Quantum mechanics: Bizarre world at atomic scales

Sunday May 1st, 6 pm-8pm

Venue: live at Oskar Kleins auditorium of Stockholm University and streamed over Zoom (registration is required)

Lecturers: Dmytro Volin (quantum mechanics) and Jakub Mareček  (recent advances in quantum computing)

Watch on Youtube

PDF of the lecture

In preparation, we used videos from:

Brown Physics Demos demonstrating double slit with single photons (check other experiments also!),

Schrödinger's Smoke project,

Walking Droplets project,

as well as generated our own:

Double slit simulation from 2D Schrödinger equation ,

An illustration for Feynman path integral

We also suggest:

Popular discussion of double-slit experiments on Veritasium channel

Many videos on quantum mechanics and not only on Sabine Hossenfelder's channel

Contents of the lecture

Intro: Scales in Nature

• What do people perceive as 'too big' or 'too small'? 

• From atomic distances to galaxies: how our perception of reality changes. 

• The main conclusion for Quantum mechanics: we must upgrade our intuition.

Part I: Quasi-classical perspective

Trying to keep the classical ideas of particles and waves and brew them into the quantum world description. 

Main paradigms

• Observer problem (is there something when we can't observe it?)

• Double slit experiments - wave behaviour of electron particles

• Path integral approach - the possibility of many choices, probabilistic interpretation

• Actual experiments, including interference patterns in experiments with large molecules

• Brief history of wave and particle views, since the time of Newton

• Low-intensity light experiments - particle behaviour of electromagnetic waves

• Schrödinger equation and main conclusion: 'Propagates as a wave, observed as a particle'

Comments on pilot-wave interpretations

• hydrodynamic interpretation and its usage for image generation (Schrödinger's smoke)

• experimental visualisation through walking droplets (disclaimer: this experiment does not explain all QM features, but has some)

Coffee break where you can chat with our team. People on zoom can chat as well.

Part II: Hilbert space perspective

Entanglement

• Idea of spin (and finite-dimensional Hilbert spaces)

• Einstein-Rosen-Podolsky paradox

• Bell's inequality: experimental confirmation of the absence of local hidden variables.

• Probabilistic nature of QM, the question of choice and will

• Quantum teleportation

Quantum computing: 

Guest lecture by Jakub Mareček, a researcher in quantum computing technology and former member of IBM Research.

             (Image courtesy of https://www.lastwordonnothing.com/2010/09/21/abstruse-goose-life-paths-integrated-over-time/)