Quantum Mechanics Might Be a Secret Key to Secure Communication

About this episode

This episode discusses the contributions of Charles Bennett and Gilles Brassard to secure communication using quantum mechanics.

Together, Charles Bennett and Gilles Brassard figured out how to use the laws of quantum physics to keep secret messages safe from eavesdroppers. Their efforts have earned them one of the highest awards in computing and a $1 million prize. On this episode of The Quanta Podcast, host Samir Patel speaks with staff writer Ben Brubaker about this year’s Turing Prize winners, and some of the most important concepts in quantum information science. This topic was covered in a recent column for Quanta Magazine. Each week on The Quanta Podcast, Quanta Magazine editor in chief Samir Patel speaks with the people behind the award-winning publication to navigate through some of the most important and mind-expanding questions in science and math. Audio coda by Charles Bennett/IBM

People in this episode

Host: Samir Patel

Guest: Ben Brubaker

Topics covered

• quantum mechanics
• secure communication
• quantum information science
• Turing Prize
• eavesdropping

Keywords

• quantum physics
• secret messages
• Turing Prize winners
• quantum information
• eavesdroppers

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Quanta Magazine, IBM

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