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Who is Terry Rudolph?
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Terry Rudolph is a physicist at Imperial College London and a co-founder of PsiQuantum, the photonic quantum computing company. He's also Erwin Schrödinger's grandson. In 2012 he co-wrote the PBR theorem, a landmark result about whether the wavefunction is real, and he wrote a popular maths-free book on quantum theory, Q is for Quantum.
How did Schrödinger's grandson end up building quantum computers?
Card 1 · A famous grandfather
Terry Rudolph's grandfather is Erwin Schrödinger, author of the wave equation (chapter 6) and the cat (page 3a). Rudolph becomes a physicist himself, working on quantum optics and on what quantum states really are.
Card 2 · Foundations
He works on what quantum states really are. In 2012, with Matthew Pusey and Jonathan Barrett, he publishes the PBR theorem: under a few reasonable assumptions, the wavefunction can't just be our ignorance about some deeper, definite state. It caused a stir, because it rules out a whole family of interpretations (chapter 6 and page 6b) unless they drop one of its assumptions.
Card 3 · Light
At the same time he works on building quantum computers from photons, including the idea of fusing small entangled clusters (page 10a).
Card 4 · PsiQuantum
In 2016 he co-founds PsiQuantum with Jeremy O'Brien, Pete Shadbolt and Mark Thompson. Their bet: build a photonic quantum computer in standard chip factories, at enormous scale. By 2025 it's one of the best-funded quantum companies in the world.
Card 5 · Teaching
In 2017 he publishes Q is for Quantum, which explains quantum puzzles with nothing more than black and white balls. The grandson of the man behind the cat explains quantum theory without equations.
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From Schrödinger's cat to photonic chips in two generations.
Rudolph works on both what the wavefunction is and how to compute with light.