As you may know, recently it was take your kid to work day. I decided to make a video on my dad’s job and write a blog post about it. 

Here is my video:

My dad is a quantum physicist, he works for a company called dwave. My dad programs the chip that goes into the computer. There are other people at his job that make the computer, or take care of the chips etc. Each job is critical to the computers success. 

A little about quantum computers first though… A quantum computer is a computer that uses quantum mechanics to solve problems. An example I was given was…. “You are trying to get from point A to point B in the quickest way. But you are stuck in a valley surrounded by mountains. Normal computers find the shortest way going over the mountains and respecting the terrain to get to point B. Quantum computers find the quickest way by going through the mountains and getting to point B.”

One of the things I found most interesting about Dwave is that to get the quantum mechanics working properly you need to get the chips temperature super low. Dwave uses liquid helium to get the temperature low. Look at the picture to see how insanely cold the chip is. 

Unfortunately the picture is not very clear but the chip becomes much colder than space. The chip gets so cold that it is less than 1 degree off ABSOLUTE ZERO. It is not possible for anything to get colder than absolute zero.

My dad has had a passion for physics since he started learning it. This heavily contributed to him becoming a quantum physics. As the only quantum computing company in B.C and one of the very few in Canada his company has contributed to the community in many ways. One of these ways being regularly bringing students, kids, and learners to the facility to show them what quantum computing is all about and maybe spark some interest. On top of this, Google bought a computer to be installed at NASA so they can both use it. Another one was sold to National laboratories in Los Alamos as well as Lockheed Martin.

Google and NASA having a computer also showcased to the public is also a form of advertisement for quantum computing in general.