Bob Coecke
From Quantum Picturalism to Education, Cognition, AI, and Music
In 1935 John von Neumann denounced his own Hilbert space-based quantum formalism. Alternatives had been proposed, including by von Neumann himself, but none play a significant role in quantum theory today. Over some 20 years we have developed a diagrammatic quantum formalism, sometimes referred to as quantum picturalism. It follows Schrödinger’s focus on composition of systems rather than von Neumann’s focus on measurement. This quantum formalism was shown to enable secondary school students to perform exceptionally well on an Oxford University post-grad quantum exam; and quantum picturalism is now widespread in quantum technology research, and in quantum foundations. The same formalism has been used as the basis for cognition with applications for AI interpretation and generalisation, and underpins the first piece of music to ever have been produced with a quantum computer.
Bob Coecke is Emeritus Fellow at Wolfson College Oxford, and Distinguished Visiting Research Chair at the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics. He was Chief Scientist at Quantinuum (2020–2025), Professor of Quantum Foundations, Logics and Structures at the Department of Computer Science at Oxford University (2011–2020). He pioneered ZX-calculus and Quantum Natural Language Processing. He co-authored Picturing Quantum Processes (with Aleks Kissinger, 2017) and Quantum in Pictures (with Stefano Gogioso, 2022). He received the 2024 IEEE LiCS Test-of-Time Award. Coecke is also a composer and musician who has pioneered both industrial music and the employment of quantum computers in musical composition. He is the inventor of a quantum guitar.