Like Archimedes, John Ignatius Cirac also had his eureka moment. It happened in 1994, when, together with Peter Zoller, he started thinking about how to build a computer.
"Quantum physics has gone from being the exotic theory of a few madmen in a laboratory to a social revolution," warns Cirac. The race to win that revolution is dizzying. China has almost unlimited funds to develop quantum systems. The United States enjoys a powerful industry. And the European Union will invest 1,000 million euros in research and development of quantum technologies.