100 years after quantum mechanics – information is quantum!

The twentieth century saw the saw the convergence of two its greatest scientific and technological revolutions – quantum mechanics and information theory – which has given rise to the new discipline of quantum information science (QIS). Outstanding questions in the foundations were key to this development. Are there “local elements of relativity” as Einstein-Poldolsky-Rosen compellingly argued for? How do we understand the quantum-to-classical transition? What is the relationship between thermodynamics and information processing as laid out by Shannon, and how does this relate to Maxwell’s Demon? The answers to all of these questions led to a new realization – information is physical. Said another way, the information processing power of machines depends on physics that governs their operation. Machines that can harness the full power of quantum mechanics—coherent superpositions, entanglement, digital measurement outcomes – have the ability to process information in fundamentally new ways with the capacity to carry out tasks impossible with classical information processors. In this talk I will provide a brief history of the development of QIS and describe we process quantum information in Nature’s most natural systems – atoms and photons.