095 --> 00:17:22,575
Peter Zoller is my name. So I'm a

490
00:17:22,575 --> 00:17:24,674
professor, actually, now emeritus professor

491
00:17:25,049 --> 00:17:27,210
at the University of Innsbruck and also at

492
00:17:27,210 --> 00:17:28,830
the Austrian Academy of Sciences.

493
00:17:29,370 --> 00:17:31,289
We have a quantum institute that's called the

494
00:17:31,289 --> 00:17:33,850
Institute for Quantum Objects and Quantum Information in

495
00:17:33,850 --> 00:17:34,990
Innsbruck in Austria.

496
00:17:35,610 --> 00:17:38,090
And, we're here at, the Helgoland meeting. Is

497
00:17:38,090 --> 00:17:39,630
this your first visit to Helgoland?

498
00:17:39,974 --> 00:17:42,454
It is my first visit to Helgoland, and

499
00:17:42,454 --> 00:17:43,974
I always wanted to have, you know, a

500
00:17:43,974 --> 00:17:44,474
pilgrimage

501
00:17:44,775 --> 00:17:45,515
to Heisenberg's,

502
00:17:46,934 --> 00:17:49,335
place where he invented quantum mechanics. Yeah. It's

503
00:17:49,335 --> 00:17:50,934
the first time here. Did you go and

504
00:17:50,934 --> 00:17:53,414
visit his, the little plaque where he, is

505
00:17:53,414 --> 00:17:56,460
honored? I saw that, took my photograph, and,

506
00:17:56,460 --> 00:17:58,659
you know, that's right. And, of course, you

507
00:17:58,659 --> 00:18:00,359
know, wrote it there. I know it's it's

508
00:18:00,819 --> 00:18:02,599
a sight. You know? Peter was here.

509
00:18:03,379 --> 00:18:05,299
Did you feel any inspiration for it? Was

510
00:18:05,299 --> 00:18:06,679
it a sort of profound moment

511
00:18:06,980 --> 00:18:09,285
going there? I'm still I'm still waiting for

512
00:18:09,285 --> 00:18:11,684
that, but, who knows? Maybe, you know, after

513
00:18:11,684 --> 00:18:13,365
my talk or after my panel,

514
00:18:13,765 --> 00:18:16,325
participation then. So, yeah, you're talking the panel,

515
00:18:16,325 --> 00:18:17,605
which is tomorrow, actually,

516
00:18:18,164 --> 00:18:20,345
the future the next hundred years of quantum

517
00:18:20,759 --> 00:18:23,400
physics, which sounds really ambitious. What what points

518
00:18:23,400 --> 00:18:24,940
are you going to make in the debate?

519
00:18:25,960 --> 00:18:28,759
Okay. So, we sort of discussed inside of

520
00:18:28,759 --> 00:18:30,759
the panel how we distribute and our our

521
00:18:30,759 --> 00:18:32,680
contributions, and I will talk about the future

522
00:18:32,680 --> 00:18:34,279
of quantum information. And,

523
00:18:35,505 --> 00:18:37,105
of course, I mean, the main statements will

524
00:18:37,105 --> 00:18:38,705
be, and I really believe that it's a

525
00:18:38,705 --> 00:18:41,265
little bit black and white that, no, that

526
00:18:41,265 --> 00:18:42,785
I think we are not too far away

527
00:18:42,785 --> 00:18:44,884
from building fault tolerant quantum computers.

528
00:18:46,144 --> 00:18:47,744
This will come. The question is to know

529
00:18:47,744 --> 00:18:49,265
how big we can make them and how

530
00:18:49,265 --> 00:18:51,059
we can scale them up and all that.

531
00:18:51,059 --> 00:18:52,039
This will be technical

532
00:18:53,059 --> 00:18:55,380
developments. This will sort of proceed in different

533
00:18:55,380 --> 00:18:57,859
thresholds and so on, but it will come.

534
00:18:58,019 --> 00:18:59,539
This is for me very clear. And I

535
00:18:59,539 --> 00:19:01,634
think that this will open new doors and

536
00:19:02,195 --> 00:19:04,035
will also, I guess, open new doors. That's

537
00:19:04,035 --> 00:19:06,035
sort of my second statement in this context

538
00:19:06,035 --> 00:19:08,195
that I think that a lot of the

539
00:19:08,195 --> 00:19:10,515
qubits that will have logical qubits, you know,

540
00:19:10,515 --> 00:19:11,954
many of them, at the end of the

541
00:19:11,954 --> 00:19:13,494
day, they will become cheap.

542
00:19:13,890 --> 00:19:15,490
And, also, at the moment, we have all

543
00:19:15,490 --> 00:19:18,210
of this discussion. Quantum information processing is very

544
00:19:18,210 --> 00:19:20,690
expensive, but we have quantum advantage. Can we

545
00:19:20,690 --> 00:19:21,190
demonstrate?

546
00:19:21,809 --> 00:19:24,049
But at the point where qubits, fault tolerant

547
00:19:24,049 --> 00:19:26,529
qubits become cheap, you know, then it's a

548
00:19:26,529 --> 00:19:29,085
complete game changer. And many things that we

549
00:19:29,085 --> 00:19:30,924
are doing today, you know, in the classical

550
00:19:30,924 --> 00:19:33,484
context, in the quantum context, we know it

551
00:19:33,484 --> 00:19:35,404
can be done better. But once it becomes

552
00:19:35,404 --> 00:19:37,085
cheap to do quantum, you know, then this

553
00:19:37,085 --> 00:19:39,424
is sort of another threshold to this context.

554
00:19:39,964 --> 00:19:42,045
Do you have a def definition for cheap?

555
00:19:42,045 --> 00:19:42,605
What do you,

556
00:19:43,450 --> 00:19:44,269
compare that to?

