Benjamin "Ben" Schumacher is an American
theoretical physicist
Theoretical physics is a branch of physics that employs mathematical models and abstractions of physical objects and systems to rationalize, explain and predict natural phenomena. This is in contrast to experimental physics, which uses experimen ...
, working mostly in the field of
quantum information theory
Quantum information is the information of the quantum state, state of a quantum system. It is the basic entity of study in quantum information theory, and can be manipulated using quantum information processing techniques. Quantum information re ...
.
He discovered a way of interpreting
quantum
In physics, a quantum (plural quanta) is the minimum amount of any physical entity (physical property) involved in an interaction. The fundamental notion that a physical property can be "quantized" is referred to as "the hypothesis of quantizati ...
states as
information
Information is an abstract concept that refers to that which has the power to inform. At the most fundamental level information pertains to the interpretation of that which may be sensed. Any natural process that is not completely random ...
. He came up with a way of compressing the information in a state, and storing the information in a smaller number of states. This is now known as
Schumacher compression
Schumacher or Schuhmacher is an occupational surname (German, "shoemaker", pronounced , both variants can be used as surnames, with Schumacher being the more popular one, however, only the variant with three "h"s can also be used as a job descript ...
. This was the quantum analog of
Shannon's noiseless coding theorem, and it helped to start the field known as
quantum information theory
Quantum information is the information of the quantum state, state of a quantum system. It is the basic entity of study in quantum information theory, and can be manipulated using quantum information processing techniques. Quantum information re ...
.
Schumacher is also credited with inventing the term
qubit
In quantum computing, a qubit () or quantum bit is a basic unit of quantum information—the quantum version of the classic binary bit physically realized with a two-state device. A qubit is a two-state (or two-level) quantum-mechanical system, ...
along with
William Wootters
William "Bill" Kent Wootters () is an American theoretical physicist, and one of the founders of the field of quantum information theory. In a 1982 joint paper with Wojciech H. Zurek, Wootters proved the no cloning theorem, at the same time as Den ...
of
Williams College
Williams College is a Private college, private liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts college in Williamstown, Massachusetts. It was established as a men's college in 1793 with funds from the estate of Ephraim Williams, a col ...
, which is to
quantum computation
Quantum computing is a type of computation whose operations can harness the phenomena of quantum mechanics, such as superposition, interference, and entanglement. Devices that perform quantum computations are known as quantum computers. Though ...
as a
bit
The bit is the most basic unit of information in computing and digital communications. The name is a portmanteau of binary digit. The bit represents a logical state with one of two possible values. These values are most commonly represente ...
is to traditional computation.
He is the author of ''Physics in Spacetime'',
a textbook on
Special Relativity
In physics, the special theory of relativity, or special relativity for short, is a scientific theory regarding the relationship between space and time. In Albert Einstein's original treatment, the theory is based on two postulates:
# The laws o ...
, and ''Quantum Processes, Systems, and Information'' (with Michael Westmoreland), a textbook on
Quantum Mechanics
Quantum mechanics is a fundamental theory in physics that provides a description of the physical properties of nature at the scale of atoms and subatomic particles. It is the foundation of all quantum physics including quantum chemistry, ...
. Schumacher is a professor of physics at
Kenyon College
Kenyon College is a private liberal arts college in Gambier, Ohio. It was founded in 1824 by Philander Chase. Kenyon College is accredited by the Higher Learning Commission.
Kenyon has 1,708 undergraduates enrolled. Its 1,000-acre campus is se ...
, a liberal arts college in rural Ohio. He is the lecturer in four courses produced by the
Teaching Company
The Teaching Company, doing business as Wondrium, is a media production company that produces educational, video and audio content in the form of courses, documentaries, series under two content brands - Wondrium and The Great Courses. The compa ...
: ''Black Holes, Tides, and Curved Spacetime: Understanding Gravity; Quantum Mechanics: The Physics of the Microscopic World; Impossible: Physics Beyond the Edge;'' and ''The Science of Information: From Language to Black Holes''.
Schumacher earned his bachelor's degree at
Hendrix College
Hendrix College is a private liberal arts college in Conway, Arkansas. Approximately 1,000 students are enrolled, mostly undergraduates. While affiliated with the United Methodist Church, the college offers a secular curriculum and has a stude ...
, where he met his wife, mathematician
Carol Schumacher
Carol Smith Schumacher (born 1960) is a Bolivian-born American mathematician specializing in real analysis, a mathematics educator, and a textbook author. She is a professor of mathematics at Kenyon College, and vice president of the Mathematic ...
.
His Ph.D. is from the
University of Texas at Austin
The University of Texas at Austin (UT Austin, UT, or Texas) is a public research university in Austin, Texas. It was founded in 1883 and is the oldest institution in the University of Texas System. With 40,916 undergraduate students, 11,075 ...
, where his advisers were Richard Matzner and
John Archibald Wheeler
John Archibald Wheeler (July 9, 1911April 13, 2008) was an American theoretical physicist. He was largely responsible for reviving interest in general relativity in the United States after World War II. Wheeler also worked with Niels Bohr in e ...
.
Influential research papers
*
See also
*
Classical capacity
In quantum information theory, the classical capacity of a quantum channel is the maximum rate at which classical data can be sent over it error-free in the limit of many uses of the channel. Holevo, Schumacher, and Westmoreland proved the followi ...
References
External links
Zeroth Order Approximation- Blog by Benjamin Schumacher
The Physics of Impossible Things
Speaker: Ben Schumacher, 03/12/2008, PIRSA - Perimeter Institute Recorded Seminar Archive
{{DEFAULTSORT:Schumacher, Benjamin
Living people
Year of birth missing (living people)
21st-century American physicists
Hendrix College alumni
University of Texas at Austin alumni
Kenyon College faculty
Quantum information scientists
Fellows of the American Physical Society