Earlier this year, we here at QuantumFactory wrote an open letter to the good citizens of Wyoming, none of whom had ever visited the Institute for Quantum Computing’s website, according to Google Analytics. When we depicted visits to the IQC website on a map of the continental U.S., with darker areas representing a higher concentration of visitors, Wyoming appeared as a solitary white rectangle of unquantumness in the American midwest.
This distressed us.
Given the ever-increasing relevance and importance of quantum information science, we fretted that Wyomingites (Wyomingers? Wyomese?) might get left behind in the global quantum revolution.
Well, we are happy to report that we have made small inroads into the great state of Wyoming. An enterprising young student named Logan Wright, who spent the past summer immersed in research at IQC, recently attended a conference in Laramie, Wyoming. Although the conference had nothing to do with quantum information science (it was about the decidedly non-quantum topic of asphalt), Logan proudly sported an IQC shirt during much of his stay, and spoke about quantum science whenever the opportunity arose.
That’s Logan pictured at right, the IQC logo proudly displayed above his breast pocket, standing in front of a monument to Abraham Lincoln situated at the highest elevation on the cross-country Lincoln Highway.
This, of course, is a baby step. There’s still a long way to go before the people of Wyoming (of whom there aren’t terribly many, given that it’s the least populous state in the US) are well-versed in superconducting qubits, photonic parametric down-conversion and the like. But we are delighted to have made this introductory foray into Wyoming, and we hope the rectangular white void on our web traffic map will soon take on a lush green tone. Quantum computing in Wyoming? Wynot?
Hahahaha love this
It’s Wyomingites. Hopefully I’ve just added a little color to the void.
I hereby personally volunteer to assist IQC with this problem if they will fund a visit to Jackson this winter. My schedule is very tight, but I can manage to squeeze in a week in Jan. when I will focus on the nano-structure of snow — a topic of great interest in this region.
Then in the summer, I will go back to speak with the citizens of Pinedale, Possibly I should venture to the other side of the Wind River mountains (where I’ve never been) to bring word of IQC and quantum computing to the Native People of Wyoming.
Beth