557
00:19:44,650 --> 00:19:46,730
Well, I would say cheap's very similar what

558
00:19:46,730 --> 00:19:48,650
we saw in, for example, classical computing. You

559
00:19:48,650 --> 00:19:50,650
know, I still remember when I bought my

560
00:19:50,650 --> 00:19:53,049
first laptop or or Apple computer, how much

561
00:19:53,049 --> 00:19:54,730
money I put down. You know? I went

562
00:19:54,730 --> 00:19:57,070
to BMW to work for the whole summer,

563
00:19:57,684 --> 00:19:59,845
cleaning in the factory, but not whole summer,

564
00:19:59,845 --> 00:20:02,085
three weeks or whatever it was, and making

565
00:20:02,085 --> 00:20:03,865
some money. And then I bought myself,

566
00:20:04,484 --> 00:20:06,965
just a Hewlett Packard calculator, you know, that

567
00:20:06,965 --> 00:20:09,205
could I could program 128

568
00:20:09,205 --> 00:20:09,569
steps,

569
00:20:11,089 --> 00:20:13,169
later on, you know, buying again from sort

570
00:20:13,169 --> 00:20:14,690
of money that I earned over the summer

571
00:20:14,690 --> 00:20:16,690
as a student and the first computer, first

572
00:20:16,690 --> 00:20:17,829
laptop. And so,

573
00:20:18,450 --> 00:20:20,369
today, these things are cheap and all relative

574
00:20:20,369 --> 00:20:21,970
to the salaries that we have. And so

575
00:20:21,970 --> 00:20:24,230
I would expect that Quanta will also become

576
00:20:24,525 --> 00:20:25,884
cheap at one point and all in a

577
00:20:25,884 --> 00:20:28,705
very similar way. Yeah. What sort of, applications

578
00:20:28,765 --> 00:20:30,924
do you foresee being used over the next

579
00:20:30,924 --> 00:20:31,744
hundred years?

580
00:20:32,445 --> 00:20:33,724
I think that this is sort of the

581
00:20:33,724 --> 00:20:36,125
main bottleneck that we have in this, quantum

582
00:20:36,125 --> 00:20:38,849
computing or quantum information context that, I mean,

583
00:20:38,849 --> 00:20:40,470
Ike Chuang here at the meeting

584
00:20:40,930 --> 00:20:42,529
made a strong statement. He said that, you

585
00:20:42,529 --> 00:20:44,690
know, we are sort of progressing and being

586
00:20:44,690 --> 00:20:46,470
able to do all of these things, but

587
00:20:46,769 --> 00:20:49,089
we have not really very much advanced in

588
00:20:49,089 --> 00:20:51,730
terms of finding applications of quantum computing where

589
00:20:51,730 --> 00:20:53,329
we can claim that this will be of

590
00:20:53,329 --> 00:20:53,595
an

591
00:20:54,554 --> 00:20:55,375
social economic

592
00:20:55,755 --> 00:20:57,914
benefit and so on that, you know, companies

593
00:20:57,914 --> 00:20:59,615
at the end have to make money. And,

594
00:20:59,835 --> 00:21:01,595
of course, there will be these things will

595
00:21:01,595 --> 00:21:03,835
be funded by military, but at the end,

596
00:21:03,835 --> 00:21:06,015
you know, you won't would like to identify

597
00:21:07,039 --> 00:21:09,200
applications. And, I see a lot of, you

598
00:21:09,200 --> 00:21:10,660
know, applications that,

599
00:21:12,000 --> 00:21:13,779
that are sort of, you know, one side.

600
00:21:13,920 --> 00:21:16,240
You know, these quantum computers that we will

601
00:21:16,240 --> 00:21:18,019
produce a new quantum technology.

602
00:21:18,414 --> 00:21:20,575
I'm very excited about bringing them back into

603
00:21:20,575 --> 00:21:22,494
physics. You know? They will be the basis,

604
00:21:22,494 --> 00:21:24,914
like, in the context of quantum sensing, and

605
00:21:25,055 --> 00:21:27,055
I could list here many examples in this

606
00:21:27,055 --> 00:21:28,815
context, you know, that will allow us to

607
00:21:28,815 --> 00:21:30,035
discover new physics.

608
00:21:30,509 --> 00:21:32,830
So I see new technologies as a door

609
00:21:32,830 --> 00:21:35,309
to find to making fundamental discoveries on the

610
00:21:35,309 --> 00:21:36,130
physics side.

611
00:21:36,670 --> 00:21:38,190
Kind of saying the obvious, but I think

612
00:21:38,190 --> 00:21:40,109
it will be true here. And, you know,

613
00:21:40,109 --> 00:21:42,509
these things about gravity that we're hearing here,

614
00:21:42,509 --> 00:21:43,330
you know, like,

615
00:21:43,734 --> 00:21:46,375
you we have quantum communication. You know? There

616
00:21:46,375 --> 00:21:49,414
will be quantum sensing networks based on have

617
00:21:49,414 --> 00:21:51,494
you learned how to do quantum communication and

618
00:21:51,494 --> 00:21:53,434
getting entanglement over large distances?

619
00:21:53,815 --> 00:21:55,734
There will be quantum sensors, you know, in

620
00:21:55,734 --> 00:21:57,660
a new way. This will be a new

621
00:21:57,799 --> 00:22:00,359
interface to, for example, gravity. Talk about, you

622
00:22:00,359 --> 00:22:01,740
know, classical GR

623
00:22:02,119 --> 00:22:03,339
and provide new,

624
00:22:03,880 --> 00:22:06,359
measurements, you know, new instruments for measurements. And

625
00:22:06,359 --> 00:22:08,200
at the end, I think something very interesting

626
00:22:08,200 --> 00:22:09,339
will come out because

627
00:22:09,704 --> 00:22:11,704
even more, at least, atomic physics had a

628
00:22:11,704 --> 00:22:14,265
very long tradition and, you know, high precision

629
00:22:14,265 --> 00:22:16,345
measurements. Think about the lamp shift. You know?

630
00:22:16,345 --> 00:22:18,424
It was technology of microwave in the in

631
00:22:18,424 --> 00:22:21,085
the second World War then applied to spectroscopy.

632
00:22:21,384 --> 00:22:22,984
We discovered the lamp shift. So it will

633
00:22:22,984 --> 00:22:24,744
be very similar over here, at least I

634
00:22:24,744 --> 00:22:26,720
expect. So that it will be this is

635
00:22:26,720 --> 00:22:29,440
a door opener for fundamental discovery. It also

636
00:22:29,440 --> 00:22:31,379
meant there's many applications in science.

637
00:22:31,919 --> 00:22:34,240
On the other hand, you know, industry, as

638
00:22:34,240 --> 00:22:36,179
I said, you know, wants to make money,

639
00:22:36,639 --> 00:22:38,639
on one hand, building a quantum computer, on

640
00:22:38,639 --> 00:22:40,304
the other hand, also then, you know,

641
00:22:40,944 --> 00:22:43,204
solving useful problems for society.

642
00:22:43,984 --> 00:22:46,784
And, you know, one obvious statement has always

643
00:22:46,784 --> 00:22:48,625
been that, you would like to do, for

644
00:22:48,625 --> 00:22:52,384
example, quantum simulation for drug discovery or chemistry

645
00:22:52,384 --> 00:22:54,724
and all of these things, quantum material design.

646
00:22:54,990 --> 00:22:57,390
So tomorrow, we'll make a a brief statement

647
00:22:57,390 --> 00:22:58,990
about things that we're working on at the

648
00:22:58,990 --> 00:23:01,150
moment where we are doing what we call

649
00:23:01,150 --> 00:23:04,430
inverse quantum simulation, where we write down we're

650
00:23:04,430 --> 00:23:06,589
sort of doing quantum material design on a

651
00:23:06,589 --> 00:23:08,750
quantum computer by writing down the list of

652
00:23:08,750 --> 00:23:10,845
properties. You know? We encode them in a

653
00:23:10,845 --> 00:23:12,525
cost function that we solve in a quantum

654
00:23:12,525 --> 00:23:14,365
computer, and what comes out at the end

655
00:23:14,365 --> 00:23:16,445
is the Hamiltonian that generates this thing as

656
00:23:16,445 --> 00:23:18,065
the ground set or is an approximate

657
00:23:18,445 --> 00:23:20,045
ground set. And so this becomes in a

658
00:23:20,045 --> 00:23:20,865
way of doing

659
00:23:21,164 --> 00:23:24,365
material design. And, this looks actually very promising

660
00:23:24,365 --> 00:23:26,210
and it's a very constructive way

661
00:23:26,509 --> 00:23:27,730
of, you know, designing

662
00:23:28,029 --> 00:23:30,509
this particular case materials or the molecules or

663
00:23:30,509 --> 00:23:33,269
whatever, you know, that have desired properties. And

664
00:23:33,269 --> 00:23:35,410
I think it's a beautiful application, and,

665
00:23:36,029 --> 00:23:38,589
we have to search for ideas along, these

666
00:23:38,589 --> 00:23:41,215
slides. So So it's interesting you say new

667
00:23:41,355 --> 00:23:44,394
advances in technology can feedback and create new

668
00:23:44,394 --> 00:23:45,535
fundamental discoveries.

669
00:23:47,275 --> 00:23:49,115
Have you got some examples about where that's

670
00:23:49,115 --> 00:23:51,835
happened in recent years? Well, in recent year,

671
00:23:51,835 --> 00:23:53,595
examples that happened in the past in the

672
00:23:53,595 --> 00:23:55,200
recent years, well, I would say that,

673
00:23:56,079 --> 00:23:57,759
maybe not at the level of now quantum

674
00:23:57,759 --> 00:24:00,079
computing coming back because quantum computing is a

675
00:24:00,079 --> 00:24:02,399
whole new paradigm. But, you know, if you

676
00:24:02,399 --> 00:24:04,079
look at the development of the laser, you

677
00:24:04,079 --> 00:24:05,839
know, that the at the very beginning was

678
00:24:05,839 --> 00:24:07,679
just, you know, a coherent light source, and

679
00:24:07,679 --> 00:24:09,825
we learned how to stabilize these things. And

680
00:24:09,904 --> 00:24:11,424
when you listen here to the talk by,

681
00:24:11,424 --> 00:24:12,565
for example, Junier

682
00:24:12,944 --> 00:24:13,424
on,

683
00:24:13,744 --> 00:24:16,384
on atomic clocks, you know, that measures now

684
00:24:16,384 --> 00:24:18,404
time accurate to 21 digits.

685
00:24:18,784 --> 00:24:20,304
I mean, this is just amazing. And this

686
00:24:20,304 --> 00:24:22,144
was sort of one example where sort of

687
00:24:22,144 --> 00:24:23,764
there was this interplay between

688
00:24:24,150 --> 00:24:27,029
technology, developing the proper laser, then doing very

689
00:24:27,029 --> 00:24:29,450
fundamental science, which we're building now,

690
00:24:29,910 --> 00:24:31,990
when we build, for example, quantum computers. So

691
00:24:32,869 --> 00:24:35,269
And, you've also been involved in that company,

692
00:24:35,269 --> 00:24:37,269
AQT. Are you still closely involved in that

693
00:24:37,269 --> 00:24:39,029
on the you know, you're helping to run

694
00:24:39,029 --> 00:24:39,690
that company?

