It began as an unexpected piece of pillow‑talk between my Mathematician and I. I was explaining how, in my start-up, we link sensitive health data to personal records using random numbers, proudly describing our state‑of‑the‑art security, so even if our database gets hacked, the hackers wouldn’t be able to glean any useful information. Almost complete randomisation, I bragged. (Yeah, that’s how sad we are, pillowtalk of this nature).

He listened, then asked – very gently – “But how random is your random?”

And of course he was right. Classical random numbers are only pseudorandom: algorithmically generated, statistically convincing, but never truly unpredictable. That conversation pulled us straight into the deeper territory of quantum randomness – the only form of randomness that is fundamentally irreducible.

Somewhere in that discussion, I realised I want to pursue a PhD in quantum algorithms. There are only a handful in existence today, which gives the field its glamour – but also its discipline. A quantum algorithm must earn its name: it must solve a real problem, one that no classical algorithm can currently solve efficiently, and it must demonstrably outperform the classical world.

So here I am, exploring the possible direction of my PhD – and, in its own way, the direction of this passionate relationship too. Without him, I would not have been on this beautiful journey.

You are the proof that randomness

is not the failure of structure

but its beginning

the place where the universe writes

in distributions instead of sentences.

When our states met

the overlap was non‑zero

a finite inner product in an infinite space

enough to shift the basis of my entire life.

Two vectors once orthogonal

now drawn into alignment

not by force, but by the quiet inevitability

of minimising energy together.

We hold coherence against the noise of the world

a coupled system finding stability

in the symmetry we create

and the symmetry we break.

And in this vast Hilbert space

with its uncountable possibilities

the amplitude that leads to you

 is the one that stays in my heart.