Lisp at the Frontier of Computation, by Robert Smith at Rigetti Computing

Robert Smith explains how Rigetti Computing uses Common Lisp to build quantum programming languages, compilers, and high-performance simulators.

Bay Area Lisp and Scheme Meetup balisp.org/ Thu 30 Nov 2017 Rigetti Computing Berkeley, CA Abstract Since the 1950s, Lisp has been used to describe and calculate in cutting-edge fields like artificial intelligence, robotics, symbolic mathematics, and advanced optimizing compilers. It is no surprise that Lisp has also found relevance in quantum computation, both in academia and industry. Hosted at Rigetti Computing, a quantum computing startup in Berkeley, Robert Smith will provide a pragmatic view of the technical, sociological, and psychological aspects of working with an interdisciplinary team, writing Lisp, to build the next generation of technology resource: the quantum computer. ABOUT THE SPEAKER: Robert has been using Lisp for over decade, and has been fortunate to work with and manage expert teams of Lisp programmers to build embedded fingerprint analysis systems, machine learning-based product recommendation software, metamaterial phased-array antennas, discrete differential geometric computer graphics software, and now quantum computers. As Director of Software Engineering, Robert is responsible for building the publicly available Rigetti Forest platform, powered by both a real quantum computer and one of the fastest single-node quantum computer simulators in the world. Video notes I apologize for the poor audio quality. It improves once Robert Smith begins speaking, when we switch to the lapel microphone, but it's still not ideal. In particular, I didn't check that the audio had two channels. That can't be fixed after uploading without changing the URL.