695
00:24:40,174 --> 00:24:41,934
Well, I'm sort of in the the second

696
00:24:41,934 --> 00:24:43,694
row, I have to admit, to this company,

697
00:24:43,694 --> 00:24:45,454
so I'm not directly involved in all of

698
00:24:45,454 --> 00:24:47,054
that. But, of course, I talk a lot

699
00:24:47,054 --> 00:24:48,894
to my colleagues, you know, like Rainer Platt

700
00:24:48,894 --> 00:24:51,134
and Thomas Muntz, who are doing these things.

701
00:24:51,134 --> 00:24:53,779
And, yeah, we have sometimes discussions about where

702
00:24:53,779 --> 00:24:55,539
things are going. And I if my opinion

703
00:24:55,539 --> 00:24:56,359
is a theorist,

704
00:24:57,299 --> 00:24:59,299
very often they have their own opinions, you

705
00:24:59,299 --> 00:25:00,980
know, companies to make money as we said

706
00:25:00,980 --> 00:25:01,480
before.

707
00:25:01,940 --> 00:25:02,339
And,

708
00:25:02,900 --> 00:25:05,460
companies also have to identify certain niches where

709
00:25:05,460 --> 00:25:06,980
they belong. You know? There's a lot of

710
00:25:06,980 --> 00:25:08,365
competition, a lot of startups,

711
00:25:08,664 --> 00:25:10,664
and you have to identify, though, where, for

712
00:25:10,664 --> 00:25:12,525
example, a trapped icon to computer

713
00:25:13,065 --> 00:25:15,625
has unique advantages when it leads to other

714
00:25:15,625 --> 00:25:17,625
possibilities. And there's a lot of companies out

715
00:25:17,625 --> 00:25:19,465
there that have quite a lot of money

716
00:25:19,465 --> 00:25:20,285
for the development.

717
00:25:20,809 --> 00:25:22,970
So you have to identify your corner where

718
00:25:22,970 --> 00:25:24,809
you're the king. Okay? And I think that

719
00:25:24,809 --> 00:25:26,970
this, this can be done. Yeah. Now here

720
00:25:26,970 --> 00:25:28,490
at Helgoland, there have been all sorts of

721
00:25:28,490 --> 00:25:30,089
different talks on all sorts of different areas.

722
00:25:30,089 --> 00:25:31,529
Have there been any ones that you found

723
00:25:31,529 --> 00:25:34,349
particularly interesting or where you've learned something new?

724
00:25:35,255 --> 00:25:36,615
Well, I can list the,

725
00:25:37,095 --> 00:25:38,775
many talks here that I got very excited

726
00:25:38,775 --> 00:25:39,975
about. I mean, I have to say that,

727
00:25:40,215 --> 00:25:42,855
many of the experimental talks were very exciting

728
00:25:42,855 --> 00:25:45,095
for me because they point out the different

729
00:25:45,095 --> 00:25:46,934
platforms. There was a lot here about nano

730
00:25:46,934 --> 00:25:49,414
mechanics, this interface with gravity, like the last

731
00:25:49,414 --> 00:25:50,430
talk that you just

732
00:25:50,910 --> 00:25:51,470
heard now,

733
00:25:51,869 --> 00:25:53,710
here, you know, that was on on on

734
00:25:53,710 --> 00:25:55,730
on gravity and being able to be nanomechanics

735
00:25:56,029 --> 00:25:59,170
to probe fundamental physics along these lines.

736
00:25:59,630 --> 00:26:01,549
And, I think that this is where the

737
00:26:01,549 --> 00:26:03,630
field is developing. And, of course, I'm thinking

738
00:26:03,630 --> 00:26:05,234
now these things in terms of the system

739
00:26:05,234 --> 00:26:07,474
I'm interested in, like, you know, you make

740
00:26:07,474 --> 00:26:09,954
large scale networks of quantum sensors to do

741
00:26:09,954 --> 00:26:12,035
these kind of things. So as the theorist,

742
00:26:12,035 --> 00:26:14,434
the goal is always to identify important problems,

743
00:26:14,434 --> 00:26:16,855
but also see what the experimental developments are

744
00:26:17,210 --> 00:26:20,090
and extrapolating these experimental developments into the future.

745
00:26:20,090 --> 00:26:22,170
You know what, five years down the road,

746
00:26:22,170 --> 00:26:24,329
the experimentalist might be able to do. And

747
00:26:24,329 --> 00:26:26,570
this is then the door opener to completely

748
00:26:26,570 --> 00:26:28,570
new things that are could be game changers.

749
00:26:28,570 --> 00:26:30,835
You know? And this is so picking up,

750
00:26:30,835 --> 00:26:33,394
you know, the progress, picking up interesting topics,

751
00:26:33,394 --> 00:26:35,554
and I would say gravity was a very

752
00:26:35,554 --> 00:26:38,515
strong point of this conference here. Yeah. And,

753
00:26:38,835 --> 00:26:40,355
how active are you still in research? Are

754
00:26:40,355 --> 00:26:42,035
you still doing plenty of research? Are you

755
00:26:42,035 --> 00:26:44,194
almost full time still even though you're normally

756
00:26:44,194 --> 00:26:44,694
retired?

757
00:26:45,099 --> 00:26:46,940
Well, I'm formally retired, but I have to

758
00:26:46,940 --> 00:26:48,940
admit that I go every day to under

759
00:26:48,940 --> 00:26:50,480
cold work, you know, and,

760
00:26:50,940 --> 00:26:52,460
while I'm not allowed to have my own

761
00:26:52,460 --> 00:26:54,539
group anymore, what I do have is that

762
00:26:54,539 --> 00:26:55,980
I have access to some of the other

763
00:26:55,980 --> 00:26:57,899
graduate students from some of the other groups.

