Influence the Future of "The Quantum Stack"

Vote on a new article series

StableDiffusion v1.5 rendering of the prompt “the future of a newsletter called "The Quantum Stack" ”, courtesy of HuggingFace. I don’t know if this is what my future will actually look like, but it’s kind of neat.

Since launching The Quantum Stack in February of this year, it’s been humbling to both engage in the task of bringing useful knowledge about quantum computing to you and to see this substack grow in doing so. According to the dashboard Substack provides for me, The Quantum Stack is currently read across 29 US states and 58 countries. I am absolutely amazed at this, and grateful for your support. Thank you!

In creating The Quantum Stack, I wanted to provide something more than news articles, “listicles”, or other kinds of articles which can contribute more to noise (than signal) about the field. And I wanted do something akin to a ‘brain dump’ from me to you. Hence the current format: longer-form articles around a given topic, with an emphasis on drawing from the research literature and other openly-available materials to highlight key trends or ideas. Quantum computing is a rather large and fast-moving subject, and I feel an obligation to you to providing clear, useful, and insightful thoughts on it.

This format has been fairly successful, and I plan to keep using it. That said, I am curious if there were other sorts of articles in the same ethos as “Focus on the big picture, distill useful insights, and bring context to the conversation.” which could be written for you.

In talking with my mentor Dr. Jeff Holmes (who encouraged me to launch this, so if this ever ‘gets big’, I will make sure to thank him!), he told me to think about what I could do “that ChatGPT cannot”.

I’ve come up with 4 ideas, and am in want of your input as to which one should be explored and pursued. Though Jeff, I must confess I did work with Google’s Bard chatbot to come up with possible titles for each series!

1. Waves for the Future: Deep-dives on a given research paper through the lens of “Here’s how or why this work has or could move the needle in the field".” These articles would provide context for a paper, explain some of the salient concepts, and share my thoughts on why this work substantially advances quantum computing, or unlocks new and potentially-useful research directions.

2. Quantum Computing Quickies: Shorter-length articles touching on a particular quantum-mechanical or quantum-computing-relevant concept which are intended to be read during a short break in your day. These articles would be more “explainer”-like in nature.

3. The Quantum Journeyman: Medium-length personal essays about my path to, and experiences in, the quantum computing field. I would focus on one particular experience or topic at a time.

4. Travis’ takes: Short-ish articles which are opinion pieces about topics in the field, the industry, the community, etc.

Let me know what your top preference is using the poll below, and if you have any additional thoughts — including ideas for titles! — please leave a comment.

And again…thank you for subscribing, reading, liking, commenting on, recommending, or sharing The Quantum Stack!