To build a better quantum computer, look into a black hole, says professor Brian Cox
It's hard for professor Brian Cox to hide his enthusiasm for black holes, and he didn't really try as he explained tohow progress in understanding the celestial phenomena contributes to the development of quantum computing.
"The study of black holes in the last few years has really transformed our view of what space and time are," Cox told."We've seen intimate links between understanding black holes – the way they behave and how information can escape from them – and quantum computing." Cox said humans' understanding of black holes has completely transformed over the past decade, and brought with it a previously inconceivable window into a quantum theory of gravity and therefore also into how to build and operate quantum computers.
"It's remarkable that the problems and the challenges that we see and understand in the black hole information paradox, and things like quantum error correction codes – which is the way that we protect the memory of quantum computers against errors – that the crossover is intimate. It's almost a complete crossover," explained the physicist and former musician.
"You imagine that you want to see the quantum structure of space and time. What you would really like to do is cut out a piece of space, so you could see how it's connected to other pieces of space, right? Now, you can't do that, except that a black hole does it. So that's what a black hole is. So studying these things will give you an insight into the underlying structure of space.