# Gerard Milburn's Path to Photonic Quantum Computing and Beyond - Ep 6 - Rays and Waves

Page: https://stenobird.com/podcast/rays-and-waves-7177942/gerard-milburn-s-path-to-photonic-quantum-computing-and-beyond-ep-6-rays-and-waves
Text version: https://stenobird.com/podcast/rays-and-waves-7177942/gerard-milburn-s-path-to-photonic-quantum-computing-and-beyond-ep-6-rays-and-waves.md
Podcast: [Rays and Waves](https://stenobird.com/podcast/rays-and-waves-7177942)
Published: 2025-06-10T07:00:00+00:00
Episode link: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/raysandwaves/episodes/Gerard-Milburns-Path-to-Photonic-Quantum-Computing-and-Beyond---Ep-6---Rays-and-Waves-e340u3u
Audio file: https://anchor.fm/s/fc7e32e8/podcast/play/103888446/https%3A%2F%2Fd3ctxlq1ktw2nl.cloudfront.net%2Fstaging%2F2025-5-9%2Fd66950a0-d8f5-f941-ca85-7af554157f4f.mp3
Processing state: not_requested
JSON: https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/rays-and-waves-7177942/episodes/gerard-milburn-s-path-to-photonic-quantum-computing-and-beyond-ep-6-rays-and-waves
Duration seconds: 3494

## Resource

In the last episode of Rays and Waves about linear optical quantum computers we discussed how using photons as qubits is good in many ways. However, the biggest hurdle is that photons don’t like interacting with each other, which makes the critical two-qubit gates difficult to create. But a 2001 discovery showed it was in fact possible to effectively make two-qubit interactions and therefore a full quantum computer solely with linear optical elements, single photon sources and detectors. This discovery catalysed a wealth of research into optical quantum computers which in aggregate has today made it a viable contender to a path to scalable fault tolerant quantum computers. The scheme that opened the floodgates for optical quantum computers is referred to as the KLM protocol after its originators Knill, Laflamme, and Milburn. For this episode we have the honour of talking to said Milburn on the Rays and Waves podcast! If you like the show, tell your friends and colleagues about it! And like, subscribe, and all that! If you want to get in touch, shoot us an email on rays.and.waves.podcast@gmail.com Stuff mentioned in the episode: - Looking Glass Universe video about Quantum Eraser: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sAm7iVdAvTA&t=1154s - Ezra Klein interview about AGI: https://youtu.be/Btos-LEYQ30?feature=shared Intro music is Good Vibe by Twisterium. Thanks for making sweet music! Outro music is Slowly Comes The Angels by fermionik

## Actions

- request_transcript: `POST https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/rays-and-waves-7177942/episodes/gerard-milburn-s-path-to-photonic-quantum-computing-and-beyond-ep-6-rays-and-waves/transcription-requests` — Idempotently request low-priority transcript generation for this episode.
- read_markdown: `GET https://stenobird.com/podcast/rays-and-waves-7177942/gerard-milburn-s-path-to-photonic-quantum-computing-and-beyond-ep-6-rays-and-waves.md` — Read the agent-friendly Markdown representation of this episode resource.

A page view does not enqueue transcription. Agents should invoke `request_transcript` explicitly when they need this episode processed.

## Transcript

Full transcripts are not published on public pages unless there is a clear rights basis.