In 1929, following the formulation of quantum mechanics, physicist Paul Dirac remarked that the underlying physical laws necessary for a mathematical understanding of “the whole of chemistry” were now known. The difficulty, he said, was that the required equations were “much too complicated to be soluble.” Nearly 100 years later, the situation is now markedly different because of three factors: the invention of large-scale computing, the development of computational algorithms for quantum mechanics and a deeper understanding of the quantum mechanical behavior of matter.

In this lecture, Garnet Chan will first highlight how all these threads come together in the modern discipline of the computational quantum theory of matter. He will then describe how the emergence of quantum computers brings a new dimension to this story and summarize our current best understanding of the role such devices may yet play in simulating the world of atoms, molecules and materials.

Chan is the Bren Professor of Chemistry at the California Institute of Technology and a Simons Investigator in theoretical physics. A native of Hong Kong, he was educated at the University of Cambridge and the University of California, Berkeley. He was a professor at Cornell University and Princeton University before assuming his current position at Caltech.

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SCHEDULE

Doors open: 5:30 p.m. (No entrance before 5:30 p.m.)

Lecture: 6:00 p.m. – 7:00 p.m. (Admittance closes at 6:20 p.m.)

The Gerald D. Fischbach Auditorium complies with the Americans with Disabilities Act and offers accessible seating to visitors with special access needs.

The theme of the 2023 Simons Foundation Presidential Lecture series in physics is The Third Quantum Revolution. The first quantum revolution began with the discovery of quantum mechanics, which ultimately led to the invention of the transistor, the laser and the atomic clock. The second revolution enabled the control of small systems of particles and experimental demonstration of entanglement and non-locality — work that was recently recognized with the 2022 Nobel Prize in Physics. We are now on the verge of a third quantum revolution, enabling the control of large quantum systems to forge previously unrealized quantum technologies. These talks will explore the many dimensions of this third revolution, from basic physics to quantum computing, communication and sensing.

Simulating the World of Atoms, Molecules & Materials With Quantum Mechanics