Quantum lemonade

Seth Lloyd's popular book* on quantum computation, life and the universe impressed me when I first read it a few years ago. I had the sense that Lloyd was saying something very important for our understanding of reality, of what ultimately underlies the whole shebang.

I still think the basic thesis of the book - that the cosmos is a quantum computer - is fascinating and maybe even true. Certainly, the parallels between thermodynamics and information theory suggest that information (bits, or qubits, and their operations) is absolutely fundamental to an understanding of the world and - speaking very loosely - the basic stuff out of which we and the cosmos are made.

But this recent article by Seth Lloyd disappointed me in a couple of ways.

Lloyd's book is beautifully written, a model of popular science writing. The science is clearly and simply presented, and there is some good - if at times only tangentially relevant - autobiographical background material. (The story of the death of Heinz Pagels is unforgettable. 'Heartbreaking', one reviewer called it.)

By contrast the article is in large part a rehash of things Lloyd has said many times before (for example, about the recalcitrance of atoms and sub-atomic particles, their reluctance to do what we want them to do and the need for infinite guile and patience on the part of quantum engineers). And unfortunately the metaphors are strained and distracting, in my opinion, and just a touch condescending. I think Lloyd is trying too hard not to sound like a boffin.

But the most significant thing about this recent piece is that in it Lloyd doesn't attempt (as he might well have done) to talk up the prospects for serious quantum computers. On the contrary, the whole program to develop and build useful quantum computers, about which he was so sanguine in his book, is presented as being somewhat problematic.

He writes: "The quantum sensitivity [Nobel Prize-winner Serge] Haroche identified certainly makes quantum computers hard to build, but it's also that very sensitivity that makes funky quantum phenomena such as Schrödinger's cat states the basis for hypersensitive detectors and measurement devices... What's bad for quantum computation is good for precision measurement - if life deals you quantum lemons, make quantum lemonade."

In other words, if we can't have miraculously powerful computers of an entirely new kind, we can at least have very accurate clocks. Mmm.

Guess I was a bit naïve to believe the hype.

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Come to think of it, years ago I was quite excited about artificial intelligence. And they can't even do a convincing natural language interface yet.

Frankly, though, I don't much care about whether these technologies eventuate or not. What interests me more is the light that research into computing - digital and quantum - has thrown on some perennial questions.

The old answers to fundamental questions are just no good any more. And if some of the old answers do get a new lease on life, it will only be, I suspect, because they happened to prefigure an explanation informed by information theory, quantum mechanics and/or other recent theoretical work in physics or related sciences.

There is hype about technology and hype about basic science. But the fact is, though progress seems slow in both spheres, progress is indeed occurring.

Which is more than can be said of perhaps any other area of human life or endeavour.



* Programming the Universe: A Quantum Computer Scientist Takes on the Cosmos (Knopf, 2006).