Entanglement: A Modern Frankenstein | Creation

1.2: Quantum Connections

Austin, Texas | April | Lexa

(continued)

As much as she was frustrated, she fired on all cylinders in challenges like this. She loved the process of trying new things, failing, trying something else, failing again, and eventually succeeding. She knew she was on the forefront when she posted the first questions on topics in online forums.

She hated the forum contributors who were quick to say, "Why would you do it that way? Just do this, obviously! Don't make it difficult." Occasionally, they were right, but more often they were narrow-minded developers unwilling to see how systems could be pushed. Some of those would eventually see the light of the path she was pioneering. She continued to leverage those minds as much as educate them along the way. As such, she had built a strong following. The narrow-minded ones outed themselves after a few exchanges. She did not waste further time on their arrogant lecturing.

She had been actively coding since she was ten. She had gained a reputation in a short time by building add-ons to games in those years. She also had done some hacking in her early years, but did not like the stress involved with always feeling like she was going to get caught. At first, she was not confident enough in her skills. She had been told by other developers there were always smarter people out there who would see what she was doing. Over time, she met many of those smart developers, but the smartest ones who could have caught her were preoccupied with their own explorations. That realization emboldened her—not to do more hacking, but instead to explore new frontiers.

By college, she was building search algorithms, which were often more complex than necessary. Her professors chided her to make her code simpler. She didn't understand until she started paying more attention to the code of her classmates. She saw them achieving the same outputs as she did in a fraction of the lines of code. One time, she devoted an all-nighter to writing a section of code. She was aghast to see that several classmates had come in the next morning with only a few lines of code and a full night of sleep. She had not considered an existing function which could achieve all she had done. Her professor had congratulated her on being able to recreate all the critical goals of the function, but dinged her for not using what already existed. It had been as eye-opening for her as it had been a waste of time and effort to not consider what existed. She did not make that mistake again.

By her senior year, she was working with quantum computers and understanding their failings. While traditional computers worked with a binary system—the smallest piece of data was either a one or a zero—quantum computers worked on a system allowing an entire range of values. Using traditional computers was like needing to conduct all transactions with pennies compared to quantum computers using all denominations of coins and bills to carry out transactions. The power of the quantum universe was still not fully understood, but its potential was immense, when it could be harnessed.

The problem was that quantum computers required exceptionally precise management of the quantum chips that were used to manipulate small particles. These particles did not always behave as expected. Scientists knew that the traditional laws of nature do not apply at the quantum level. It was like holding a one hundred dollar bill that suddenly became two bills one moment and didn't exist at all the next or maybe never existed.

Quantum computers were still in the early stages, but they were even more nascent and unreliable when Lexa began working with them. What was particularly frustrating for her was not being able to distinguish failures due to her code from those due to the machines themselves. By the end of her senior year, she was helping graduate students and professors alike test the limitations and possibilities of quantum computing. She continued to engage in discussions with them in the few years since she graduated. She also built a community of other students across the world, which is how she met Dmitri before she graduated.