Is Google’s Quantum Breakthrough Just Another Way to Avoid God?
In early December, Google announced a new quantum computing chip called Willow. In a blog post, Quantum AI founder Hartmut Neven boasted that the new chip is so fast, it is evidence for the existence of parallel universes. According to Neven,
[Willow] performed a computation in under five minutes that would take one of today’s fastest supercomputers 1025 or 10 septillion years… It lends credence to the notion that quantum computation occurs in many parallel universes, in line with the idea that we live in a multiverse…
Companies often exaggerate what a product can do, especially when under pressure to offer something game changing. Google, once the undisputed titan of the internet, is quickly losing ground to OpenAI and other tech innovators. Big, bold claims are expected. Still, even by those standards, claiming a product proves parallel universes is bold, to put it mildly.
In fact, two separate claims are being made that need to be examined. First, there is the claim that Google’s quantum chip far surpasses any supercomputer. As theoretical chemist Neil Shenvi wrote, the idea behind quantum computing is not new. Conventional computers calculate using millions of transistors that can be either on or off. Quantum computers take advantage of an effect in quantum physics that allows each tiny “switch” to be on, off, or any combination in between.
However, as more “switches” are added to a quantum chip, errors also multiply exponentially faster than in a normal computer. “Error correction” is a major challenge to the progress of quantum computing. Errors must be kept below a certain threshold for a chip to be of any use. According to computer scientists Alan Woodward at Surrey University, reducing errors below a “magical threshold” is a much better description of what Google actually did in December. As he told the BBC, it’s a threshold “everyone’s been trying to get to for a very, very long time.”
In other words, the idea that Willow smoked the world’s supercomputers by septillions of years isn’t really a fair comparison, in Woodward’s view, since the algorithm Google implemented was designed specifically for quantum computers: “I hesitate to say it’s a ‘breakthrough,’” he told an anchor. “It’s probably more of a major milestone.”
Blockchain entrepreneur Jeffrey Scholz agreed, writing on X that Google’s actual “breakthrough” was underwhelming compared with the headlines. The technology, he wrote, still has a long way to go before it does anything useful: “In my opinion, this whole thing is a regular exercise in technology marketing.”
Google’s other claim is that its quantum chip is evidence for the existence of parallel universes. As Neil Shenvi explained in his helpful analysis, the “spooky” properties of quantum physics are very real, and very much involved in quantum computing. As physicists have shown repeatedly, the typical rules of physics break down at the quantum level. Particles have multiple properties and seem to be in multiple places until measured. As the physicist Erwin Schrödinger famously put it, it’s as if a cat in a box was both dead and alive until you opened it to look.
Quantum computers take advantage of the strange properties of the subatomic world. Some physicists explain the “uncertainty” by proposing that we live in a multiverse that is constantly branching off to form new universes. However, as Shenvi pointed out, that’s not the only or even the most popular explanation. There are, in fact, three major schools of thought on the strange properties of quantum mechanics. Two of them, known as Neorealism and the Copenhagen interpretation, do not require proposing parallel universes.
So, Google’s chip sort of working cannot be interpreted as evidence for parallel universes because its function is entirely consistent with theories in which ours is the only universe. The headlines, as Shenvi put it, are “overblown and sensationalistic.” So-called “quantum woo,” or the vague, magical thinking about all things related to subatomic physics, has become a bad habit in media, pop culture, and even science.
It is also a way to explain away difficult problems like the apparent fine-tuning of the universe. Many find an infinite number of parallel universes preferable to admitting that the improbably well-designed one we observe bears the fingerprints of a Creator. In this sense, the multiverse is more than superhero movie fodder. It’s become a way to keep God at arm’s length.
Google’s new computer chip doesn’t prove the existence of the multiverse. It proves that worldview matters in physics and marketing.
Photo Courtesy: © Unsplash/Prottoy Hassan
Published Date: February 21, 2025
The views expressed in this commentary do not necessarily reflect those of CrosswalkHeadlines.
BreakPoint is a program of the Colson Center for Christian Worldview. BreakPoint commentaries offer incisive content people can't find anywhere else; content that cuts through the fog of relativism and the news cycle with truth and compassion. Founded by Chuck Colson (1931 – 2012) in 1991 as a daily radio broadcast, BreakPoint provides a Christian perspective on today's news and trends. Today, you can get it in written and a variety of audio formats: on the web, the radio, or your favorite podcast app on the go.