764
00:26:57,899 --> 00:26:59,440
I discuss with them. And so,

765
00:27:00,095 --> 00:27:01,855
to the extent that I have interesting ideas,

766
00:27:01,855 --> 00:27:03,295
they also want to listen to me. And

767
00:27:03,295 --> 00:27:05,455
so, yeah, I'm I'm still involved in these

768
00:27:05,455 --> 00:27:05,955
things.

769
00:27:06,335 --> 00:27:08,174
Not like having your own group where you

770
00:27:08,174 --> 00:27:10,174
could always, you know, decide. Okay. Let's do

771
00:27:10,174 --> 00:27:11,910
this thing now and not and not that,

772
00:27:12,789 --> 00:27:14,869
but still on the level where I think

773
00:27:14,869 --> 00:27:16,710
it's interesting. So as long as I have

774
00:27:16,710 --> 00:27:19,349
interesting ideas and I can convince some students

775
00:27:19,349 --> 00:27:21,029
to know that these ideas are interesting and

776
00:27:21,029 --> 00:27:21,690
some postdocs,

777
00:27:22,710 --> 00:27:24,410
you know, they will be collaborators.

778
00:27:24,865 --> 00:27:26,384
So if you were a young student today,

779
00:27:26,384 --> 00:27:28,065
what field would you go into? Would you

780
00:27:28,065 --> 00:27:29,664
stay in quantum physics? And if so, you

781
00:27:29,664 --> 00:27:31,284
know, which area would you go into?

782
00:27:32,625 --> 00:27:34,704
Well, maybe I would say now the obvious.

783
00:27:34,704 --> 00:27:36,704
I mean, quantum physics is now the point

784
00:27:36,704 --> 00:27:39,009
which has changed a lot relative to when

785
00:27:39,009 --> 00:27:40,850
I entered. You know, I decided all of

786
00:27:40,850 --> 00:27:43,830
this quantum computing ideas and business and developing

787
00:27:44,369 --> 00:27:46,609
hardware with atoms and ions and so on.

788
00:27:46,609 --> 00:27:48,049
This was in the middle of the nineties,

789
00:27:48,049 --> 00:27:50,130
and there was then, you know, a very

790
00:27:50,130 --> 00:27:52,609
fruitful period of about maybe ten years where

791
00:27:52,609 --> 00:27:54,125
we came up with a lot of theoretical

792
00:27:54,184 --> 00:27:54,684
ideas.

793
00:27:55,705 --> 00:27:57,865
Today, many of these ideas are reality in

794
00:27:57,865 --> 00:27:58,525
the lab

795
00:27:59,065 --> 00:28:01,144
and sort of, you know, things are changing

796
00:28:01,144 --> 00:28:02,984
now in the sense that, you know, we

797
00:28:02,984 --> 00:28:04,904
thought a lot about hardware, how to build

798
00:28:04,904 --> 00:28:06,265
it, and, you know, how to make it

799
00:28:06,265 --> 00:28:07,945
perfect and what could be done, how to

800
00:28:07,945 --> 00:28:08,445
entangle,

801
00:28:08,779 --> 00:28:10,220
and how these things are here. But we

802
00:28:10,220 --> 00:28:11,819
also had a vision what we wanted to

803
00:28:11,819 --> 00:28:13,579
do with this kind of devices, you know,

804
00:28:13,579 --> 00:28:15,500
like, quantum computing, what problems we want to

805
00:28:15,500 --> 00:28:18,539
solve, like, many body problems for quantum simulation,

806
00:28:18,539 --> 00:28:21,259
whatever it may be. And today is very

807
00:28:21,259 --> 00:28:23,179
fascinating for me. This is somehow a game

808
00:28:23,179 --> 00:28:24,559
changer, and the young

809
00:28:24,964 --> 00:28:27,384
generation finds itself confronted with

810
00:28:27,684 --> 00:28:29,445
that. That, you know, we wrote a lot

811
00:28:29,445 --> 00:28:31,285
of theory papers that it took five years,

812
00:28:31,285 --> 00:28:32,884
maybe even ten years for this thing to

813
00:28:32,884 --> 00:28:33,705
become reality,

814
00:28:34,244 --> 00:28:35,945
in the in the lab because they experimentally

815
00:28:36,085 --> 00:28:38,184
said to start at zero, it really work.

816
00:28:38,380 --> 00:28:40,640
Now these machines exist, and they are programmable

817
00:28:40,940 --> 00:28:43,419
machines. So this means that we can take

818
00:28:43,419 --> 00:28:45,579
our ideas off and just go to these

819
00:28:45,579 --> 00:28:47,659
machines and program these things directly. And,

820
00:28:48,380 --> 00:28:50,535
yeah, we just throw the paper together with,

821
00:28:50,535 --> 00:28:52,535
for example, Queva, you know, the the the

822
00:28:52,535 --> 00:28:54,234
company of of Michelukin,

823
00:28:55,174 --> 00:28:55,914
and so on,

824
00:28:56,455 --> 00:28:57,195
at Harvard,

825
00:28:57,575 --> 00:28:58,075
MIT.

826
00:28:58,695 --> 00:29:00,775
And, we wrote a paper together. It came

827
00:29:00,775 --> 00:29:02,455
out in Nature last week, you know, on

828
00:29:02,455 --> 00:29:04,855
simulating lattice gauge theories. You know, this was

829
00:29:04,855 --> 00:29:07,130
just an outcome like that. It's an interesting

830
00:29:07,190 --> 00:29:09,190
problem. We sort of see how to implement

831
00:29:09,190 --> 00:29:10,250
it on these machines,

832
00:29:10,549 --> 00:29:12,470
and then, well, there's a machine available. And

833
00:29:12,470 --> 00:29:14,470
then you work together, and it takes some

834
00:29:14,470 --> 00:29:15,670
time. You know, it took two and a

835
00:29:15,670 --> 00:29:17,589
half years, but in the end, it's a

836
00:29:17,589 --> 00:29:20,695
positive outcome. You know? Very exciting. Yeah. Mhmm.

