Tobias Pirkl

What I do

My path into quantum computing started with Skyrim. Sounds weird? Stay with me for a second. In Skyrim, every item has a weight and a monetary value, but your carrying capacity is limited. So which items should you take to get the most value without carrying too much? That’s the knapsack problem! Finding the best combination can be computationally hard. Yet checking whether a given selection stays within the weight limit and reaches a target value is easy. This gap between finding and checking solutions is a central idea in complexity theory. For me, this became a gateway into quantum computing: could quantum algorithms help us tackle such problems faster? Today, I help out with projects in the Team, most of the time with Nina. Alongside this, I explore how quantum effects can be used as resources in games.

Why it matters

At the institute, I help both in teaching and in research. Choosing what to carry in Skyrim might seem like a small problem, but similar decisions appear in logistics, resource allocation, and planning. Understanding which problems are difficult—and how we can tackle them—helps us make better use of limited resources.

Further reading