Black Holes, Firewalls, and the Limits of Quantum Computers | From the Archive

From our archive, we're pleased to share this 2017 presentation by Scott Aaronson (University of Texas at Austin) from our Theoretically Speaking series of public lectures. In his presentation, Aaronson gives a crash course on what computer science has learned about both the capabilities and the limitations of quantum computers. He concludes by describing a remarkable and unexpected connection — made just within the last few years — where the conjectured limitations of quantum computers have been applied to issues in fundamental physics. These include Hawking's black hole information puzzle (in its modern incarnation as the "firewall paradox") and understanding the growth of wormholes in the so-called gauge/gravity duality that emerged from string theory.