It has been our pleasure guiding you through what we think will be the most exciting technological shift of the next several decades.
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No doubt you have learned quite a bit quantum computing – why researchers and businesspeople are excited about the potential uses of quantum computers; something about the underlying science of quantum effects and how we can compute using superposition, entanglement and interference; and the hard physics and engineering necessary to realize them.
It was not so long ago that the technologies necessary for quantum computing were beyond human capability. Work at the United States’ National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), led by David Wineland, and in France, led by Serge Haroche, resulted in the 2012 Nobel Prize in Physics. Simplified, we might say that Wineland won for controlling atoms using light, while Haroche won for controlling light using atoms.
Researchers in the field have won many other prizes, as well, and likely there will be more to come. But for us as engineers and scientists, and for many others in research and engineering, with support from governments and venture capitalists, the time has come to build systems that can be used to solve some of the critical problems facing society.
We hope that this is the beginning of your interest in, and study of, quantum computing, rather than its end. It is increasingly clear not just to us, as researchers, but to many people, that quantum technology will be one of the fundamental paradigm shifts of the twenty-first century. Come join us!
If you have enjoyed this course, you may want to check out our recommendations for Further Study in the previous Step as well as the further study opportunity in Japan introduced in the next Step.
長い間、量子コンピューティングに必要な技術は人間の能力を超越していました。 David Winelandが率いる米国国立標準技術研究所(NIST)、フランスのSerge Harocheの研究は、2012年のノーベル物理学賞を受賞しました。 簡単に言うと、Winelandは光を使って原子を制御する方法で受賞し、Harocheは原子を使って光を制御する方法で受賞しました。