Nicole Yunger Halpern | Quantum Steampunk: The Physics of Yesterday's Tomorrow | Talks at Google

Nicole Yunger Halpern discusses her book Quantum Steampunk: The Physics of Yesterday's Tomorrow. Can quantum physics boost engines as it boosts computing? How would a quantum engine or battery look? What secrets emerge as we study time’s arrow more and more minutely? Quantum computing and thermodynamics have coalesced into a scientific field that’s booming today—one that theoretical physicist Nicole Yunger Halpern has dubbed quantum steampunk. In her book, Yunger Halpern interweaves scientific explanations with anecdotes, art, poetry, and her personal journey into physics. The result is a blast—or, as Victorians would say, nanty narking—for fans of science, science fiction, and fantasy.

Nicole Yunger Halpern is a theoretical physicist at the Joint Center for Quantum Information and Computer Science at the University of Maryland. Nicole re-envisions the science of energy, developed in the 19th century, for the 21st century, using the mathematical tools of quantum computing. Nicole earned her PhD at Caltech, winning the international Ilya Prigogine Prize for an energy-science thesis. As a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard, she won the International Quantum Technology Emerging Researcher Award. Nicole has written over 100 articles for the blog Quantum Frontiers and suspects that a copy of her is a novelist in some parallel universe.

Moderated by David Levin.

[muhiptezcan]

amazing story telling. and the story is about quantum mechanics, information theory and thermodynamics. such a brilliant mind!