The Black Sheep Pub
247 S. 17th Street
Philadelphia, PA 19103
6:00pm
Lee BassettAssistant Professor, Electrical & Systems Engineering, University of Pennsylvania
“The Rise of Quantum Machines”
The semiconductor device components in our pockets are rapidly approaching the atomic scale, reflecting our astounding ability to construct almost anything we wish from the materials of our choice. For years, physicists and engineers have dreamed of leveraging that ability to build machines that exploit the strange laws of quantum mechanics, where information exists in an indeterminate state prior to measurement and has a capacity that scales exponentially with the number of quantum components. Now that future has arrived – rudimentary quantum computers exist in research labs around the world, and companies large and small are racing to develop the technology. Despite some hype, there is plenty of reason for excitement. Lee Bassett, director of Penn’s Quantum Engineering Laboratory, will discuss the basic physics underlying these new machines and their promise.