Into the quantum field of ignorance

The visible universe - stars, galaxies, interstellar gas, the Earth, you, me, everything we can directly detect, see and touch - is estimated to make up only 5% of the actual universe. We can deduce the existence of the other 95%, referred to as dark matter and dark energy, by its effects, but we don’t know what it really is.

It sometimes feels that the field of enterprise computing is like this. Any one person can get to grips with some of the topics that make up this huge and ever more complex field, but we will only ever grasp a few percent. Every enterprise computing endeavour has to be a collective effort, with team members plugging the gaps in each other’s ignorance.

It certainly feels that way to me. That’s why this newsletter is called ‘A Lot to Learn’. Even though I have been working in enterprise computing for over thirty years, there is a lot that I know that I don’t understand, and the breadth of my ignorance expands every day as new technologies are created and new ways of working are discovered.

I’m going to try something slightly different in the next few editions of this newsletter. Most of the time I write about things that I know something about - often through making mistakes, learning lessons and trying again. I’m going to try for a little while to write about things that I don’t yet understand - and, in the process of writing about them, get to understand them a little better. I’ll try to tackle areas that are particularly subject to hyperbole and breathless promotion, and to do the thing that every technology architect should do: keep asking why and what until I get to answers that make sense to me.

I’m not exactly sure how this process will go: we’ll find out as we go along. But I think I’m going to try the following:

• Week 1: pick a topic and share the little I know about it, and give myself a mark out of 10 for understanding (no further research allowed)
• Week 2: read some articles from the popular press and see whether that clear things up or confuses them further (only generally available articles allowed)
• Week 3: read some deeper and focused literature, and try to find an expert to talk to (anything goes - and fortunately, I work for a company with a lot of experts)
• Week 4: summarise what I’ve learnt, and rate my new level of ignorance.

Let’s start with a topic that’s received a lot of attention in recent years: quantum computing. There are regular press releases and articles of this topic, using slightly alarming terms such as ‘quantum dominance’.

What do I know right now?

• I have an informed layperson’s understanding of quantum mechanics, and know vaguely that the behaviour of entities at the quantum level is a matter of probabilities, and that these entities can exist in multiple states at the same time.
• I struggle to maintain a visualisation of behaviour at the quantum level, but suspect that’s okay as it’s pretty much impossible for humans to visualise in terms that we are used to.
• I know that several companies, including Alphabet and IBM, have built quantum computers, and that these computers use ‘qubits’ rather than normal binary bits.
• I have read and heard that this allows them to calculate multiple paths through a problem simultaneously, dramatically increasing computing power.
• I’ve also heard that this power will enable quantum computers to crack our current forms of encryption, which rely on mathematical problems which are computationally hard to solve.
• I’ve seen a few pictures of quantum computers and they look like something out of Doctor Who or Jules Verne.

What are my known unknowns? What questions do I have that I don’t have answers to?

• How do they actually work? How do you do computation with qubits? How do you program a quantum computer?
• How do you get the information out of a collection of qubits? How do you ‘read’ them?
• Does quantum computing work for any problem? Or does it only work for certain types of problem?
• Could they replace traditional computers?
• Are real quantum computers actually in existence today? Where are they and who owns them? What do they look like?
• Will I ever have a quantum computer in my home or in my pocket? Or will they always be exotic devices that I access through the cloud?
• Is the threat to encryption real? If so, how long do we have?

How would I rate myself out of 10?

I’d give myself a 3/10 in this topic at the moment. I know quite a bit about computing, something about quantum mechanics, but have a lot of open questions.

If you’re as ignorant as me on this topic, then the next few articles may be interesting, as I try to figure out the answers. If you’re a quantum computing expert and you’d like to enlighten me, or if you’ve just got some recommendations on what to read, please drop me a message or leave a comment.

Let’s take a step into the realm of uncertainty . . .

(Views in this article are my own.)