Mục lục
This is a piece of work I want to offer in gratitude to Dr. Nguyễn Đan Quế, whose long-standing guidance—and whose enthusiasm for quantum science, a field he has introduced to Vietnamese novices through a series of articles over the past decade—has been the motivation for my work on civic issues for Vietnam.
That afternoon in Saigon was as hot as any other. Linh, backpack on her shoulders, sat on bus number 08, her head still spinning from a physics assignment on alternating current. She glanced at her phone screen: an English article her computer science teacher had shared in the class chat, titled “A quantum leap for programming.”
“Quantum computing… what on earth is that supposed to be?” Linh sighed. In her class, whenever quantum anything was mentioned, her classmates would burst out laughing: “That’s all Einstein stuff with crazy scientists, no way we can understand it.”
But Linh was different. Since she was small, she had liked tinkering with computers—installing games by herself, fixing Windows errors, then trying out simple lines of code in Scratch. Even so, “quantum computer” still sounded like pure science fiction.
The bus turned at an intersection and jolted to a stop. Linh decided to open the article. It told the story of a scientist named Si Hui Tan, who grew up in Singapore, studied at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), and is now the chief science officer of a company called Horizon Quantum.
The Singaporean scientist recounted that when she was young, science where she lived was considered “a boys’ thing,” so she deliberately worked hard at it to prove she could do it too. Linh couldn’t help but smile. In Vietnam, she had often heard: “Girls should study Literature, don’t grind away at Computer Science and Physics.”
A strange dream in the lab
That night, after finishing her homework, Linh was still troubled by the words “qubit,” “superposition,” and “quantum programming” in the article. She reopened the explanation: a normal computer stores data in bits—either 0 or 1—while a qubit can be 0 and 1 at the same time, in any “in-between” state.
“So it’s like… being awake and asleep at once?” Linh muttered.
She closed her laptop and lay down on the bed. The ceiling fan whirred steadily overhead. Her eyes slipped shut without her noticing.
In her dream, she found herself standing in a long bright white corridor. On the walls, screens showed strings of 0s and 1s pouring down like rain. At the far end was a glass door with the words “Horizon Quantum” above it.
Linh walked up, and the door slid open automatically. Inside was a modern lab: machines glowing with light, large refrigerator like units humming softly. In the middle of the room stood an Asian woman with her hair neatly tied back, focused intently on a screen.
“Excuse me… where am I?” Linh asked shyly.
The woman turned and smiled.
“Hello. I’m guessing you’re… a programmer from the future? Or from another dimension?”
“I… I’m an 11th grade student in Saigon, Vietnam,” Linh blushed and replied to the woman. “I was reading an article about Horizon Quantum, and then… I must have fallen asleep. I have no idea how I got here.”
The woman laughed.
“Well, that’s a coincidence. I’m Si Hui Tan.”
Linh froze.
“You… you’re the physicist from that article?”
“Yes. But you can think of me as a guide. So, you want to understand quantum computers, right?”
Linh nodded vigorously.
When bits become… qubits
Si Hui led Linh to an electronic board. On it, a square appeared, divided into two halves: 0 and 1.
“You already know this: regular computers use bits—either 0 or 1. Everything on the machine—pictures, text, games—is just very long strings of 0s and 1s.”
Linh nodded. “Yes, we’ve just started learning a bit about the binary system.”
“But in the quantum world, we have qubits. Imagine you’re standing on a road—with 0 on the left and 1 on the right. A normal bit has to pick one side; it can’t stand in the middle. But a qubit…” Si Hui flicked her hand.
On the board, a tiny cartoon version of Linh appeared on the road, then suddenly blurred and stretched out into a thin cloud, covering the whole stretch of the road.
“…can exist in a ‘superposed’ state: it can be partly at 0, partly at 1, and at countless points in between. We call that superposition.”
“But… what’s the point of that? It feels a bit… spooky,” Linh said.
“It is a bit spooky,” Si Hui laughed. “But thanks to it, when we have many qubits, we can represent many combinations of 0s and 1s at the same time. A classical computer has to try each combination one by one, but a quantum computer can, in a sense, process a whole ‘forest’ of combinations in a single step—if we design the algorithm well.”
