Edward Farhi is physicist working on quantum computation as a Principal Scientist at Google. In 2018 he retired from his position as the Cecil and Ida Green Professor of Physics at the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private land-grant research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Established in 1861, MIT has played a key role in the development of modern technology and science, and is one of the ...
. He was the Director of the Center for Theoretical Physics at MIT from 2004 until 2016. He made contributions to
particle physics
Particle physics or high energy physics is the study of fundamental particles and forces that constitute matter and radiation. The fundamental particles in the universe are classified in the Standard Model as fermions (matter particles) an ...
,
general relativity
General relativity, also known as the general theory of relativity and Einstein's theory of gravity, is the geometric theory of gravitation published by Albert Einstein in 1915 and is the current description of gravitation in modern physics ...
and
astroparticle physics before turning to his current interest,
quantum computation
Quantum computing is a type of computation whose operations can harness the phenomena of quantum mechanics, such as superposition, interference, and entanglement. Devices that perform quantum computations are known as quantum computers. Though ...
.
Education
Edward (Eddie) Farhi attended the
Bronx High School of Science
The Bronx High School of Science, commonly called Bronx Science, is a public specialized high school in The Bronx in New York City. It is operated by the New York City Department of Education. Admission to Bronx Science involves passing the Spec ...
and obtained his B.A. and M.A. in physics at
Brandeis University
, mottoeng = "Truth even unto its innermost parts"
, established =
, type = Private research university
, accreditation = NECHE
, president = Ronald D. Liebowitz
, pro ...
before getting his Ph.D. in 1978 from
Harvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...
under the supervision of
Howard Georgi
Howard Mason Georgi III (born January 6, 1947) is an American theoretical physicist and the Mallinckrodt Professor of Physics and Harvard College Professor at Harvard University. He is also Director of Undergraduate Studies in Physics. He was Co-M ...
. He was then on the staff at the
Stanford Linear Accelerator Center
SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, originally named the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center,
is a United States Department of Energy National Laboratory operated by Stanford University under the programmatic direction of the U.S. Departme ...
and at
CERN
The European Organization for Nuclear Research, known as CERN (; ; ), is an intergovernmental organization that operates the largest particle physics laboratory in the world. Established in 1954, it is based in a northwestern suburb of Gene ...
in Geneva, Switzerland before coming to MIT, where he joined the faculty in 1982. At MIT, he taught undergraduate courses in
quantum mechanics
Quantum mechanics is a fundamental theory in physics that provides a description of the physical properties of nature at the scale of atoms and subatomic particles. It is the foundation of all quantum physics including quantum chemistry, ...
and
special relativity
In physics, the special theory of relativity, or special relativity for short, is a scientific theory regarding the relationship between space and time. In Albert Einstein's original treatment, the theory is based on two postulates:
# The laws o ...
as well as freshman physics. At the graduate level he taught quantum mechanics,
quantum field theory
In theoretical physics, quantum field theory (QFT) is a theoretical framework that combines classical field theory, special relativity, and quantum mechanics. QFT is used in particle physics to construct physical models of subatomic particles and ...
, particle physics and general relativity. In July 2004, he was appointed the Director of MIT's Center for Theoretical Physics.
Research
Farhi was trained as a theoretical particle physicist but has also worked on astrophysics, general relativity, and the foundations of quantum mechanics. His present interest is the theory of quantum computation.
As a graduate student, Farhi invented the jet variable "Thrust" which is used today at the Large Hadron Collider to describe how particles in high energy accelerator collisions come out in collimated streams. He then worked with
Leonard Susskind
Leonard Susskind (; born June 16, 1940)his 60th birthday was celebrated with a special symposium at Stanford University.in Geoffrey West's introduction, he gives Suskind's current age as 74 and says his birthday was recent. is an American physicis ...
on grand unified theories with electro-weak dynamical symmetry breaking. At CERN, he and
proposed an (almost viable) model in which quarks, leptons, and massive gauge bosons are composite. At MIT, with
Robert Jaffe
Robert Loren Jaffe (born May 23, 1946) is an American physicist and the Jane and Otto Morningstar Professor of Physics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). He was formerly director of the MIT Center for Theoretical Physics.
Biograp ...
, he worked out many of the properties of a possibly stable super dense form of matter called ``Strange Matter" and with
Charles Alcock and Angela Olinto he studied the properties of ``Strange Stars", compact objects made of strange matter. His interest then shifted to general relativity and he and
Alan Guth
Alan Harvey Guth (; born February 27, 1947) is an American theoretical physicist and cosmologist. Guth has researched elementary particle theory (and how particle theory is applicable to the early universe). He is Victor Weisskopf Professor of ...
studied the classical and quantum prospects of creating a new inflationary universe in a laboratory. He and Guth, along with
Sean Carroll, showed how building a time machine would require resources beyond what could ever be possible to obtain.
Since the late '90s, Farhi has been studying how to use quantum mechanics to gain algorithmic speedup in solving problems that are difficult for conventional computers. He and Sam Gutmann pioneered the continuous time Hamiltonian based approach to quantum computation which is an alternative to the conventional gate model. He and Gutmann then proposed the idea of designing algorithms based on quantum walks, which was used to demonstrate the power of quantum computation over classical. They, along with
Jeffrey Goldstone
Jeffrey Goldstone (born 3 September 1933) is a British theoretical physicist and an ''emeritus'' physics faculty member at the MIT Center for Theoretical Physics.
He worked at the University of Cambridge until 1977. He is famous for the discove ...
and
Michael Sipser
Michael Fredric Sipser (born September 17, 1954) is an American theoretical computer scientist who has made early contributions to computational complexity theory. He is a professor of applied mathematics and was the Dean of Science at the Massa ...
, introduced the idea of quantum computation by adiabatic evolution which generated much interest in the quantum computing community. For example, the D-Wave machine is designed to run the quantum adiabatic algorithm. In 2007, Farhi, Goldstone and Gutmann showed, using quantum walks, that a quantum computer can determine who wins a game faster than a classical computer. In 2010, he along with
Peter Shor
Peter Williston Shor (born August 14, 1959) is an American professor of applied mathematics at MIT. He is known for his work on quantum computation, in particular for devising Shor's algorithm, a quantum algorithm for factoring exponentially fa ...
and others at MIT introduced a scheme for Quantum Money which so far has resisted attack. In 2014 Farhi, Goldstone and Gutmann introduced the Quantum Approximate Optimization Algorithm (QAOA), a novel quantum algorithm for finding approximate solutions to combinatorial search problems.
Farhi and Harrow showed that the lowest depth version of the QAOA exhibits Quantum Supremacy which means that in worst case its output can not be simulated efficiently by a classical device. The QAOA is viewed as one of the best candidates to run on
noisy Intermediate-scale quantum (NISQ) devices which are coming online in the near future.
Farhi continues to work on quantum computing but keeps a close eye on particle physics and recent developments in cosmology.
External links
Recent interview
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Farhi, Edward
Year of birth missing (living people)
Living people
Massachusetts Institute of Technology School of Science faculty
Harvard University alumni
Theoretical physicists
21st-century American physicists
Brandeis University alumni
Place of birth missing (living people)
The Bronx High School of Science alumni
People associated with CERN
Scientists from New York (state)
MIT Center for Theoretical Physics faculty
Fellows of the American Physical Society