The Quantum Carousel: Time Machines, Mad Men, and the Future of Computing

In the first season finale of Mad Men, Don Draper steps into the Kodak boardroom and delivers what might be the most iconic pitch in television history. Kodak has come seeking a name for its new slide projector, a clunky but revolutionary device that can cycle through images with a simple click. The engineers call it “The Wheel,” but Don Draper, ever the storyteller, sees something more.

“Nostalgia—it’s delicate but potent,” he says, flipping through slides of his family. “It’s a time machine.”

He renames it “The Carousel,” turning a cold piece of machinery into something deeply human, something that doesn’t just show pictures but transports people through time, back to the moments that define them. Kodak, for all its technical expertise, couldn’t articulate what it had created. It took a master communicator to do that.

Quantum computing is having its Kodak moment.

The Time Machine Paradox

If you were to explain quantum computing to the average person, you’d likely be met with blank stares. The words “superposition” and “entanglement” sound more like metaphysical musings than technological breakthroughs. The companies building quantum machines— 谷歌 , IBM , 微软 , and others like Atom Computing , Quantinuum , and IonQ —are racing toward something profound, but they haven’t yet told the story in a way that resonates beyond laboratories and investor calls.

And yet, quantum computing is, in many ways, the closest thing we have to a real-time machine. Not one that lets us visit the past, but one that accelerates our journey into the future. Problems that would take classical computers thousands—sometimes millions—of years to solve could be resolved in seconds. It’s not science fiction; it’s a radical shift in how we process information.

Imagine waiting for nature to reveal a new material, one that revolutionizes batteries or medicine. Classical computing might simulate that discovery in a few centuries. Quantum computing could get us there in an afternoon.

A Century in the Making

The struggle to name Kodak’s slide projector feels quaint in hindsight, but it reflects a broader challenge that has followed quantum computing for a century. The ideas underpinning this field—Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle, Schr?dinger’s cat, Dirac’s equations—emerged from some of the brightest minds of the early 20th century. The science has been building ever since, but the technology required to make it real has lagged behind.

Only in recent decades have researchers started inching toward practical applications. And yet, despite significant breakthroughs, quantum computing still feels intangible to the mainstream.

That’s the real issue.

The leap from the lab to business has happened, but the public hasn’t caught up. It’s a story unfolding in the background, one that will shape finance, medicine, cybersecurity, and artificial intelligence before most people even realize what’s happening. When the transistor was invented, few understood its significance. When the internet began, few saw its potential. Quantum computing is following a similar path—except this time, the implications are even larger.

The Need for Patience—and People

In the Mad Men scene, Kodak’s mistake wasn’t technological; it was narrative. They had something remarkable but didn’t know how to make people care. Draper did that for them. Quantum computing needs its Draper moment, not to sell a product but to help the world understand why this matters.

The truth is, not every company working on quantum today will make it. Some will collapse, their ambitions outpacing reality. Others will break through, forever changing how we solve problems. And that’s okay. What matters most is that there are people—brilliant, determined, and sometimes obsessive—who are taking the leap.

Building a quantum future isn’t about instant gratification. It’s about persistence. It’s about preparing a workforce that can harness this power when it fully arrives. It’s about recognizing that something seemingly esoteric today will soon touch every industry and every life.

The Carousel didn’t just let people look at pictures; it let them relive their lives. Quantum computing won’t just speed up calculations; it will push us forward, accelerating discoveries that might otherwise take centuries. It won’t happen overnight, but when it does, it will feel as though the future arrived in an instant.

And when that moment comes, we’ll need storytellers who can help the world understand that this, too, is a time machine.