What & Why Quantum Computing?

In this episode, Frank and Andy welcome our first guest to the show.Dr Mark Jackson is a Quantum Evangelist at Cambridge Quantum Computing, which may just be the best job title I have ever heard.This episode is entitled "What and Why Quantum Computing?" and is rated one and a half Schroedingers. It could be 2 Schroedingers or just one. You will have to observe the entire episode to collapse the wave function.LinksCambridge Quantum Computinghttps://cambridgequantum.com/Transcript 00:00:00 BAILey Hello and welcome to impact quantum. 00:00:02 BAILey A podcast about quantum computing for developers and engineers. 00:00:06 BAILey In this episode, Frank and Andy welcome our first guest to the show. 00:00:11 BAILey Doctor Mark Jackson is a quantum evangelist at Cambridge Quantum Computing, which may just be the best job title I have ever heard. 00:00:19 BAILey This episode is entitled what and why Quantum Computing and is rated 1 1/2 Schrodinger's. 00:00:26 BAILey It could be. 00:00:27 BAILey Two Schrodinger's or just one. 00:00:29 BAILey You will have to observe the entire episode to collapse the wavefunction. 00:00:33 BAILey Now on. 00:00:34 BAILey With the show. 00:00:36 BAILey But first, here's some dubstep. 00:00:47 Frank Hello and welcome to impact quantum. 00:00:51 Frank The podcast where we. 00:00:52 Frank Explore this new. 00:00:53 Frank Field of quantum computing from an engineer's perspective. Maybe you're a software engineer. Maybe you're a data engineer. 00:00:59 Frank But you keep hearing about this thing called quantum computing, which is going to change everything. 00:01:04 Frank And I happen to believe that it will change everything, and to that end I. 00:01:07 Frank Hey I have my trusty co-host from data driven. 00:01:11 Frank With me Andy Leonard. 00:01:12 Andy Hey Frank, thanks for for bringing me along as folks will quickly learn, you know way more about quantum computing. 00:01:20 Andy Than I do. 00:01:21 Andy So I guess I'm just here for my pretty faves. 00:01:24 Frank Of course, of course we are. 00:01:25 Frank Actually recording this in video on teams, but come with me with us for the first time in impact quantum history. 00:01:33 Frank We have a guest and it's Doctor Mark Jackson. 00:01:36 Frank Uh, who has probably the coolest job title I have heard in about a decade or two? 00:01:43 Frank Welcome to the show. 00:01:43 Frank Mark, you're our first guest ever. 00:01:45 Dr. Mark Jackson Thank you Frank. 00:01:46 Dr. Mark Jackson Thank you Andy. 00:01:47 Dr. Mark Jackson It's great to be here. 00:01:49 Frank Uh, so as Andy said, you know, I do. 00:01:52 Frank When I you know I would use the term knows more as a very relative term part of the if you're listening to the show and you've listened to the archives. 00:02:01 Frank Part of the reason why we haven't had a lot of shows is because I really kind of hit my cerebral limit at the time to talk about so. 00:02:09 Frank Given that quantum is still a relatively new field and there's a shortage of experts in the field, but I think you know we were. 00:02:17 Frank I was blessed to get in contact with Mark where we can talk about kind of this with an expert because he's a quantum evangelist. 00:02:27 Dr. Mark Jackson Yes, it's a. 00:02:28 Dr. Mark Jackson It's a pleasure to be here and I am Cambridge, quantum quantum evangelist. 00:02:33 Dr. Mark Jackson I'm glad you like my title. 00:02:34 Dr. Mark Jackson It's it's pretty unique. 00:02:36 Frank That is very cool. 00:02:37 Frank Uhm so So what? 00:02:39 Frank You know, what does a First off? 00:02:41 Frank How did you get into quantum? 00:02:43 Frank What's your background? 00:02:44 Frank Is your background in quantum physics? 00:02:46 Frank Or computing or. 00:02:46 Dr. Mark Jackson My background is in yes, so my background is actually in superstring theory, if you're. 00:02:51 Dr. Mark Jackson Familiar with that? 00:02:53 Dr. Mark Jackson Yeah, for 15 years I did that. 00:02:54 Dr. Mark Jackson I earned my pH. 00:02:56 Dr. Mark Jackson In string theory from Columbia University under the supervision of Brian Greene, who you might recognize. 00:03:02 Dr. Mark Jackson And then I did it. 00:03:02 Frank In fact, he's the one. 00:03:03 Frank Who's documentaries on string theory I I do enjoy? 00:03:07 Dr. Mark Jackson Yes, I I'm actually in that, uh, I have a very brief cameo. 00:03:10 Dr. Mark Jackson I was a student and and half my face is in it for. 00:03:13 Dr. Mark Jackson Half a second. 00:03:14 Dr. Mark Jackson Oh, very cool, very cool. 00:03:16 Frank That's awesome, you're real selected. 00:03:18 Dr. Mark Jackson So, uh, so, so yes, that was my moment of fame. 00:03:21 Dr. Mark Jackson Uh, back when I was a grad student and so then I I did research in that area for about 10 years and I briefly did a tech startup doing scientific fund raising before I returned to teaching at Singularity. 00:03:32 Dr. Mark Jackson University and that was where I first started hearing about quantum computing. This would be around 2016. 00:03:40 Dr. Mark Jackson Uh so so. Quantum computing only existed academically when I was a student, and so I rarely heard anything at all about it and it was in 2016 people started talking about quantum computing, being commercially feasible, and I thought this was amazing because it was all the things that I I loved about physics. 00:03:59 Dr. Mark Jackson Superposition and entanglement and all these crazy physics concepts. 00:04:03 Dr. Mark Jackson Uhm they they started saying they could actually build machines and do this for you. 00:04:08 Dr. Mark Jackson Whole things, and I thought that was amazing. 00:04:10 Dr. Mark Jackson And so I started trying to get into the field. 00:04:13 Dr. Mark Jackson I was giving presentations about quantum computing to executives, but I felt sort of like a cheerleader on the sides. 00:04:20 Dr. Mark Jackson I actually wanted to be doing it, not just talking about it, and so I tried to get into. 00:04:24 Dr. Mark Jackson The field. 00:04:25 Dr. Mark Jackson And it was a bit frustrating because I didn't. 00:04:28 Dr. Mark Jackson Have a background in quantum computing and I didn't know too many people in it, but I was very lucky that a friend of mine, a math professor at Berkeley where I was living. 00:04:37 Dr. Mark Jackson He made an introduction to our CEO. 00:04:40 Dr. Mark Jackson Ilyas Khan and it was very well timed because Cambridge Quantum was about three years old and everyone at the time was in the UK. 00:04:51 Dr. Mark Jackson As the name might suggest, were basically virgins like. 00:04:53 Frank Yeah, wasn't shared with Cambridge, England or Cambridge. 00:04:55 Frank Massachusetts 'cause it could go either way. 00:04:58 Dr. Mark Jackson Yeah, it's it's actually the old school, Cambridge, our company Origin story is is quite amazing. Ileus was chairman of the Stephen Hawking Foundation and in in 2014 Hawking told him I think quantum computing is going to take off. You should get into this business and so that's how we started because of Stephen Hawking. 00:05:18 Frank That's amazing. 00:05:19 Dr. Mark Jackson And so yeah, we we have one of the coolest origin. 00:05:22 Dr. Mark Jackson Stories ever and so in fall of 2017 I I joined as one of the first American members of the team. 00:05:31 Dr. Mark...