Seth Lloyd (born August 2, 1960) is a

professor Professor (commonly abbreviated as Prof.) is an Academy, academic rank at university, universities and other tertiary education, post-secondary education and research institutions in most countries. Literally, ''professor'' derives from Latin ...

mechanical engineering Mechanical engineering is the study of physical machines and mechanism (engineering), mechanisms that may involve force and movement. It is an engineering branch that combines engineering physics and engineering mathematics, mathematics principl ...

and

physics Physics is the scientific study of matter, its Elementary particle, fundamental constituents, its motion and behavior through space and time, and the related entities of energy and force. "Physical science is that department of knowledge whi ...

at the

Massachusetts Institute of Technology The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a Private university, private research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Established in 1861, MIT has played a significant role in the development of many areas of moder ...

. His research area is the interplay of

information Information is an Abstraction, abstract concept that refers to something which has the power Communication, to inform. At the most fundamental level, it pertains to the Interpretation (philosophy), interpretation (perhaps Interpretation (log ...

with

complex systems A complex system is a system composed of many components that may interact with one another. Examples of complex systems are Earth's global climate, organisms, the human brain, infrastructure such as power grid, transportation or communication s ...

, especially

quantum In physics, a quantum (: quanta) is the minimum amount of any physical entity (physical property) involved in an interaction. The fundamental notion that a property can be "quantized" is referred to as "the hypothesis of quantization". This me ...

systems. He has performed seminal work in the fields of quantum computation,

quantum communication In quantum information theory, a quantum channel is a communication channel that can transmit quantum information, as well as classical information. An example of quantum information is the general dynamics of a qubit. An example of classical in ...

and

quantum biology Quantum biology is the study of applications of quantum mechanics and theoretical chemistry to aspects of biology that cannot be accurately described by the classical laws of physics. An understanding of fundamental quantum interactions is importan ...

, including proposing the first technologically feasible design for a quantum computer, demonstrating the viability of quantum analog computation, proving quantum analogs of Shannon's noisy channel theorem, and designing novel methods for quantum error correction and noise reduction.

Biography

Lloyd was born on August 2, 1960. He graduated from

Phillips Academy Phillips Academy (also known as PA, Phillips Academy Andover, or simply Andover) is a Private school, private, Mixed-sex education, co-educational college-preparatory school for Boarding school, boarding and Day school, day students located in ...

in 1978 and received a bachelor of arts degree from

Harvard College Harvard College is the undergraduate education, undergraduate college of Harvard University, a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Part of the Harvard Faculty of Arts and Scienc ...

in 1982. He earned a certificate of advanced study in mathematics and a master of philosophy degree from

Cambridge University The University of Cambridge is a Public university, public collegiate university, collegiate research university in Cambridge, England. Founded in 1209, the University of Cambridge is the List of oldest universities in continuous operation, wo ...

in 1983 and 1984, while on a Marshall Scholarship. Lloyd was awarded a doctorate by

Rockefeller University The Rockefeller University is a Private university, private Medical research, biomedical Research university, research and graduate-only university in New York City, New York. It focuses primarily on the biological and medical sciences and pro ...

in 1988 (advisor Heinz Pagels) after submitting a thesis on ''Black Holes, Demons, and the Loss of Coherence: How Complex Systems Get Information, and What They Do With It.'' From 1988 to 1991, Lloyd was a postdoctoral fellow in the High Energy Physics Department at the

California Institute of Technology The California Institute of Technology (branded as Caltech) is a private research university in Pasadena, California, United States. The university is responsible for many modern scientific advancements and is among a small group of institutes ...

, where he worked with

Murray Gell-Mann Murray Gell-Mann (; September 15, 1929 – May 24, 2019) was an American theoretical physicist who played a preeminent role in the development of the theory of elementary particles. Gell-Mann introduced the concept of quarks as the funda ...

on applications of information to quantum-mechanical systems. From 1991 to 1994, he was a postdoctoral fellow at

Los Alamos National Laboratory Los Alamos National Laboratory (often shortened as Los Alamos and LANL) is one of the sixteen research and development Laboratory, laboratories of the United States Department of Energy National Laboratories, United States Department of Energy ...

, where he worked at the Center for Nonlinear Systems on quantum computation. In 1994, he joined the faculty of the Department of Mechanical Engineering at

MIT The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Established in 1861, MIT has played a significant role in the development of many areas of modern technology and sc ...

. Starting in 1988, Lloyd was an external faculty member at the

Santa Fe Institute The Santa Fe Institute (SFI) is an independent, nonprofit theoretical research institute located in Santa Fe, New Mexico, United States and dedicated to the multidisciplinary study of the fundamental principles of complex adaptive systems, inc ...

for more than 30 years. In his 2006 book, '' Programming the Universe'', Lloyd contends that the universe itself is one big quantum computer producing what we see around us, and ourselves, as it runs a cosmic program. According to Lloyd, once we understand the laws of

completely, we will be able to use small-scale quantum computing to understand the universe completely as well. Lloyd states that we could have the whole universe simulated in a computer in 600 years provided that computational power increases according to

Moore's Law Moore's law is the observation that the Transistor count, number of transistors in an integrated circuit (IC) doubles about every two years. Moore's law is an observation and Forecasting, projection of a historical trend. Rather than a law of ...

