Seth Lloyd is a professor for quantum mechanical engineering and physics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology — a "quantum mechanic" for short. We had the pleasure of talking to him at the Heidelberg Laureate Forum 2017, where he took part in a "hot topic" session on quantum computing. We took the opportunity to ask him how quantum computers might impact society, what it's like to work with things so small they cannot be measured, and what the limits of measurement mean for science.

For an introduction to quantum computing see What is quantum computing?

Image above © Heidelberg Laureate Forum Foundation / Kreutzer – 2017.