To celebrate quantum science’s centennial, scientists embrace art and play

Quantum mechanics is a “very good friend to physics and physicists,” said Paul Cadden-Zimansky, associate professor of physics at Bard College and a global coordinator for the International Year of Quantum Science and Technology. And what do you do when a good friend has a birthday? Throw a party, of course.

At the APS Global Physics Summit in Anaheim, “QuantumFest” — a full slate of live performances, escape rooms, games, and art installations — marked the 100th birthday of quantum mechanics.

Smitha Vishveshwara, the event’s director and a professor at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, said QuantumFest was all about having fun. After all, some early progress in quantum mechanics was made by researchers who were playing with new ideas.

“The concepts that come out [of quantum mechanics] are really weird,” she said. “And we like weird — weird makes for fun of all sorts.”

Kicking off the celebration was the Quantum Jubilee, a full-day event that was open to meeting attendees and the public. The jubilee featured performances, live scientific demonstrations, and public lectures, including by Nobel laureates Wolfgang Ketterle and Barry Barish.

Events like QuantumFest “remind us that quantum science isn’t confined to a small group of experts,” said APS CEO Jonathan Bagger in remarks at the event. “It’s happening in the conversations we have, the partnerships we form, the ways we choose to invest, and the performances happening on this very stage.”

These performances included aerial feats provided by Los Angeles-based cirque company Le PeTiT CiRqUe. One show about quantum entanglement, called “Tinguely Entangled” and directed by Lukas Loss, combined live and electronic music with storytelling, poetry, and visuals. And in a play called “Quantum Voyages,” directed by Latrelle Bright, two travelers journey through the quantum realm.

Jubilee attendees also saw live demonstrations of quantum experiments taking place on the International Space Station, including the first Bose-Einstein condensate made by someone under 18 and the first crowdsourced Bell measurement in space.

Marilena Longobardi, QuantumFest director and managing director at the National Center of Competence in Research "Spin Qubits in Silicon” (NCCR SPIN) in Switzerland, explained that quantum mechanics has long been challenging to communicate because its concepts are so difficult to picture. “You can imagine stars, galaxies, or particles, but it’s not easy to visualize quantum entanglement or superposition,” she said.

But now, as principles from quantum mechanics are used in more technologies, and as ‘quantum’ crops up more frequently in society’s vernacular, there are opportunities for quantum mechanics to reach new audiences, she said. “Quantum is also related to the nature of reality — who we are,” added Longobardi. “The questions are so profound that people are intrigued.”

As the curtains came down on the jubilee, those looking for more fun could test their puzzle-solving skills in the “Quantum Salvation” escape room, organized by LabEscape. To beat it, teams had less than an hour to use a quantum computer to find a cure for a highly contagious, memory-zapping virus.

During his introductory demos to would-be escapees, Paul Kwiat, physics professor at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and creator of LabEscape, emphasizes the need for teams to embrace “curiosity, communication, and collaboration,” rather than their scientific knowledge.

“Fun is the most important criteria for the escape room,” said Kwiat. “We also want to introduce people to the quantum revolution. We want [everyone] to understand what quantum [science] is and what it can do.”

During the APS summit, 52 teams — some 400 “agents” — successfully cooled and ran a quantum computer to simulate a complicated virus and its antidote in less than a minute. The classical computer, by contrast, would have needed 3 trillion years to run the same simulation.

Saipriya Satyajit, a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Maryland, completed his first-ever escape room with his lab members and other attendees. He said he enjoyed the experience, even with the team’s nail-biting finish: They completed the simulation with seconds left. “The story around the quantum computer was well-made,” he said. “It was all really fun.”

Other in-person activities at the summit included a “Save the Cat” scavenger hunt, an origami art installation, and a Quantum Playground, where attendees could play quantum variations of games like chess and poker and meet artists involved with the events.

And even though the Global Physics Summit is now finished, the celebration will continue through the rest of IYQ.

“Science, like art, thrives on curiosity, creativity, and exploration,” said Claudia Fracchiolla, the head of public engagement at APS. Events like QuantumFest help make quantum science more accessible. By blending quantum science with interactive activities and the arts, “we are able to connect with the broader public and spark a sense of wonder that brings science to life,” she said.

Vishveshwara, who finds quantum mechanics “absolutely enchanting,” is excited to see programs like QuantumFest take advantage of the creativity, curiosity, and rigor that artists and scientists share.

“The confluence of art and science makes something really powerful,” she added. “The discoveries that you make as a scientist, or as an artist — you perceive it all in a different way.”