Linh pictured solving a maze: normally, you walk each path, turning back at dead ends. A quantum computer was like having millions of copies of yourself fanning out in every direction at once, then all reporting back which path is fastest.
“But writing programs like that… must be really hard, right?”
“Exactly. Right now, designing quantum algorithms is very hard. You have to understand quantum physics, mathematics, information theory… Not every programmer has studied those. That’s why Horizon Quantum exists: we want to help ordinary programmers write programs for quantum computers using familiar languages.”
Quantum programming without becoming a physicist
Si Hui took Linh over to a desk where a team of engineers sat in front of their screens.
“See? Not everyone here has a PhD in physics,” she said. “Some are software engineers, some are product designers. Our job is to build tools—a platform—so they can write code like they usually do, while the ‘weird quantum stuff’ is hidden underneath.”
“It’s like… when we use libraries in Python, we don’t have to rewrite the whole language ourselves?”
“Exactly. If we want quantum computing to truly help the world—for example in discovering new medicines, optimizing complex financial portfolios, or simulating airflow in aircraft engines—then we need millions of programmers to join in, not just a few hundred physicists.”
On the screen in front of them, Linh saw a simple piece of pseudo code, but Si Hui explained that it could be translated into complex quantum circuits behind the scenes.
“Our work is like building bridges between two worlds: the binary 0 1 world of classical computers and the strange world of qubits.”
Linh thought of her friends in Vietnam: many of them were good at coding, making small games, chatbots, web apps. She suddenly pictured a future where they could write applications that run on quantum computers located in Singapore or Europe—just over the internet.
A Singaporean girl and her worries
During a break, the two sat down by a large window overlooking Singapore’s glittering night sky.
“Miss, the article said you studied at Caltech and then MIT. That must have been unbelievably hard, right?” Linh asked.
Si Hui laughed, then grew more thoughtful.
“It was hard. But honestly, the harder part was fighting my own fears. I struggled a lot with anxiety. When I came to the US, the language, the environment, the pressure… everything was new and heavy. But whenever I read physics—about Newton, about the universe—I felt anchored. There are rules bigger than us, more stable than our emotions. That helped me stay calm.”
Linh was silent. She had her own worries: grades, graduation exams, university entrance, family, the future. Sometimes everything piled up so much that she wanted to give up.
Si Hui continued: “… that science used to be seen as a boys’ thing. Back then in Singapore, people looked at me as odd when I chose physics. Just like you, you’ve probably heard people say ‘Why would a girl study that stuff?’”
“Yes… it’s like that in my class too,” Linh smiled awkwardly.
“But you see, that gave me even more motivation. At first, I studied science as a challenge—to prove I could do it. Later, I realized I truly loved it. You might start out of curiosity or stubbornness, but if it feels right, keep going.”
When physics meets… ballroom dance
Linh remembered a strange detail in the article: Si Hui had joined the ballroom dance team at MIT.
“Miss, how could you do quantum research and… ballroom dancing at the same time?”
Si Hui laughed out loud.
“Because humans aren’t machines. I joined the dance team to build confidence, to learn how to communicate, to meet people. In competitions, you have to talk to your coach, to others, you have to listen and adjust. Later, when I became a chief science officer, those ‘human skills’ were just as important as quantum knowledge.”
“So… being good at math and physics isn’t enough?”
“No. You need to know how to work with others. Quantum computing isn’t something one genius builds alone in a closed room. It takes a whole ‘village’: physicists, engineers, programmers, product designers, people who understand business needs… Only together can we bring the technology into real life.”
Linh thought of her group of classmates: one drew well, one was a great speaker, one had strong logic. If they worked on a small project together—a learning game, an app—maybe that would be a tiny version of that “village.”
The future isn’t here yet… but we must prepare
They walked back toward a massive cooling system, surrounded by pipes and cables.
“This is part of the system that keeps qubits at extremely low temperatures,” Si Hui explained. “Right now, quantum computers are still very fragile—easily disturbed, easily wrong. We already have systems with more than 1,000 qubits, but we’re still far from having enough power to tackle big problems like discovering treatments for deadly diseases, or simulating molecules to create new materials.”
“So… is all of this just some far off future?”
