Quantum Information Science

Quantum information science is one of the most rapidly growing disciplines in science, attracting interest from physicists of all stripes, mathematicians, computer scientists, engineers, and more. The excitement is about putting the "weirdness" of quantum mechanics to work. Examples of the "weirdness" of quantum mechanics are, for example the ability for an object to exist in a superposition of quantum states, or the ability for two quantum objects to have their states "entangled." The "work" that people have proposed doing with this weirdness includes sending secret messages in a provably secure fashion, finding prime factors of numbers which are so big that they can't be factored by ordinary computers, and synchronizing clocks on orbiting satellites. The world is a very long way from actually implementing any of these applications. The current technological situation with respect to quantum computing is nowhere near where the classical computer was even in 1830, when Charles Babbage was working on his difference engine. We don't yet know what the fundamental building blocks for quantum computers will look like.

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