Participants include John Martinis of the University of California, Santa Barbara; Raymond Laflamme of the University of Waterloo in Canada; John Preskill of the California Institute of Technology; and Charles Marcus – who was at Harvard when the recording was made but who is now at the Niels Bohr Institute in Denmark.

While most experts agree that practical quantum computers are some way off in the future, I also spoke to Geordie Rose, who is co-founder of Canada’s D-Wave Systems, which claims to have already built – and sold – quantum processors. While Rose says that the firm’s processors are currently being used to develop practical commercial applications, he also thinks that ultimately they may even have more artistic uses.