837
00:29:21,555 --> 00:29:22,914
There were one or two rumbles at the

838
00:29:22,914 --> 00:29:25,075
conference about the fact that there are two

839
00:29:25,075 --> 00:29:27,154
sponsors from the US military. Does that bother

840
00:29:27,154 --> 00:29:28,275
you at all? Do you have any view

841
00:29:28,275 --> 00:29:28,855
on that?

842
00:29:30,115 --> 00:29:31,875
Well, I would say that, you know, being

843
00:29:31,875 --> 00:29:33,715
physics sort of got used that in The

844
00:29:33,715 --> 00:29:35,559
US, this is very different in Europe.

845
00:29:36,259 --> 00:29:38,359
I know the military are sort of funding

846
00:29:38,420 --> 00:29:40,740
basic science. I think there is maybe a

847
00:29:40,740 --> 00:29:41,140
more

848
00:29:41,539 --> 00:29:43,859
a tradition that is, you know, based on

849
00:29:43,859 --> 00:29:46,660
how science was done emerging then after the

850
00:29:46,660 --> 00:29:47,720
second World War.

851
00:29:48,234 --> 00:29:49,835
So I would say that this is something

852
00:29:49,914 --> 00:29:52,414
it's just maybe more cultural in The US.

853
00:29:52,474 --> 00:29:54,414
I would not take it too seriously,

854
00:29:55,115 --> 00:29:56,714
but I would say that the situation that

855
00:29:56,714 --> 00:29:57,994
we have in Europe, where we have a

856
00:29:57,994 --> 00:30:00,234
very clear distinction, you know, basic science is

857
00:30:00,234 --> 00:30:02,394
funded by the government, by some National Science

858
00:30:02,394 --> 00:30:02,894
Foundation,

859
00:30:03,539 --> 00:30:05,539
and and not by the military, you know,

860
00:30:05,539 --> 00:30:06,740
that this is distinct.

861
00:30:07,059 --> 00:30:07,380
But,

862
00:30:07,860 --> 00:30:09,940
I'm I don't want to criticize my American

863
00:30:09,940 --> 00:30:11,160
friends for that. You know?

864
00:30:11,460 --> 00:30:13,460
But I'm happy that we had a different

865
00:30:13,460 --> 00:30:15,380
situation here. So if we came back to

866
00:30:15,380 --> 00:30:17,779
Holderland in, 2125,

867
00:30:17,779 --> 00:30:19,454
how would you sort of see the quantum

868
00:30:19,454 --> 00:30:20,734
world? What would be on the two hundredth

869
00:30:20,734 --> 00:30:23,295
anniversary of quantum mechanics conference? Have you organizing

870
00:30:23,295 --> 00:30:23,795
it?

871
00:30:24,335 --> 00:30:24,835
Oh,

872
00:30:25,775 --> 00:30:27,454
well, I think the exciting thing is that

873
00:30:27,454 --> 00:30:29,214
we don't know, and we, you know, it

874
00:30:29,214 --> 00:30:31,054
will be much more exciting than we think

875
00:30:31,054 --> 00:30:32,275
right now. And,

876
00:30:33,539 --> 00:30:35,779
I don't know. Maybe this fundamental problem of,

877
00:30:35,779 --> 00:30:38,099
you know, interface of quantum and gravity will

878
00:30:38,099 --> 00:30:38,899
be solved. You know?

879
00:30:39,940 --> 00:30:41,539
I have a little bit doubt about, you

880
00:30:41,539 --> 00:30:42,440
know, understanding

881
00:30:42,740 --> 00:30:44,819
more. There was a lot of discussion here

882
00:30:44,819 --> 00:30:47,140
about foundations that I find interesting, but I

883
00:30:47,140 --> 00:30:49,674
don't work on this myself. Like, the measurement

884
00:30:49,674 --> 00:30:51,355
problem and so on, it seems to be

885
00:30:51,355 --> 00:30:53,835
very hard to make progress. And I believe

886
00:30:53,835 --> 00:30:55,595
progress in physics is made at the end

887
00:30:55,595 --> 00:30:56,654
by doing experiments,

888
00:30:56,955 --> 00:30:58,955
you know, building apparatus that allow to do

889
00:30:58,955 --> 00:31:00,095
new kind of experiments.

890
00:31:00,555 --> 00:31:02,170
And these are then the ones that at

891
00:31:02,170 --> 00:31:04,009
the end, you know, surprise us by new

892
00:31:04,009 --> 00:31:05,390
results. And once we have

893
00:31:05,690 --> 00:31:08,009
experimental evidence in whatever sense, you know, this

894
00:31:08,009 --> 00:31:09,390
is guiding our

895
00:31:09,930 --> 00:31:12,650
our understanding and our our development of theory

896
00:31:12,650 --> 00:31:14,730
and, you know, it's sort of the next

897
00:31:14,730 --> 00:31:17,045
step. Yeah. I always find it remarkable to

898
00:31:17,045 --> 00:31:19,365
think that Heisenberg was 23 when he did

899
00:31:19,365 --> 00:31:20,884
all that amazing work. You know, is there

900
00:31:20,884 --> 00:31:22,884
is there still an open field for young

901
00:31:22,884 --> 00:31:24,984
people to do those kind of big breakthroughs

902
00:31:25,045 --> 00:31:25,865
that he had?

