From black holes to quantum computing - with Marika Taylor

How can black holes help us understand the workings of a quantum computer?

Black holes are believed to be the most efficient quantum computers naturally existing in our universe. Standard computers do not have the capabilities to quickly solve some of the problems and unanswered questions facing researchers, but black holes may be able to provide insight into how quantum computers work and facilitate their development.

In this talk, discover how a quantum computer makes use of the quantum states of subatomic particles to both store and process information and explore the long-standing question of what happens if you fall into a black hole, from a new quantum perspective.

00:00 Introduction to the talk
4:36 What is a black hole?
8.34 The Event Horizon
12:55 Evidence and detection of black holes
19:53 Approaching a black hole
22:17 The black hole in Interstellar
25:01 Modern imaging of black holes
27:22 Gravitational waves
38:04 Black holes and quantum theory
46:44 New quantum perspectives
49:04 Black holes as giant hard drives
51:24 Real quantum computers?
55:45 Quantum errors
57:38 Black holes and error correction
59:44 From black holes to quantum computing

This lecture was recorded at the Ri on 8 September 2023.

Professor Marika Taylor is a Professor of Theoretical Physics and Head of School within Mathematical Sciences at the University of Southampton. She is a member of the Centre for Geometry, Topology, and Applications, Southampton Theory Astrophysics and Gravity (STAG) Research Centre, Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics group and the String Theory and Holography group.

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[GavinM]

Professor Taylor has an amazingly soothing voice.

Listening to a subject like this would normally have my head spinning but she manages to convey so much while keeping you sane!

[albionvideo]

It's the rarest of scientists who can explain concepts of such complexity and breathtakingly wide scale, so clearly. With so gracious and humble a manner as to make a lay audience feel like she's addressing us as equals, not idiots. Even though she's casually on a first-name basis with "Stephen" and "Roger" (Hawking and Penrose). Marika Taylor must be a priceless lecturer and advisor. I just hope that her senior administration roles don't keep her out of the classroom.

[venkataaraadhya]

Outstanding style of lecturing. Showing the big picture and then trying to work out how things work. Always empowering the viewer to be an active participant in the process of learning.

[hp]

I still remember Marika as one of my favourite professors at the UvA. She is still excellent in explaining difficult subjects

[Joshua-byqv]

Fascinating. I've encountered these concepts elsewhere but Marika has explained this so well.

[zoelivolsi]

This talk is really brilliant. Very inspiring!

[AdianAntilles]

A thought I had just now looking at the gravity pull picture, which I, too, have seen plenty of times:
If I imagine this picture in a three-dimensional context, to accommodate for our natural perception, it would seem intuitive, and I have always done this without thinking about it, that the gravitational pull would tense the grid around a mass. In your presentation I realized it's the opposite if it pertains to the change in space-time, as the canonical depiction presents! It would push the reference points outward, to make every vector more distant apart. Which would then mean that a black hole could not be represented in a three dimensional space-time graph. That means it stands singular, beside the original graph. Most mindblowing realization today about black holes and terminology.

[anibulsir]

It's a great lecture. I believe that taking a step closer to what it means to be critical about what we know and questioning it each time, even when we think we know more, will be a path towards understanding. Even with hints given, we are likely to go through a process of repeatedly trying to assemble that new hint into the context of our great accomplishments.

[Metaldetectiontubeworldwide]

What a plesant and calming voice, dr. Marika has ☆☆☆☆☆
Thats all what an intelligent man, wants to hear on a cold Rainy day ❤
Grtz from the netherlands
Johny Geerts

[VinodKulkarniOnPlus]

Further implications are eagerly awaited!!

[Imagicka]

One of the best lectures RI has put out.

[dorasarun]

Incredible lecture!

My question would be, the information of the matter is preserved on the surface of the event horizon, does this information persist in an unchanging state indefinitely? Time doesn’t cause any fluctuations, because time is frozen or ceases to exist at the event horizon? Is it that time ceases to exist at the event horizon, or is time part of the data that is recorded? And if it is part of the data that is recorded, does the Black Hole therefore grow physically just as a result of spacetime entering it, even with no additional matter?

[sansdomicileconnu]

are 2 entragled particles style entragled if we put one in a black hole?

[mayflowerlash]

When 2 particles become entangled either because they interact or are created as a pair, do they ever become unentangled?
If so the number of separate entanglements in the universe is enormous. Equal to the number of particles in the universe multiplied by the average number of entanglements a single particle may experience in it time of existence. That is a big number.

[araldjean-charles]

It is exciting that the idea of a Black Hole is associated with a Quantum Computer. I think of a black hole as a storage device that captures and stores light (information). With Hawking radiation, this light can be released. Also, when the universe dies, all of this information is released in a burst of light.
It would be interesting if we could one day construct technology to "read a Black Hole."

[WPIE]

Interesting similarities where you wouldn't have expected them! What about the Holographic Principle, this should also apply to this idea, if I understood it correctly?

[mayflowerlash]

At about 23:00 there is the classic "Interstellar" image of the light around a black hole. Can you tell me or explain why the image is asymmetric. Between the 2 light disks (horizontal and vertical) there are 2 "fillets" of light on the top side, but none on the bottom.
An explanation I have heard is that light passing behind the black hole is curved over the top and bottom of the black hole. Hence the vertical light disk. I think this image is still far from reality. Why is the top different from the bottom?

[anthonyalbillar-montez]

There are five Happy Gravities and they live at 1011 West Olive Street Oxnard California.

[polizeiwegvonhier]

I looked for a Black Hole Quantum computer on Amazon but can’t find it. Anyone?

[youtooyoutoo]

Re 49:30 I think I understand why there is no 'singularity' of infinite density; because time is frozen at the EH. Particles do not move. The chair, computer, eyeball, etc that survive the approach thru the thermal & tidal stresses are not moving relative to us and their surroundings, and accumulate like archeological layers, fossilized in space-time. Perhaps you can figure the implications if not the maths.