The following is a conversation with Scott Arenson, a professor UT Austin, director of its

Quantum Information Center, and previously a professor at MIT.

His research interests center around the capabilities and limits of quantum computers and computational

complexity theory more generally.

He is an excellent writer and one of my favorite communicators of computer science in the world.

We only had about an hour and a half of this conversation, so I decided to focus on quantum

computing.

But I can see us talking again in the future on this podcast at some point about computational

complexity theory and all the complexity classes that Scott catalogs and his amazing complexity

zoo wiki.

As a quick aside, based on questions and comments I've received, my goal with these conversations

is to try to be in the background without ego and do three things.

One, let the guests shine and try to discover together the most beautiful insights in their

work and in their mind.

Two, try to play devil's advocate, just enough to provide a creative tension and exploring

ideas to conversation.

And three, to ask very basic questions about terminology, about concepts, about ideas.

Many of the topics we talk about in the podcast I've been studying for years as a grad student,

as a researcher and generally as a curious human who loves to read.

But frankly, I see myself in these conversations as the main character for one of my favorite

novels, Badesta Yavsky, called The Idiot.

I enjoy playing dumb.

...