903
00:31:26,164 --> 00:31:28,259
Well, I would say that, you know,

904
00:31:28,740 --> 00:31:30,660
at the time of Heisenberg, Heisenberg was, of

905
00:31:30,660 --> 00:31:32,180
course, I mean, one hand very clever, and

906
00:31:32,180 --> 00:31:33,559
the other hand, he was very lucky

907
00:31:33,940 --> 00:31:35,559
because, you know, in the physics,

908
00:31:35,940 --> 00:31:38,099
there's often periods, and I would say that

909
00:31:38,099 --> 00:31:39,940
the creation of quantum mechanics was one of

910
00:31:39,940 --> 00:31:42,275
them, where there was sort of a problem

911
00:31:42,275 --> 00:31:44,515
was was was ripe to be solved, you

912
00:31:44,515 --> 00:31:46,914
know, ready to be solved. And the most

913
00:31:46,914 --> 00:31:48,994
clever people, you know, that just were there

914
00:31:48,994 --> 00:31:50,674
at that time, you know, they were they

915
00:31:50,674 --> 00:31:52,994
made the seminal contribution within a few years.

916
00:31:52,994 --> 00:31:56,480
Think about Schrodinger who you know? And, again,

917
00:31:56,480 --> 00:31:58,480
it was '25, I think, in December, and

918
00:31:58,480 --> 00:32:00,880
I also wrote down the Schrodinger equation, solved

919
00:32:00,880 --> 00:32:03,220
the hydrogen problem, and all then found afterwards,

920
00:32:03,279 --> 00:32:06,000
well, that his wave mechanics was equivalent to

921
00:32:06,000 --> 00:32:07,839
matrix mechanics. So there was a lot of

922
00:32:07,839 --> 00:32:10,535
clever people around, but there was also problems

923
00:32:10,535 --> 00:32:12,694
that are ready to be solved. And, this

924
00:32:12,694 --> 00:32:14,775
does not always happen. Not to say that

925
00:32:14,775 --> 00:32:17,575
I myself considered to be very lucky because,

926
00:32:17,575 --> 00:32:19,494
you know, I was working on quantum optics

927
00:32:19,494 --> 00:32:21,894
at dummy physics at the time where, well,

928
00:32:21,894 --> 00:32:23,115
it was kind of interesting.

929
00:32:23,450 --> 00:32:25,369
But then quantum computing came along, and, you

930
00:32:25,369 --> 00:32:27,849
know, we were just had our tools ready,

931
00:32:27,849 --> 00:32:29,150
our ideas ready.

932
00:32:29,769 --> 00:32:31,609
You know, and, like, if you'd look at

933
00:32:31,609 --> 00:32:33,609
trapped ion quantum computing, you know, we were

934
00:32:33,609 --> 00:32:35,369
working on that before. We just didn't know

935
00:32:35,369 --> 00:32:37,690
that you would also access your computer. It'd

936
00:32:37,690 --> 00:32:39,835
be very interesting. You know? So very often

937
00:32:39,835 --> 00:32:41,194
you work on something and you're sort of

938
00:32:41,194 --> 00:32:42,894
surprised. Well, this is actually

939
00:32:43,194 --> 00:32:45,355
looking from a different angle, much more interesting

940
00:32:45,355 --> 00:32:47,115
than I ever thought. So this element of

941
00:32:47,115 --> 00:32:49,835
being lucky and surprising and but also having

942
00:32:49,835 --> 00:32:51,835
the right discussion partners and going to the

943
00:32:51,835 --> 00:32:53,595
right conferences like, yeah, I know it can

944
00:32:53,595 --> 00:32:54,255
be the

945
00:32:54,779 --> 00:32:56,240
the insider for that.

946
00:32:56,619 --> 00:32:58,299
I was just sort of a a final

947
00:32:58,299 --> 00:32:59,900
question. If you could imagine going back in

948
00:32:59,900 --> 00:33:01,660
time, if would there be any figures from

949
00:33:01,660 --> 00:33:03,420
the early years of quantum physics that you'd

950
00:33:03,420 --> 00:33:05,340
like to meet? And what would you ask

951
00:33:05,340 --> 00:33:06,779
them if you had the choice to meet

952
00:33:06,779 --> 00:33:07,759
one of those people?

953
00:33:08,585 --> 00:33:10,904
Well, it's interesting for us when we start

954
00:33:10,904 --> 00:33:12,585
reading some of these old papers, you know,

955
00:33:12,585 --> 00:33:14,424
most of them still written in German and

956
00:33:14,424 --> 00:33:16,125
always has changed some time later,

957
00:33:17,065 --> 00:33:19,545
that, it would be very interesting to discuss

958
00:33:19,545 --> 00:33:21,305
them. And, like, for example, being here and

959
00:33:21,305 --> 00:33:22,125
asking Heisenberg

960
00:33:22,440 --> 00:33:22,940
and

961
00:33:23,319 --> 00:33:25,000
how he really saw these things. I know

962
00:33:25,000 --> 00:33:27,179
very often in in in in retrospect,

963
00:33:27,799 --> 00:33:28,859
these stories, this history,

964
00:33:29,799 --> 00:33:30,700
I mean, is somehow,

965
00:33:31,720 --> 00:33:33,399
written then in a certain way, which is

966
00:33:33,399 --> 00:33:35,240
maybe not 100% how it happened. I think

967
00:33:35,240 --> 00:33:37,240
there were much more fluctuations and sort of

968
00:33:37,240 --> 00:33:40,095
uncertainties. And Heisenberg, on one hand, was a

969
00:33:40,095 --> 00:33:41,775
genius. On the other hand, if you read

970
00:33:41,775 --> 00:33:42,674
his first paper,

971
00:33:43,055 --> 00:33:44,335
I was saying, how the hell did he

972
00:33:44,335 --> 00:33:46,095
ever write these things down? And how could

973
00:33:46,095 --> 00:33:47,775
out of this thing then emerge something that

974
00:33:47,775 --> 00:33:49,775
was so fundamental and they'd be working on

975
00:33:49,775 --> 00:33:50,275
today

976
00:33:50,575 --> 00:33:53,134
and which is experimentally confirmed on all these

977
00:33:53,134 --> 00:33:55,670
levels. So, yeah, I'd very much like to

978
00:33:55,670 --> 00:33:57,830
talk to these people. Yeah. So may maybe

979
00:33:57,830 --> 00:33:59,849
Heisenberg. Well, because I would be really fascinated.