. However, Lloyd shows that there are limits to rapid

exponential growth Exponential growth occurs when a quantity grows as an exponential function of time. The quantity grows at a rate directly proportional to its present size. For example, when it is 3 times as big as it is now, it will be growing 3 times as fast ...

in a finite universe, and that it is very unlikely that Moore's Law will be maintained indefinitely. Lloyd directs the ''Center for Extreme Quantum Information Theory'' (xQIT) at MIT. He has made influential contributions to a broad range of topics, mostly in the wider field of

quantum information science Quantum information science is a field that combines the principles of quantum mechanics with information theory to study the processing, analysis, and transmission of information. It covers both theoretical and experimental aspects of quantum phys ...

. Among his most cited works are the first proposal for a digital quantum simulator, a general framework for quantum metrology, the first treatment of quantum computation with continuous variables, dynamical decoupling as a method of quantum error avoidance,

quantum algorithm In quantum computing, a quantum algorithm is an algorithm that runs on a realistic model of quantum computation, the most commonly used model being the quantum circuit model of computation. A classical (or non-quantum) algorithm is a finite seq ...

s for equation solving and

machine learning Machine learning (ML) is a field of study in artificial intelligence concerned with the development and study of Computational statistics, statistical algorithms that can learn from data and generalise to unseen data, and thus perform Task ( ...

or research on the possible relevance of quantum effects in biological phenomena, especially

photosynthesis Photosynthesis ( ) is a system of biological processes by which photosynthetic organisms, such as most plants, algae, and cyanobacteria, convert light energy, typically from sunlight, into the chemical energy necessary to fuel their metabo ...

, an effect he has also collaborated to exploit technologically. According to

Clarivate Clarivate Plc is a British-American Public company, publicly traded analytics company that operates a collection of subscription business model, subscription-based services, in the areas of bibliometrics and scientometrics; business intelligenc ...

he had in July 2023 in total 199 peer-reviewed publications which were cited more than 22,600 times leading to an h index of 61.

Epstein affair

During July 2019, reports surfaced that MIT and other institutions had accepted funding from convicted sex offender

Jeffrey Epstein Jeffrey Edward Epstein ( , ; January 20, 1953August 10, 2019) was an American financier and child sex offender. Born and raised in New York City, Epstein began his professional career as a teacher at the Dalton School, despite lacking a col ...

. In the ensuing scandal, the director of the

MIT Media Lab The MIT Media Lab is a research laboratory at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, growing out of MIT's Architecture Machine Group in the MIT School of Architecture and Planning, School of Architecture. Its research does not restrict to fi ...

, Joi Ito, resigned from MIT as a result of his association with Epstein. Lloyd's connections to Epstein also drew criticism: Lloyd had acknowledged receiving funding from Epstein in 19 of his papers. On August 22, 2019, Lloyd published a letter apologizing for accepting grants (totaling $225,000) from Epstein. Despite this, the controversy continued. In January 2020, at the request of the MIT Corporation, the law firm Goodwin Procter issued a report on all of MIT's interactions with Epstein. As a result of the report, on January 10, 2020, Lloyd was placed on paid administrative leave. Lloyd has vigorously denied that he misled MIT about the source of the funds he received from Epstein. This denial was validated by a subsequent MIT investigation that concluded that Lloyd did not attempt to circumvent the MIT vetting process, nor try to conceal the name of the donor, and Lloyd was allowed to continue his tenured faculty position at MIT. However, most but not all members of MIT's fact-finding committee concluded that Lloyd had violated MIT's conflict of interest policy by not revealing crucial publicly known information about Epstein's background to MIT, as a result of which Lloyd will be subject to a series of administrative actions for 5 years.

Honors

* 2007 Fellow of the

American Physical Society The American Physical Society (APS) is a not-for-profit membership organization of professionals in physics and related disciplines, comprising nearly fifty divisions, sections, and other units. Its mission is the advancement and diffusion of ...

* 2012 International Quantum Communication Award

Works

* * * * Lloyd, S., '' Programming the Universe: A Quantum Computer Scientist Takes On the Cosmos'',

Knopf Alfred A. Knopf, Inc. () is an American publishing house that was founded by Blanche Knopf and Alfred A. Knopf Sr. in 1915. Blanche and Alfred traveled abroad regularly and were known for publishing European, Asian, and Latin American writers ...

, March 14, 2006, 240 p., * Interview:
Quantum Hanky Panky: A Conversation with Seth Lloyd
' (video), Edge Foundation, 2016 * Interview:
The Computational Universe: Seth Lloyd
' (video), Edge Foundation, 2002 * Lecture
The Black Hole of Finance
(video),

* Movie: In 2022 Lloyd starred in the

short film A short film is a film with a low running time. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) defines a short film as "an original motion picture that has a running time of not more than 40 minutes including all credits". Other film o ...

''Steeplechase'' directed by Andrey Kezzyn, which thematizes closed timelike curves, a topic Lloyd has also addressed in his scientific work.

Notes

External links