Nima Arkani-Hamed Public Lecture: Quantum Mechanics and Spacetime in the 21st Century

Dr. Nima Arkani-Hamed (Perimeter Institute and Institute for Advanced Study) delivers the second lecture of the 2014/15 Perimeter Institute Public Lecture Series, in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada.

Held at Perimeter Institute and webcast live worldwide on Nov. 6, 2014, Arkani-Hamed's lecture explores the exciting concepts of quantum mechanics and spacetime, and how our evolving understanding of their importance in fundamental physics will shape the field in the 21st Century.

Perimeter Institute Public Lectures are held in the first week of each month.

More information on Perimeter Public Lectures: http://ow.ly/DCYPc

 

Subir Sachdev Public Lecture: Quantum Entanglement & Superconductivity

Dr. Subir Sachdev (Perimeter Institute and Harvard University) delivers the kick-off lecture of the 2014/15 Perimeter Institute Public Lecture Series, in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada. Held at Perimeter Institute and webcast live worldwide on Oct. 1, 2014, Sachdev's lecture explores the fascinating and surprising connections between quantum mechanics, the phenomenon of superconductivity, and string theory.

Perimeter Institute Public Lectures are held in the first week of each month. More information on Perimeter Public Lectures: http://ow.ly/Cdd8y

 

What can Schrödinger's cat teach us about quantum mechanics? - Josh Samani

The classical physics that we encounter in our everyday, macroscopic world is very different from the quantum physics that governs systems on a much smaller scale (like atoms). One great example of quantum physics’ weirdness can be shown in the Schrödinger's cat thought experiment. Josh Samani walks us through this experiment in quantum entanglement.

 Lesson by Josh Samani, animation by Dan Pinto.

 

Is a quantum wavefunction a real thing?

In less than 100 seconds, Daniel Mortlock ponders whether the quantum wavefunction could be more than a mathematical function.

 

What is quantum gravity?

In less than 100 seconds, Leron Borsten explains that general relativity and quantum mechanics are very successful in their own domains, but the jury is still out on how to unify these two great theories of physics.

 

Why do neutrinos change flavour?

In less than 100 seconds, Kenneth Long describes neutrinos in the context of quantum mechanics, explaining how they can oscillate between varieties.

 

Quantum Computing: A revolution in bits

A computer that operates using the effects of quantum mechanics could make today's best computers seem like primitive toys.

 This film takes you to the University of Sussex in the UK, where a group of physicists is developing a promising type of quantum computer based on trapped ions. If the scientists can one day produce a practical, scaled-up version of their quantum machine, it could be used to address some of the most complicated problems in science.

 

MAGNETS: How Do They Work?

How do magnets work? Why do they attract and repel at long distances? Is it magic? No... it's quantum mechanics, and a bit more, as we explain in this, the longest MinutePhysics video ever.

 

 Magnetism seems like a pretty magical phenomenon. Rocks that attract or repel each other at a distance - that's really cool - and electric current in a wire interacts in the same way. What's even more amazing is how it works. We normally think of special relativity as having little bearing on our lives because everything happens at such low speeds that relativistic effects are negligible. But when you consider the large number of charges in a wire and the strength of the electric interaction, you can see that electromagnets function thanks to the special relativistic effect of length contraction. In a frame of reference moving with the charges, there is an electric field that creates a force on the charges. But in the lab frame, there is no electric field so it must be a magnetic field creating the force. Hence we see that a magnetic field is what an electric field becomes when an electrically charged object starts moving.

 

Natthi Sharma: Making Sense of the Weird Quantum Reality at TEDxEMU

The audience will first be exposed to experimental results on electrons/photons that require for their explanation very counter-intuitive concepts, such as being here and there or spinning up and down at the same time, underlying quantum physics. Very special visual analogs will be used --- analogies are always useful to comprehend new in terms of known --- to comfort the intellectual paralysis of our (predisposed) mind in understanding the co-existence of mutually exclusive attributes in the microscopic quantum world.

 Dr. Natthi Sharma is professor of physics at Eastern Michigan University since 1986.

 

Planck Length - Sixty Symbols

The planck length is unimaginably small. More physics videos at http://www.sixtysymbols.com/

 

How To Make a Quantum Bit

We have looked at how a transistor works, the fundamental unit of classical computers, and how a quantum computer works in theory, taking advantage of quantum superposition to hold exponentially more information than classical computers. Now we look at the practical side of making a quantum bit, or qubit. How do you put it in a state where it is stable? How do you read and write information on it? These processes are described for a solid state qubit - a phosphorous atom in a silicon crystal substrate. Both the electron and the nucleus of the phosphorous atom can be used as qubits.

