Vlatko Vedral

My Day Job

As Professor of Quantum Information Theory at the Universities of Oxford and Singapore I spend an awful lot of my time thinking about what quantum mechanics actually means and how it affects everything that we see around us. For example:

Entropy, energy and thermodynamics: what makes our universe tick?
The origin of information: who makes it and how can we use it?
Bizarre quantum effects such as 'entanglement': just how spooky is this stuff?
Harnessing quantum physics for improved information processing: how much extra 'oompf' does quantum physics give us?
What does new evidence of quantum effects at the macroscopic level mean for us and the universe that we see around us?
New applications of quantum information - going beyond teleportation, super fast computing and super secure cryptography. Of course i am not the first to think about these issues.

These are some of the most interesting and challenging questions in science. In trying to find answers, we frequently challenge our very understanding of the nature of particles, time, determinism, and of the universe itself.

See below for my research work as well as a selection of popular articles. For my full CV click here.

The Yamaha in the picture was my leaving present from the School of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Leeds (shot taken in HOS Bryan Hickey's office).

Some Research Papers

I have included some of my most cited papers here, however all of them can be found at the Los Alamos Archive.

Recent News & Talks

The June 2011 issue of Scientific American will feature my article 'Living in a Quantum World'.
Interview with fivebooks.com - 'The Quantification of Everything'. See here
My recent forum discussion on BBC World Services. See here
My recent BBC Radio 4 Talk on the Material World. See here
Interview with the Observer - 'Explaining the Orgin of God'. See here
Extreme Non-Locality with a Single Photon (presentation given at Tokyo University). See here.
Entangling Mirrors (presentation given at Leiden University). See here.
News Invited article for 50th Anniversary of New Scientist. Read here.
Theatre Group Tangle makes a play based on my lectures. (Video)
See some of my other recent invited talks here.

Popular Stuff

Decoding Reality
Taking information as the most fundamental building block of reality, we discuss what a useful framework this is for viewing all natural and physical phenomena. In building out this framework we touch upon the origin of information, the idea of entropy, the roots of this thinking in thermodynamics, the replication of DNA, development of social networks, quantum behaviour at the micro and macro level, and the very role of indeterminism in the universe. We finish by considering the answer to the ultimate question: where did all of the information in the Universe come from? The ideas challenge our concept of the nature of particles, time, determinism, and of reality itself.

The book has a page at Wikipedia as well.

For more popular stuff click here.

Text Books & Reviews

Text books on quantum optics and entanglement: