Abstract

On February 12, 2002, Michel Devoret's lecture entitled "The Quantum Computers: Miracle or Mirage" kicked off the 150th Anniversary Celebration of the Yale School of Engineering. In his abstract, Devoret asserted that while quantum mechanics had often been viewed as limiting the information one could extract from a physical system, "recent discoveries show that fundamental properties of quantum mechanics could actually be used to perform computations that would be impossible on a standard 'classical' computer." Devoret's question of whether the quantum computer is a miracle or a mirage is, to this day, one of the fascinating clear-cut open scientific questions of our time. In my inaugural lecture I will explain the question and the discoveries from the 1990s that suggested that quantum computers could perform miracles, and I will present my theory as to why the quantum computer is a mirage.