An Introduction To Quantum Computing

Dr. John Wright
EECS, UC Berkeley, CA

Salazar Hall 2009A
4:00 PM - 5:00 PM

Abstract: The field of quantum computing studies futuristic computers which harness the weird properties of quantum mechanics to speed up computations. In theory, quantum computers give us the ability to break classical cryptosystems, simulate chemistry, and more, but in practice it remains a massive engineering challenge to actually construct them. In this talk, I will give a high-level introduction to quantum computers, exploring their history, what types of problems they can solve, and what the current experimental state-of-the-art is. No prior knowledge of quantum mechanics will be assumed.

Bio: John Wright is an assistant professor in the EECS department at UC Berkeley, where he studies quantum computing from a theoretical perspective. Before that, he was a Ph.D. student at Carnegie Mellon University, a postdoc at MIT and then Caltech, and an assistant professor at UT Austin.