Schrödinger's Web: Race to Build the Quantum Internet / Edition 1

by Jonathan P. Dowling

Overview

As the race to build the world's first quantum computer is coming to an end, the race to build the quantum internet has just started. This book leverages the author's unique insights into both the Chinese and American quantum programs. It begins with the physics and history of the quantum internet and ends with the latest results in quantum computing and quantum networks.

• The Chinese quantum Sputnik moment.
• The U.S. National Quantum Initiative.
• What's up with Quantum Computing Supremacy?
• The Race to Build the Quantum Internet.
• Where will Quantum Technology be Tomorrow?

Written by a renowned quantum physicist, this book is for everyone who is interested in the rapidly advancing field of Quantum Technology -- The Second Quantum Revolution. The 2016 launch of the Chinese quantum satellite Mozi was a quantum Sputnik moment. The United States went from thinking it was ten years ahead of the Chinese to the realization that it was ten years behind them. This quantum gap led to the U.S. National Quantum Initiative, launched in 2018. Since then, the race to build the quantum internet has taken off at breakneck speed.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780367322311
Publisher:	CRC Press
Publication date:	08/25/2020
Pages:	314
Product dimensions:	6.12(w) x 9.19(h) x (d)

About the Author

Jonathan Dowling earned a Ph.D. in Mathematical Physics from the

University of Colorado. He has worked at the United States Army

Aviation and Missile Command, the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory,

and then at the Louisiana State University. Dr. Dowling is one of the

founders of the U.S. Government program in quantum computing and

quantum cryptography.

