Vlatko Vedral: Oxford Theoretical Physicist on Quantum Superposition of Living Creatures — #7

Vlatko Vedral is Professor in the Department of Physics at the University of Oxford and Centre for Quantum Technologies (CQT) at the National University of Singapore. He is known for his research on the theory of Entanglement and Quantum Information Theory.

Steve and Vlatko discuss: 

1. History of quantum information theory, entanglement, and quantum computing
2. Recent lab experiments that create superposition states of macroscopic objects, including a living creature (tardigrade)
3. Whether quantum mechanics implies the existence of many worlds: are you in a superposition state right now?
4. Present status and future of quantum computing

Resources

Web page:

https://www.vlatkovedral.com/

Entanglement Between Superconducting Qubits and a Tardigrade

https://arxiv.org/pdf/2112.07978.pdf

Macroscopic Superposition States: entanglement of a macroscopic living organism (tardigrade) with a superconducting qubit

https://infoproc.blogspot.com/2021/12/macroscopic-superposition-states.html

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Music used with permission from Blade Runner Blues Livestream improvisation by State Azure.

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Steve Hsu is Professor of Theoretical Physics and of Computational Mathematics, Science, and Engineering at Michigan State University. Previously, he was Senior Vice President for Research and Innovation at MSU and Director of the Institute of Theoretical Science at the University of Oregon. Hsu is a startup founder (SafeWeb, Genomic Prediction, Othram) and advisor to venture capital and other investment firms. He was educated at Caltech and Berkeley, was a Harvard Junior Fellow, and has held faculty positions at Yale, the University of Oregon, and MSU.

Please send any questions or suggestions to manifold1podcast@gmail.com or to Steve on Twitter @hsu_steve.