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Retelling of Chapter 2 from A Concise History of Switzerland by Clive H. Church and Randolph C. Head (Cambridge University Press, 2013, ISBN 978-0-521-14382-0). If you find this interesting, grab the book. Well worth reading.

The setup

Around 1400, the Swiss Confederacy was still a loose collection of rural and urban communes. Some mutual defense pacts. A few battle victories. Nobody in Europe took them seriously as a political force.

Book: Quantum Supremacy: How the Quantum Computer Revolution Will Change Everything Author: Michio Kaku ISBN: 978-0385548366

Chapter 2 of Quantum Supremacy takes us through the entire history of computing in about 30 pages. Kaku starts from the ancient Greeks and goes all the way to Alan Turing and the birth of artificial intelligence. For engineers who work with computers every day, this chapter is a solid reminder of how we got here and what fundamental limits still apply to everything we build.

This is the retelling of Chapter 1 of A Concise History of Switzerland by Clive H. Church and Randolph C. Head (Cambridge University Press, 2013, ISBN 978-0-521-14382-0).

Switzerland as we know it did not exist until pretty late. Modern historians agree that “the Swiss” as a concept only appeared in the 1400s. The actual state showed up in the 1800s and took its final shape in 1848. Before all that, there was just a fragmented region of mountains, valleys and small towns. No unity. No shared identity. Just geography and local politics.

Something that blew my mind when I first read it: William Tell never existed. The guy with the crossbow, the apple on the kid’s head, the whole story. Made up. Yet his story, or the story people told about him, repeatedly changed the course of Swiss politics for centuries.

That is the opening punch of this Introduction chapter. Sets the tone for the whole book, really.

Not a natural country

Most countries have something obvious holding them together. A shared language. A dynasty. A dominant religion. Switzerland has none of that. Four languages. Split between Catholics and Protestants. No royal family ever united them. The authors make a strong point: Switzerland is a Willensnation. A nation built on will. On the decision of its people to stay together.

Book: Quantum Supremacy: How the Quantum Computer Revolution Will Change Everything Author: Michio Kaku ISBN: 978-0385548366

Chapter 1 of Kaku’s book opens big. Google’s Sycamore quantum computer solved a math problem in 200 seconds that would take a classical supercomputer 10,000 years. Then China’s Quantum Innovation Institute claimed their machine was 100 trillion times faster than a regular supercomputer. IBM’s VP called quantum computing “the most important computing technology of this century.”