cfaed Seminar Serie: Quantum Computing and the Limits of the Efficiently Computable

Abstract:
Prof. Scott Aaronson will offer a crash course on quantum computing, which seeks to exploit the strange rules of quantum physics to solve certain problems dramatically faster than we know how to solve them with any existing computer. He promises no hype: just a sober summary of how a quantum computer would actually work (hint: it's not just by "trying every possible answer in parallel"), for which problems quantum computers are and are not expected to provide an advantage, and the current status of the effort to make quantum computing practical. He will also say something about the ultimate physical limits of computation, and about speculative proposals for going beyond even quantum computers.