 

The basics of the Higgs boson - Dave Barney and Steve Goldfarb

View full lesson: http://ed.ted.com/lessons/the-basics-of-boson-dave-barney-and-steve-goldfarb

 In 2012, scientists at CERN discovered evidence of the Higgs boson. The what? The Higgs boson is one of two types of fundamental particles and is a particular game-changer in the field of particle physics, proving how particles gain mass. Using the Socratic method, CERN scientists Dave Barney and Steve Goldfarb explain the exciting implications of the Higgs boson.

 Lesson by Dave Barney and Steve Goldfarb, animation by Jeanette Nørgaard.

 

The Quantum Conspiracy: What Popularizers of QM Don't Want You to Know

Google Tech Talk
January 6, 2011
Presented by Ron Garret.

 Richard Feynman once famously quipped that no one understands quantum mechanics, and popular accounts continue to promulgate the view that QM is an intractable mystery (probably because that helps to sell books). QM is certainly unintuitive, but the idea that no one understands it is far from the truth. In fact, QM is no more difficult to understand than relativity. The problem is that the vast majority of popular accounts of QM are simply flat-out wrong. They are based on the so-called Copenhagen interpretation of QM, which has been thoroughly discredited for decades. It turns out that if Copenhagen were true then it would be possible to communicate faster than light, and hence send signals backwards in time. This talk describes an alternative interpretation based on quantum information theory (QIT) which is consistent with current scientific knowledge. It turns out that there is a simple intuition that makes almost all quantum mysteries simply evaporate, and replaces them with an easily understood (albeit strange) insight: measurement and entanglement are the same physical phenomenon, and you don't really exist.

 Dr. Ron Garret was an AI and robotics researcher at the NASA Jet Propulsion Lab for fifteen years. He was the lead engineer on the first release of AdWords, and the original author of the Google Translation
Console.

 

Feyman: The Quantum Mechanical View of Reality

A  workshop with Richard Feynman.

 

Parallel Universes: Many Worlds

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Single Photon Interference

What happens when single photons of light pass through a double slit and are detected by a photomultiplier tube? In 1801 Thomas Young seemed to settle a long-running debate about the nature of light with his double slit experiment. He demonstrated that light passing through two slits creates patterns like water waves, with the implication that it must be a wave phenomenon.

 However, experimental results in the early 1900s found that light energy is not smoothly distributed as in a classical wave, rather it comes in discrete packets, called quanta and later photons. These are indivisible particles of light. So what would happen if individual photons passed through a double slit? Would they make a pattern like waves or like particles?

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Quantum Lightswitch: A New Direction in Ultrafast Electronics

Joshua Turner, a staff scientist at SLAC's Linac Coherent Light Source X-ray laser, delivered the Jan. 29 SLAC Public Lecture, "Quantum Lightswitch: A New Direction in Ultrafast Electronics."

Turner's talk highlighted research in manipulating atoms' electrons that could revolutionize computer data storage and retrieval. While today's computer hard drives rely on tiny magnets, which are a result of the direction in which electrons spin, Turner explained the novel concept of "orbital electronics," and how it could speed up data storage and retrieval thousands of times by controlling how electrons orbit the atomic nucleus. He also described how experiments at LCLS, which can identify ultrafast magnetic properties on the scale of atoms and molecules, may light the way toward such technology breakthroughs.

Turner received a doctoral degree in experimental condensed matter physics from the University of Oregon, a master's degree in physics from Boston University, and bachelor's degrees in physics and mathematics from the University of California, Santa Barbara.

Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle Experiment

Heisenberg's uncertainty principle tells us that it is impossible to simultaneously measure the position and momentum of a particle with infinite precision. In our everyday lives we virtually never come up against this limit, hence why it seems peculiar. In this experiment a laser is shone through a narrow slit onto a screen. As the slit is made narrower, the spot on the screen also becomes narrower. But at a certain point, the spot starts becoming wider. This is because the photons of light have been so localised at the slit that their horizontal momentum must become less well defined in order to satisfy Heisenberg's uncertainty principle.

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Peter Kruger talks about the 2012 Nobel Prize in Physics won by Serge Haroche and David Wineland.

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2012 Nobel Prize: How Do We See Light?

What was the 2012 Nobel Prize in physics given for? Capturing a single photon of light!
Congrats to Serge Haroche and David Wineland

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