“Not exactly. There’s still a long way to go, but small or early applications are starting to be tested in real-world settings. For example, even a modest speed up in certain drug discovery models run millions of times can have a huge impact.”
Linh reflected. In Vietnam, she heard a lot about artificial intelligence and robots, but not much about quantum. Yet perhaps 10–20 years from now, when she is working, quantum computers in Singapore, Tokyo, or Toronto could be the “backstage” behind the applications people use every day.
“What’s important, do you know?” Si Hui asked.
“It’s… that we have to prepare now?”
“Exactly. Not everyone has to become a quantum expert. But if you roughly understand how quantum computers differ from classical ones, and what kinds of problems they’re strong at, then when you collaborate with others later, it will be much easier to get up to speed. Especially for young people in Vietnam—a developing country—if you can grasp new technologies early, you can create products that stand shoulder to shoulder with anyone’s.”
A message for young people in Vietnam
Linh looked around the lab one more time. She thought of the cramped streets back home, the noisy cafés, the hot classrooms where they still opened old laptops, plugged in chargers, and tried to learn line by line of code.
“Miss, if you could say one thing to Vietnamese high school students, what would you say?”
Si Hui pondered for a moment, then replied slowly:
“I’d say this:
First, don’t let anyone tell you you’re not suited for science just because you’re a girl or because you’re not a ‘genius.’ Science belongs to anyone who is curious and patient.
Second, be patient with yourself — it’s okay if it takes a while to understand some things.
Quantum is hard, programming is hard, English is hard—and that’s okay. Every time you patiently read one more paragraph or try one more exercise, your brain is laying new tracks. One day, you’ll realize how far you’ve come.
Third, find your own ‘village’: teachers, friends, online communities where you can ask, share, make mistakes, and fix them. Big technologies are never the product of a single person.”
Linh was silent. Her throat tightened—a strange feeling in the middle of a dream.
“And what about you?” Si Hui turned to her. “If you told this dream to your friends in Vietnam, what would you say?”
Linh thought for a moment.
“I’d tell them about a Singaporean girl who just wanted to prove she could study science, then went to MIT, did quantum research, and now builds bridges for programmers all over the world. I’d tell them that ‘quantum’ isn’t magic, and it’s not something reserved only for superhuman minds, but a new tool that many ordinary people like us are helping to build.”
“And…” she smiled, “I’d tell them that if they feel scared, anxious, or not good enough, there was once a scientist named Si Hui who felt that way too. But she kept going, step by step.”
Si Hui looked at Linh and nodded.
“That’s enough,” she said.
Waking up—and starting a new day
The clatter of a garbage truck in the alley woke Linh. She sat up with a start, her heart pounding, her head full of words: qubit, superposition, Horizon Quantum, Singapore, MIT, ballroom dance.
Her laptop was still open on the desk. The article was right where she had left it, in the part describing how Tan and her colleagues were building a team of scientists, engineers, and designers to prepare software for the day when quantum computers truly reach their potential.
Linh pulled up a chair and opened a new file, naming it “A Story about a Quantum Leap.”
She began to type—not with dry formulas or rigid definitions, but with a story: about a Singaporean girl who wanted to prove that girls could do science, about late night anxieties soothed by physics books, about ballroom dances that built her confidence, and about a lab where invisible bridges were being built between the binary 0 1 world and the mysterious world of qubits.
At the end of the page, Linh added a short note to herself and to young people in Vietnam:
“We may never become quantum scientists. But if we’re willing now to learn a bit of math, a bit of physics, a bit of programming, and keep a curious heart, then maybe one day, when quantum technology knocks on Vietnam’s door, we’ll be confident enough to open and embrace it.”
Outside, the sun was up. The sound of students riding bicycles and motorbikes to school filled the street. Linh saved the file and put it in a new folder titled “Future – Quantum.”
She slung her backpack over her shoulder and smiled to herself:
“Alright, time for school. Maybe today’s test will be a little less ‘quantum’ than last night’s dream.”
Phạm Đình Bá
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Source: This story was based upon an article from the following source: Stephanie M. McPherson, “A quantum leap for programming,” on Si-Hui Tan, MIT Technology Review, 06/01/2026. https://www.technologyreview.com/2026/01/06/1129058/a-quantum-leap-for-programming/[technologyreview]
