The Washington Times ran my
review of David Ignatius’ The Quantum Spy.
Although my knowledge of
computers is somewhat limited, I was able to follow the computer science
backdrop to “The Quantum Spy,” as author David Ignatius did a fine job of
explaining the basic technology involved in quantum computing and why it is
vital that the United States builds a quantum computer before China, America’s
adversary, builds one.
Quantum computing, Mr.
Ignatius‘ fictional CIA director explains, is a paradigm shift. It’s like
Galileo and Newton. It will change everything. “A Quantum computer would
simultaneously explore every answer to a problem, creating a tool of immense,
almost infinite computational power,” Mr. Ignatius writes.
The novel opens with John
Vandal, the CIA Deputy Director for Operations, paying a visit to Jason
Schmidt, an electronics engineer who operated QED, a small, privately-owned
computer company in Seattle, Washington. The CIA official was responding to a
letter the engineer wrote to his cousin, a CIA officer, that stated he had made
a breakthrough in building a quantum computer.
“I’ve solved the puzzle,” the engineer wrote.
“You understand what a big
deal this is, Mr. Schmidt? We’re spending billions on quantum research. This is
a race. The White House pounds on me every week wanting to know where the
Chinese are, and we say relax: It’ll be ten years before anyone builds a machine,
probably twenty, and we’re way ahead,” John Vandal said. “And now you say bang,
you’ve done it.”
The CIA official explained
that the issue was no much that the breakthrough, but rather that someone
wanted to steal it. He was referring to what he called a “bell-ringer” in the
letter, which was the engineer informing his cousin that he received an offer
by a company to buy control of QED. The company, John Vandal told the engineer,
was Chinese.
You can read the rest of the
review via the below link:
You can also read my
interview with David Ignatius (seen in the above photo) via the below link:
No comments:
Post a Comment