What Is the True Promise of Quantum Computing?

The Joy of Why

Steven Strogatz, Janna Levin and Quanta Magazine

Science, Life Sciences

4.9 • 577 Ratings

🗓️ 3 April 2025

⏱️ 39 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Quantum computing promises unprecedented speed, but in practice, it’s proven remarkably difficult to find important questions that quantum machines can solve faster than classical ones. One of the most notable demonstrations of this came from Ewin Tang who rose to prominence in the field as a teenager. When quantum algorithms had in principle cracked the so-called recommendation problem, Tang designed classical algorithms that could match them.

So began the approach of “dequantizing,” in which computer scientists look at quantum algorithms and try to achieve the same speeds with classical counterparts. To understand the ongoing contest between classical and quantum computing, co-host Janna Levin spoke to Tang on The Joy of Why podcast. The wide-ranging conversation covered what it was like for Tang to challenge the prevailing wisdom at such a young age, the role of failure in scientific progress, and whether quantum computing will ultimately fulfill its grand ambitions.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	I'm Jana Levin.
0:06.3	And I'm Steve Strogatz.
0:07.8	And this is The Joy of Why, a podcast from Quantum Magazine, exploring some of the biggest
0:13.3	unanswered questions in math and science today.
0:18.2	Hey, it's Steve.
0:19.8	Hi, Jana.
0:20.7	I'm looking forward to talking to you about my interview with Ewan Tang, a computer scientist at UC Berkeley.
0:27.2	I realized talking to her that I don't know anything about computer science.
0:32.1	Welcome to the club.
0:33.1	Do you feel like you've got a handle on quantum computing, classical computing?
0:37.9	Not really. I mean, I can say the words I've heard of touring machines. I've heard of qubits.
0:43.7	I'm puzzled by it. I can't wait to hear your episode.
0:46.6	Yeah, it's very fascinating because she's really working on understanding if classical algorithms
0:52.3	can do everything a quantum algorithm can do.
0:55.4	Uh-huh.
0:55.8	And, you know, there's this kind of promise in quantum computing of this exponential speed-up, this incredible power, not just in the hardware, but even in the algorithms.
1:04.9	Because the algorithms have to be written specifically for the machine.
1:10.1	And so there's this kind of classic problem that you and I deal with
1:14.6	every day involving recommendations and how we get recommendations from some of these
1:18.8	websites we go to. And it doesn't sound like it would be that important a problem, but it turns out
1:24.9	is a very sophisticated problem. I'm just wondering if I'm getting you. So is it like the problem that Netflix has where each user has only seen a
1:33.4	small subset of the movies offered by Netflix and they want to tell you might like this other movie?
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Steven Strogatz, Janna Levin and Quanta Magazine, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Steven Strogatz, Janna Levin and Quanta Magazine and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.