Ways of Computing
Abstract:
We will see how two seemingly impossible tasks can be solved using the magic of randomness and
quantum mechanics.
A. There is a hard Sudoku puzzle. Your friend claims to know the solution. Can they somehow still convince you that they are not bluffing without revealing the solution?
B. We have a device, like a firecracker. If it works properly, it bursts whenever we operate it, and we cannot use it again. If it is a dud it does nothing. Can we find out if the device we have is a dud or not without destroying it?
A. There is a hard Sudoku puzzle. Your friend claims to know the solution. Can they somehow still convince you that they are not bluffing without revealing the solution?
B. We have a device, like a firecracker. If it works properly, it bursts whenever we operate it, and we cannot use it again. If it is a dud it does nothing. Can we find out if the device we have is a dud or not without destroying it?
Speaker Bio
Jaikumar Radhakrishnan is a theoretical computer scientist with research interests in complexity
theory, randomness and computation, quantum information and computation, combinatorics, and
information theory. He obtained his BTech in Computer Science and Engineering from IIT Kharagpur in
1985, and his PhD in Computer Science from Rutgers University in 1991. From 1991 to 2023 he was a
faculty member at the School of Technology and Computer Science at the Tata Institute of Fundamental
Research (TIFR), Mumbai. He is currently a member of the faculty at the International Centre for
Theoretical Sciences (ICTS-TIFR), Bengaluru, and an Adjunct Professor at the Department of Computer
Science and Automation at IISc.