Table of Contents

Preface xiii

Foreword xv

Author xxi

Chapter 1 Many Hands Make Light Work 1

The Darkened Room 2

Newton's Bullets 5

Waves of Huygens' - Ptooey! 11

Out - Damned Spot! 12

The Journey Stone 20

Franklin, Frogs, and Frankenstein 22

Ørsted Unlodes 23

Electric Boy Rewinds 26

All's Well That's Maxwell 31

Fiat Lux! 34

Watt Is Love? Don't Hertz Me, No Morse! 38

Marconi and Chutzpah 39

Maxwell's Rainbow 40

Chapter 2 What Light Through Yonder Window - Breaks? 43

The End of Physics? 44

Plancking for Beginners 51

One Photon, Indivisible, with Quanta of Energy, in Balls 56

It's a Wave! It's a Particle! It's - What the Heck Is It!? 60

Quantum Nondemolition Derby 68

Vaidman - Dude's the Bomb! 73

The Undetectable Quantum Tripwire 76

Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Clouds 79

To Compute or Not to Compute - What is the Question? 82

Einstein's Bubble - Toil and Trouble 83

Particulars of Polarized Photons 87

Chapter 3 It Takes Two to Tangle 91

Schrodinger's Curse 92

Einstein's Bane 94

Von Neumann's Blunder 99

BOHM's Bombshell 101

Bell Gets Testy 103

Bertlmann's Socks 108

Clauser's No-Bell Prize 108

Closing the Loopholes 112

Two's Company - But Three's a Cloud 115

Speaking the Unspeakable 118

Chapter 4 Quantum Networks: The Building Blocks 121

Single-Photon Guns 122

Quantum-Dot Single-Photon Guns 122

Sort-of-Single-Photon Guns and Magic Chinese Crystals 125

Pseudo-Single-Photon Guns 129

Entangled-Photon Guns 132

Quantum-Dot Entangled-Photon Guns 132

Entangled Sort-of-Photon Guns and Magic Chinese Crystals 134

I Spy, With My Little Eye 138

E. T. Phone Home 141

Polarize! Let No Photon Evade Your Eyes! 146

Rare as a Two-Dollar Bell 149

Chapter 5 The Second Quantum Revolution 151

What Is Quantum Technology? 152

Quantum Random-Number Generators 154

Cryptography 158

Classical Cryptography - RSA Public-Key Encryption 159

Classical Cryptography - One-Time-Pad Private-Key Encryption 162

Quantum Money - Wiesner's Unpublishable Paper 172

Quantum Cryptography - The Bennett and Brassard 1984 Protocol 175

Quantum Cryptography - The Ekert 1991 Protocol 182

Post-Quantum-Cryptography - Off-Ramp On The Quantum Internet 185

Quantum Teleportation 187

Entanglement Swapping 194

Quantum Memories 196

Classical Repeaters 198

Quantum Repeaters 201

Quantum Transponders 205

Chapter 6 Quantum Networks 207

The Quantum Internet-Why Now? 208

What's Up With Quantum Computers These Days? 210

Quantum Supremacy 213

Double-Bubble - Toil and Trouble! 215

A Chinese Quantum-Sputnik Moment 219

National Quantum Initiative Act 222

Quantum Internet 1.0 - All That It's Cracked Up To Be? 228

Quantum Internet 2.0 - Rage of Entanglement 230

Quantum Internet 3.0 - Rise of the Ubiquitous Quantum Repeaters 238

I Have a Code in My Node! 245

Teleportation and Distributed Quantum Computing 247

Classical Communication Over the Quantum Network 251

Chapter 7 Networks Of Quantum Sensors 255

Quantum Sensors 256

Coherent Sensor Arrays 261

Clocks in Space 270

Distributed Quantum Sensors 273

Epilogue 281

Index 285

Editorial Reviews

"As theoretical physicist Jonathan Dowling makes clear in Schrödinger’s Web, early versions of the quantum internet are here already — for example, quantum communication has been taking place between Beijing and Shanghai via fiber-optic cables since 2016 — and more are coming fast. So now is the perfect time to read up. Dowling, who helped found the U.S. government’s quantum computing program in the 1990s, is the perfect guide. Armed with a seemingly endless supply of outrageous anecdotes, memorable analogies, puns and quips, he makes the thorny theoretical details of the quantum internet both entertaining and accessible. …
Like Dowling’s 2013 book on quantum computers, Schrödinger’s Killer App, Schrödinger’s Web hammers home the nonintuitive truths at the heart of quantum mechanics. … Dowling died unexpectedly in June at age 65, before he could see this future come to fruition. Once when I interviewed him, he invoked Arthur C. Clarke’s first law to justify why he thought another esteemed scientist was wrong. "The first law is that if a distinguished, elderly scientist tells you something is possible, he’s very likely right," he said. "If he tells you something is impossible, he’s very likely wrong." Dowling died too soon to be considered elderly, but he was distinguished, and Schrödinger’s Web lays out a powerful case for the possibility of a quantum internet."
—Dan Garisto in Science News, September 2020

"As theoretical physicist Jonathan Dowling makes clear in Schrödinger’s Web, early versions of the quantum internet are here already — for example, quantum communication has been taking place between Beijing and Shanghai via fiber-optic cables since 2016 — and more are coming fast. So now is the perfect time to read up. Dowling, who helped found the U.S. government’s quantum computing program in the 1990s, is the perfect guide. Armed with a seemingly endless supply of outrageous anecdotes, memorable analogies, puns and quips, he makes the thorny theoretical details of the quantum internet both entertaining and accessible. …
Like Dowling’s 2013 book on quantum computers, Schrödinger’s Killer App, Schrödinger’s Web hammers home the nonintuitive truths at the heart of quantum mechanics. … Dowling died unexpectedly in June at age 65, before he could see this future come to fruition. Once when I interviewed him, he invoked Arthur C. Clarke’s first law to justify why he thought another esteemed scientist was wrong. "The first law is that if a distinguished, elderly scientist tells you something is possible, he’s very likely right," he said. "If he tells you something is impossible, he’s very likely wrong." Dowling died too soon to be considered elderly, but he was distinguished, and Schrödinger’s Web lays out a powerful case for the possibility of a quantum internet."
—Dan Garisto in Science News, September 2020

From the Publisher