A New Quantum Math of Cryptography
The Quanta Podcast
Quanta Magazine
4.7 • 638 Ratings
🗓️ 26 August 2025
⏱️ 27 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
We’re living in the golden age of cryptography. Since the 1970s, we've had more confidence in encryption than ever before. But there's a difference between confidence and absolute certainty. And computer scientists care a lot about that difference.
The search is always on for better, more secure secrets. But is it possible for digital security to be truly, provably unbreakable? Maybe, with a little help from math and physics. On this week’s episode, host Samir Patel talks with 𝘘𝘶𝘢𝘯𝘵𝘢 computer science staff writer Ben Brubaker about a developing frontier of digital security: quantum cryptography. This topic was covered in a recent story for Quanta Magazine.
Each week on The Quanta Podcast, Quanta Magazine editor in chief Samir Patel speaks with the people behind the award-winning publication to navigate through some of the most important and mind-expanding questions in science and math.
Audio Coda from the Bletchley Park Trust.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | We live in a world of secrets. |
| 0:06.0 | That secrecy is so built in that we don't even notice it anymore. |
| 0:11.0 | Our online transactions, many of our instant messages, our secure online files, they're all encrypted. |
| 0:17.0 | Meaning that some menacing math and clever functions make it so that only the sender and the recipient can make sense of them. |
| 0:24.6 | The history of cryptography goes back thousands of years, but for the last couple of decades, we've been in a kind of golden age for secrecy. |
| 0:33.6 | Modern ciphers, properly used, are more or less unbreakable with current technology. |
| 0:39.3 | But that doesn't mean they'll stay that way. |
| 0:41.4 | So the search is always on for better, more secure secrets. |
| 0:52.0 | Welcome to the Quantum Podcast, where we explore the frontiers of fundamental science and math. |
| 0:57.1 | I'm Samir Patel, editor-in-chief of Quantum Magazine. |
| 1:01.0 | Computer scientists today are making advances in what they call quantum cryptography, |
| 1:06.4 | which might help level up digital security and make it maybe truly unbreakable. |
| 1:13.0 | In fact, some quantum-based cryptography is already being used, but it's not yet built for universal use. |
| 1:19.7 | Our computer science writer Ben Brubaker has been covering developments in this area, |
| 1:24.1 | including in his piece, quantum scientists have built a new math of cryptography, |
| 1:29.3 | and he's here to give us a little primer on the subject. Welcome back to the show, Ben. |
| 1:33.4 | Good to be back again. So what's the big idea we're going to explore today? |
| 1:38.7 | The big idea is how the laws of quantum physics can help us build codes that are much harder to crack |
| 1:44.8 | than the ones that we use today. |
| 1:47.1 | Now, in your story, you used a metaphor for modern cryptography, which might be a nice |
| 1:53.1 | shortcut, because it gets a little complicated. |
| 1:55.8 | If we go back thousands of years, there's all kinds of simple ciphers, you know, you substitute |
... |
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