980
00:33:59,910 --> 00:34:01,589
You know, he came here with just a

981
00:34:01,589 --> 00:34:03,990
pen and paper, no Yeah. No Internet and

982
00:34:03,990 --> 00:34:06,630
no phone, no television, no computing, and he

983
00:34:06,630 --> 00:34:08,574
did all that work with just nothing, just

984
00:34:08,574 --> 00:34:09,934
coming on his own. It's just, you know,

985
00:34:09,934 --> 00:34:12,574
horrible to think. Yeah. That's right. Yeah. I

986
00:34:12,574 --> 00:34:14,175
mean, I have to say that for me,

987
00:34:14,175 --> 00:34:16,355
Schrodinger writing down the Schrodinger equation

988
00:34:16,734 --> 00:34:18,175
is sort of something where you say, well,

989
00:34:18,175 --> 00:34:20,835
it's pretty obvious. As a physicist, you know,

990
00:34:20,930 --> 00:34:23,090
There was, de Broglie and over the,

991
00:34:23,570 --> 00:34:24,390
that there would

992
00:34:24,849 --> 00:34:27,170
be waves, you know, matter waves, and there's

993
00:34:27,170 --> 00:34:28,230
a dispersion relation.

994
00:34:28,530 --> 00:34:29,890
He asked them, you know, what is the

995
00:34:29,890 --> 00:34:32,130
corresponding wave equation, then writing it down, and

996
00:34:32,130 --> 00:34:34,289
then him solving it for the hydrogen atom.

997
00:34:34,289 --> 00:34:36,855
And it was a problem incoming from acoustics,

998
00:34:36,914 --> 00:34:39,255
for example. He knew how to solve eigenvalue

999
00:34:39,394 --> 00:34:41,315
problems, and so the hydrogen was just one

1000
00:34:41,315 --> 00:34:43,795
of a different type, very complicated, but he

1001
00:34:43,795 --> 00:34:45,954
could do it analytically, you know, while being

1002
00:34:45,954 --> 00:34:47,894
on on winter vacation in Ouse.

1003
00:34:48,710 --> 00:34:49,750
So this is,

1004
00:34:50,230 --> 00:34:51,989
this is for me much more logical. But

1005
00:34:51,989 --> 00:34:52,489
Heisenberg's,

1006
00:34:52,949 --> 00:34:55,029
no entry to quantum mechanics with this matrix

1007
00:34:55,029 --> 00:34:57,609
mechanics, I find it very mysterious. You know?

1008
00:34:58,389 --> 00:35:00,309
Well, we'll leave it there. Fantastic mystery to

1009
00:35:00,309 --> 00:35:01,529
end on. Thank you, Peter.

1010
00:35:09,025 --> 00:35:12,085
That was Physics World's Mateen Durrani in conversation

1011
00:35:12,224 --> 00:35:15,265
with Peter Zoller. And before that, you heard

1012
00:35:15,265 --> 00:35:16,244
Michelle Simmons

1013
00:35:16,619 --> 00:35:18,000
and Tracy Northup.

1014
00:35:18,619 --> 00:35:19,279
The Helgoland

1015
00:35:19,579 --> 00:35:22,079
conference is one of many events worldwide

1016
00:35:22,539 --> 00:35:23,519
that are celebrating

1017
00:35:23,900 --> 00:35:25,119
2025

1018
00:35:25,339 --> 00:35:26,319
as the international

1019
00:35:26,619 --> 00:35:27,920
year of quantum

1020
00:35:28,219 --> 00:35:29,199
science and technology

1021
00:35:30,155 --> 00:35:32,574
as decreed by the United Nations

1022
00:35:32,954 --> 00:35:33,454
Educational,

1023
00:35:34,234 --> 00:35:34,734
Scientific,

1024
00:35:35,195 --> 00:35:36,734
and Cultural Organization,

1025
00:35:37,755 --> 00:35:39,295
better known as UNESCO.

1026
00:35:40,155 --> 00:35:43,675
We've been celebrating here at Physics World throughout

1027
00:35:43,675 --> 00:35:45,860
the year, and you can find all of

1028
00:35:45,860 --> 00:35:46,680
our special

1029
00:35:47,059 --> 00:35:48,119
quantum coverage

1030
00:35:48,420 --> 00:35:49,719
by going to our website

1031
00:35:50,099 --> 00:35:51,719
and clicking on quantum

1032
00:35:52,019 --> 00:35:53,640
under the topics tab.

1033
00:35:54,099 --> 00:35:55,940
I'm afraid that's all the time we have

1034
00:35:55,940 --> 00:35:58,974
for this week's podcast. Thanks to Michelle Simmons,

1035
00:35:59,195 --> 00:36:02,815
Peter Zoller, and Tracy Northup for their reflections

1036
00:36:03,114 --> 00:36:06,735
on the past, present, and future of quantum

1037
00:36:06,795 --> 00:36:07,295
physics,

1038
00:36:07,675 --> 00:36:10,494
and to Matin Jurani for making the epic

1039
00:36:10,555 --> 00:36:13,829
journey to Helga Land on behalf of Physics

1040
00:36:13,829 --> 00:36:14,329
World.

1041
00:36:14,710 --> 00:36:17,029
And as always, a special thanks to our

1042
00:36:17,029 --> 00:36:17,529
producer,

1043
00:36:17,989 --> 00:36:18,969
Fred Isles.

1044
00:36:19,349 --> 00:36:21,829
We'll be back again next week. See you

1045
00:36:21,829 --> 00:36:22,329
then.