As a graduate student, I studied quantum mechanics. I had become acquainted with the double slit experiment a few years earlier and I wanted to understand this weird fuzzy reality that we live in. After receiving my degree, I understood the math well but couldn’t see how my theoretical degree would be useful in the real world. I went into computational biology in hopes of having impact in the healthcare field.
I never thought that quantum computing would be possible in my lifetime. It seemed too far out. The possibilities were too baffling. I was sure it would be like fusion which has been five years away for fifty years.
I was mistaken: Quantum computing has gone from science fiction to foreseeable reality in my lifetime. Quantum computing has been shown to work on the small scale. IBM currently has the largest quantum computer with 65 qubits.
The next step is to build much larger and meaningful quantum computers. IBM has the ambitious goal to building multiple machines with as large 1000 qubits by 2023. Both Google and IBM plans to build a million-qubit quantum computer within 10 years. Some days I wish I stayed in physics.