QUANTUM, BROADLY CONSIDERED Speaker Series

In what ways do unresolved questions in physics and mathematics shape the possibilities of quantum research? What can the history of semiconductors teach us about the future of quantum research? How do government investments shape research priorities? And what happens when scientific breakthroughs encounter markets?

During the 2025–2026 academic year, the Institute’s Schools collaboratively hosted a speaker series examining these questions through multidisciplinary perspectives, including at the intersection of quantum science, mathematics, technology policy, and the history of science.

Historical analogies, particularly to the early semiconductor era, offer a valuable lens. Just as mid-twentieth-century physics may be said to have underpinned the digital revolution, early twentieth-century quantum mechanics—developed by scientists including Max Planck, Albert Einstein, and Niels Bohr—established the theoretical groundwork and concepts that would eventually evolve into the guiding principles behind quantum computation.

This Institute-wide initiative seeks to foster scholarly dialogue on the present moment in quantum research, a moment defined by both deep theoretical uncertainty and intensifying strategic interest. Scientific and technical challenges remain formidable, even as government investment and private-sector activity create new incentives and new pressures for development. Commercial applications are still largely speculative. The predominant focus on quantum computing may also overshadow nearer-term breakthroughs in sensing, communication, and scientific instrumentation, while critical questions endure about viability, scaling, and broader social impact. These dynamics make this an opportune moment for scholarly examination into the field’s epistemic assumptions, institutional contexts, and possible futures.

To that end, the series highlighted how quantum research is entangled with social life including history, politics, and commerce. It convened scholarly perspectives from across fields to examine quantum as a domain of theoretical inquiry, scientific discovery, applied practice, and the technological imaginary.

Fall 2025

“'Philosophy is too Important to be Left to the Philosophers': On Cold War Crises and Quantum Technologies," Susannah Glickman, Assistant Professor of History, Stony Brook University

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"Realizing the Promise of Quantum Computation," William D. Oliver, Henry Ellis Warren (1894) Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, Professor of Physics, and Director of the Center for Quantum Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

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Charles Tahan, Partner at Microsoft Quantum and Visiting Research Professor at the University of Maryland; formerly Assistant Director for Quantum Information Science at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy

"Quantum Information Technology and Society from 2000 to 2040”

Thursday, December 4, 10:30 AM
West Building Lecture Hall

Suggested Readings:

• Tahan, Charles. "Opinion: Democratizing Spin Qubits." Quantum, vol. 5, Nov. 2021, p. 584, arXiv:2001.08251v2.

• ---. "Opinion: The Simplest Quantum Computer (A Retrospective from 2040)." arXiv, 2024, https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2412.18726.

• ---. "Spookytechnology and Society." arXiv, 2007, https://arxiv.org/pdf/0710.2537.

• White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. National Quantum Initiative Strategy Reports. 2021-2025, https://www.quantum.gov/strategy/#STRATEGY-DOCUMENTS.

QUANTUM, BROADLY CONSIDERED is a speaker series organized by the Science, Technology, and Social Values Lab. Led by Professor Alondra Nelson, the ST&SV Lab explores emerging scientific and technological phenomena and their intersections with the frustration and fulfillment of civil, political, and social rights. It develops multidisciplinary research projects and initiatives that examine and assess scientific and technological developments and practices and their implications for matters of justice and democracy.

The QUANTUM, BROADLY CONSIDERED speaker series a program of the Science, Technology, Mathematics, and Society Initiative, established in 2021 by Professors Didier Fassin, Helmut Hofer, Myles Jackson, Nathan Seiberg, and Akshay Venkatesh to foster dialogue across the Institute's Schools. The initiative encourages scholarly discourse on the complex and evolving relationships among science, technology, mathematics, and culture. Drawing from diverse disciplines, participants explore how scientific and mathematical knowledge intersects with social, ethical, and cultural contexts. Topics of inquiry include the ethics and safety of AI and machine learning, the creation, confirmation, and falsification of mathematical proofs, how scientific and mathematical theories are modified through public reception, forms of scientific and mathematical knowledge communication, the implications of quantum information science for research, geopolitics, and political economy, the role of intellectual property in shaping molecular biology research, the relationship between experiment and theory across physics subdisciplines, and the role of scientific expertise in public understanding of science.