quotingMontreal, late morning. Guy storms out of Trudeau departures, laptop bag swinging. Mid fifties, gray temples, slight German accent. Conference badge on.
nevent1q…amxc
Saint-Hubert airport. Thirty minutes please.
South Shore. Forty. Buckle up.
I say what conference.
Quantum computing. Forty years in the field. Munich, Zurich, Delft. I present in three hours.
Everybody asks if quantum breaks Bitcoin, right?
He coughs a laugh. Wrong question. Quantum is not around the corner. Maybe 2030, maybe later. The engineering is brutal. Qubits decohere if someone breathes near them. And here is what nobody prints. Maybe five thousand people on Earth are qualified to work on this. Five thousand. We all know each other. And the money is leaving.
Leaving for what?
AI, of course. Why fund a machine that might work in 2030 when you can fund one that works today and writes its own press releases. Half my colleagues already pivoted. They call quantum a dying field.
He looks at the bridge.
I say dying.
Hidden, he says. Voice down. Traffic rule, no recording in this cab, right? The breakthroughs do not get published anymore. Papers withdrawn. Researchers resurfacing at defense contractors. The error-correction thresholds were passed quietly. You announce when you are behind.
Yesterday in Zurich a man in an expensive coat asked me, very politely, what I present in Montreal. Today my hotel room was searched. Nothing stolen. Everything photographed.
He pats the bag. Small brass padlock on the zipper.
My talk is boring on purpose. Slide forty-one is the real talk. Twelve people on Earth will understand it. All of them already know.
Saint-Hubert. He pays cash, tips too much. Opens the door. Stops. Stares at his phone.
Then laughing. Full, helpless laughter.
My talk. Is tomorrow.
He sits on the curb beside my cab, badge on, one hand on the bag, other around a vending machine coffee.
I say the spies will be annoyed. Wrong day.
The spies, he wipes his eyes, knew before I did. That is the part that should worry you.
Scenic route back to Montreal please. I have a whole day to decide who to annoy first.
Five thousand people know how the next century gets built. And the man carrying slide forty-one was beaten by a boarding pass.
Quantum mind. Classical calendar.
#btc #nightfare #stories #quantum #montreal
V3spering on Nostr: Funniest part about the quantum scare. The same tech CEOs telling you quantum is 5 ...
Funniest part about the quantum scare. The same tech CEOs telling you quantum is 5 years away are the ones pulling their researchers off quantum to chase AI. Even they do not believe their own hype.