Foreign Affairs

Canadian Prime Minister Awes International Media With Grade-School Knowledge Of Physics

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The international media fawned over Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau for his supposedly intelligent remarks at a press conference Friday about quantum computing, which according to many outlets, makes him more than “just a pretty face.”

But in reality, Trudeau seeded the question in advance and then gave nothing more than a grade-school answer to reporters, based on material he had just learned during a tour of the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics in Waterloo, Ontario, according to political commentator J. J. McCullough. At Friday’s tour, he spoke with scientists and then proceeded to give a short speech on government funding for science.

During the press conference, Trudeau practically begged the audience to quiz him later on the knowledge he had just picked up at the Perimeter Institute, eager to shake off haunting allegations that he comes up a little short in the intellect department.

“You don’t have to be a geek like me to appreciate how important this work is,” Trudeau said. “Although I have to tell you, when we get to the media questions later I’m really hoping people ask me how quantum computing works because I was excited to deepen my knowledge of that this morning.”

Trudeau was so ready to display what he had learned at the institute, that he brushed off difficult questions about Canada’s involvement in the campaign against Islamic State and repeated a basic, introductory-sounding explanation of quantum computing.

“Morning sir, I was going to ask you to explain quantum computing but.. [trails off as audience laughs] When do you expect Canada’s ISIL mission to begin again and are we not doing anything in the interim while we prepare?” a reporter asked.

“OK, quite simply, normal computers work by . . . ,” Trudeau said, as the audience laughed.

“No, no, don’t interrupt me, when you walk out of here you will know more — well no, some of you will know far less — about quantum computing,” Trudeau said.

“A regular computer bit is either a one or a zero, either on or off. A quantum state can be much more complex than that, because as we know, things can be both particle and wave at the same time and the uncertainty around quantum states allows us to encode more information into a much smaller computer,” Trudeau said.

“So that’s what’s exciting about quantum computing,” he added.

The international media has painted the incident as a smack down by Trudeau of an apparently condescending reporter, who assumed the prime minister wasn’t worth much more than his looks.

The Toronto Star stated that Trudeau “showed people at the Perimeter Institute he has computer-geek talents previously little known.” CNN titled a piece on the press conference, “Trudeau gets snarky question, wows crowd.” Reuters wrote a piece titled, “Hunky Justin Trudeau shuts reporter down on quantum computing.”

The media chose to ignore the context of Trudeau’s remarks, painting him in the most favorable light possible.

Despite Trudeau’s reference to himself as a “geek,” he does not mention any interest in computers in his memoir. Rather, he maintains a strong interest in science fiction like Star Wars, which many mistake for an interest in science, though the two, of course, are quite different.

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