Quantum Simplicity - How Complex Systems

may be Simplified using Quantum TheoryProf. Mile Gu

Institute for Interdisciplinary Information Sciences,

Tsinghua University , ChinaTime:

4:00pm,

November

05,

2015

(Thursday)

Venue:

Room

M215,

School

of

Physics,

Peking

University

报告摘要

We understand complex systems around us though predictive modelling –

building algorithms that generate future predictions when given relevant

past information. Each model encapsulates a way of understanding

future expectations through past observations. In the spirit of Occam’s

razor, the better we isolate the causes of what we observe, the

greater our understanding. This philosophy privileges the simpler

models; should two models make identical predictions, the one that

requires less input information is preferred. Yet, for almost all

stochastic processes, even the provably optimal classical models waste

information. The amount of input information they demand exceeds the

amount of predictive information they output. This waste creates a

significant overhead in memory costs when one seeks to use such

models to simulate the world around us – one that becomes increasingly

prohibitive as we seek to understand ever more complex systems. In

this presentation, I outline how we can systematically construct

quantum models that surpass these classical limits, and thus the most

efficient simulator of general phenomena is necessarily quantum. I

survey the consequences of this to complexity theory, where it

suggests that the complexity of natural things ultimately depends on

what sort of information processing we have access to.

报 告 人简介Prof. Mile Gu is assistant professor at Tsinghua University under the China Thousand

Talents program, and visiting senior fellow at the Centre for Quantum

Technologies. After completing a PhD at the University of Queensland under Michael

Nielsen, Gu has made significant contributions to the interface of quantum information,

complexity theory and optical quantum computation. His work has been featured in

Science and Natural suite Journals four separate occasions. Gu is also active in the

dissemination of science to the general public, and has made guest contributions to New

Scientist, Physics Today and the Foundational Questions Institute.

联系人：何琼毅 研究员(qiongyihe@pku.edu.cn)