Politics

Justin Trudeau gave a reporter a quick lesson in quantum computing

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Justin Trudeau
Justin Trudeau.  AP/Cliff Owen

Justin Trudeau, Canada's heartthrob prime minister, answered an apparently sarcastic question from a reporter who had suggested that Trudeau couldn't possibly explain how quantum computing works.

"I was going to ask you to explain quantum computing, but — when do you expect Canada's ISIL mission to begin again, and are we not doing anything in the interim?" the reporter asked at an event at the Perimeter Institute in Waterloo, Ontario.

Trudeau launched into a surprisingly smart and succinct explanation of how quantum computers work.

"Very simply," he said to laughter and applause. "Normal computers work, either there's power going through a wire, or not. It's 1, or a 0, they're binary systems. What quantum states allow for is much more complex information to be encoded into a single bit."

"Don't get me going on this, or we'll be here all day, trust me," he added.

Watch the full video below:

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Jeremy is the founder and editor-in-chief of Cultivated Media, a newsletter bringing readers inside the emerging cannabis industry. Beyond his reporting, Jeremy is studying for his MBA at Columbia Business School and holds a certificate in cannabis pharmacology from the University of Vermont where he studied as a cannabis media fellow. Jeremy was formerly a senior reporter at Insider where he focused on the cannabis industryJeremy has covered the bumpy rollout of Canada's cannabis legalization, the boom in cannabis companies going public (and the resulting fallout), multibillion-dollar mergers between cannabis companies and corporations from other industries, the ongoing health effects from vaporizers, the mislabeling of CBD products, and how the world's largest financial, legal, and political institutions are reacting to and planning for legalization. He has also gotten scoops and broken news on layoffs affecting cannabis companies, startups raising money, banks and law firms building specialized cannabis practices, tracked which companies and individuals are profiting from cannabis, and profiled some of the top executives, investors, and leaders in the industry.He is a sought-after expert on cannabis business and policy, frequently speaking to the media and at industry conferences.