Physicist explains quantum computers | Guillaume Verdon and Lex Fridman

Full podcast episode: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8fEEbKJoNbU Lex Fridman podcast channel: youtube.com/lexfridman Guest bio: Guillaume Verdon (aka Beff Jezos on Twitter) is a physicist, quantum computing researcher, and founder of e/acc (effective accelerationism) movement.

After struggling with this for hours, it finally hit me... I have absolutely no clue WTF he's talking about.

If this clip was in Japanese I would’ve understood the same amount

Apparently the best way to explain quantum computing can be best measured by how many times you use the word quantum in the explaination

Oh OK, I thought this was going to be complicated.

I’m just going to start inserting “quantum” into everything I talk about now.

This video very eloquently demonstrated how dumb I am. Thank god for alcohol.

Finally! Lex hasn’t posted a video since last year

As soon as he started talking about cubits per Planck volume, I was like ok damn, this is on another level. They talk for 17 min after that😂 dude is a boss

Quantum computers face the challenge of noise, which refers to unwanted and random fluctuations in the quantum state of qubits (quantum bits). Noise can arise from various sources, such as environmental factors, imperfections in hardware components, and interactions with neighboring qubits. There are several reasons why noise is a significant obstacle for quantum computers.

Take a drink every time you hear quantum. 🍻

Tonight I exist in a simultaneous state of watching this podcast and raising my glass to Richard Feynman, and you, and everyone.

People mocking the speaker for having a hard time simplifying the concepts can't even begin to understand how hard it is to do such a thing at a level this high while maintaining a certain level of rigor in your explanation. I taught classical mechanics at uni level to maths/comp sci students, and trust me, conveying physics to people who arent familiar with the field is quite hard if you're not used to it, there is a fine line between explaining things as they truly are and simplifying so much that your explanation becomes wrong. If its not easy for a topic like classical mechanics then i cant imagine how hard it must be for Guillaume Verdon to do that with a topic as complex as quantum computing.

:54 … we put many cubits per Planck volume …? “Some qubits are tiny (like the electron) whereas superconducting qubits can be upto centimeter sizes” Planck volume 10^-105 cubed meter. Electron radius is 2x10^-13 meters!

I just realized im high like a mudafucka

"The best way to predict the future is to invent it" i will ad this to my vocabulary

0:05 "entinglement"

I’m still amazed at how Lex always stays in the conversation given the varying complexities to what he discusses on the podcast.

When trying to explain anything about quantum mechanics it’s difficult not to alienate most people in the first sentence, but I would say that this talk at least tried to keep non specialists onside. I have experience with maths and AI computing and only a casual familiarity with quantum computing, but this talk raised a few questions I’d like an opinion about. 1. The only computation which a quantum computer is so far known to be capable of which no fully deterministic digital computer is theoretically capable of in finite time is the generation of a genuinely random number, as opposed to a pseudo random number. Are there any other known tasks which a quantum computer is capable of theoretically which a digital computer is not? 2. If the answer to question 1 above is no, then is there any useful computation a quantum computer can theoretically compute, or otherwise generate a result for, which a digital computer cannot also compute given time? 3. An analogue computer operating under deterministic physical laws has the same range of comparable tasks as a digital computer, which Turing showed can compute any task which is theoretically computable. Therefore is there a theoretical need to digitise the operation of a quantum computer? 4. If the answer to question 3 is no, would it potentially be easier to construct a powerful quantum computer which was fully analogue rather than forcing it to perform discrete operations? 5. Wouldn’t it be fare to say that the physicist in this interview was failing to distinguish clearly the crucial difference between objective physical reality and its representation in our awareness of it?

happy new year!!