Lecture
This Week’s Discoveries | 6 November 2018
- Date
- Tuesday 6 November 2018
- Time
- Location
-
Oort
Niels Bohrweg 2
2333 CA Leiden - Room
- De Sitterzaal
Speaker
Serge Fehr (CWI and MI)
Serge is a researcher at CWI in Amsterdam and a professor of Quantum Information Theory in the Mathematical Institute at Leiden University. His field of research sits at the intersection between mathematics, computer science and physics.
His main focus is on cryptography and quantum information science, and the connections between the two: how does the cryptographic landscape change when considering information-processing devices that behave according to the laws of quantum mechanics? On one side, it is known that a quantum computer renders most of the currently used cryptographic schemes insecure, and it is an urgent objective to find good replacements. On the other side, techniques from what is referred to as quantum cryptography allow for novel and superior approaches for solving problems in cryptography; understanding the possibilities and limitations hereof is closely linked to fundamental properties of quantum mechanics.
Abstract
The general goal of quantum information science is to understand the effects that quantum mechanics has on computer science. How does the theory of "information" and "computation" change when considering information-processing devices that follow the laws of quantum mechanics? Of particular interest are tasks in computer science where such quantum devices enable a superior solution, or where there is no solution at all otherwise. Some known examples are quantum computing and quantum cryptography. In this lecture I will talk about a newly discovered example of a task where the use of quantum techniques is a game changer: the certification of randomness - how to convince someone that something is random.