Clear as Quantum

This special episode recounts adventures from the 2024 National Quantum and Dark Matter Roadtrip - a science journey of more than 8000km across Australia! 

The roadtrip has become a significant annual National Science Week event, and this year it drove from Brisbane to Broome across the top of Australia. We visited numerous outback schools to share engaging presentations and hands-on activities, all designed to inspire the next generation of scientists and engineers. We also hosted pub quizzes and a community market stall! An adventure this big leads to plenty of stories, and we share some of our favourite anecdotes. Can you picture scientists enjoying crocodile-defying swims and alien-infested motel ruins?

Has quantum science ever "blown your whole mind", like it did for a student we met in the Northern Territory? Subscribe and share with your friends!

Lasers are everywhere, and David Coutts helps us explore some of the quantum ideas behind these amazing light sources.

David is a professor at Macquarie University and has worked with numerous exciting lasers - including some that produce light in Aussie green-and-gold colours. It's fascinating to realise just how widely lasers are used, even if they're often a bit behind the scenes. They can also be quite exciting, with beams able to drill a hole in your eye or even blast rust off metal! David explains how lasers work and various ways they can be built.

Have you ever thought about lasers powered by nuclear explosions? Subscribe and share with your friends!

Karen Livesey talks about the quantum side of hot glowing things, revealing that quantum has been ubiquitous since the dawn of time.

Karen is an Associate Professor at the University of Newcastle and has taught many students about how hot things glow in process called "blackbody radiation". Not only is this phenomenon thoroughly quantum, but it was actually one of the things that first led to the development of quantum theories in science. This is the first episode in a season exploring ubiquitous technologies that rely on quantum science, and Karen expertly explains kitchen toasters, sunlight, and even humans ourselves!

Do you want to avoid things like the "ultraviolet catastrophe"? Subscribe and share with your friends!

In this live podcast event, we switch up our theme for Season 2 (coming soon) to talk about things that loudly claim to be quantum—but are they?  

Marketing gurus are alert to the appeal of "quantum", and many products use this buzzword to catch attention. Armed with a brief revision of what makes things really quantum, we have a go at working out how various items live up to this label. Have you heard of quantum batteries, dish-washing soap, TVs, shoes, fridges, and even motivational self-help? Some of these are totally valid, and others are more of a humorous stretch. Test your knowledge (or gullibility) against our live audience!

Subscribe to make sure you're ready for Season 2 of Clear as Quantum, which will explore ubiquitous technologies that really do rely on quantum science (sometimes in hidden ways). We'd love to hear your quantum questions - send them to [email protected] and we'll try to answer them in future episodes!

It's been a long time without episodes, but we've "rephased" our podcast to restore coherence! 

Season 2 is coming soon, but this is a bonus episode to catch up on some highlights from the world of Quantum Science. Instead of interview guests we have two new co-hosts to introduce: Tim talks about nano-scale trampoline computers and an air-raid siren in his lab, and Jacinta shares her passion for quantum devices and emergent wormholes. The 2022 Physics Nobel Prize for quantum entanglement is a big discussion point, and we also touch on time crystals and even 2-dimensional time!

Make sure you're ready for Season 2 of Clear as Quantum, which will explore ubiquitous technologies that already have us reliant on quantum science. Subscribe and share with your friends. We'd love to hear your quantum questions - send them to [email protected] and we'll try to answer them in future episodes!

Halina Rubinsztein-Dunlop explains how quantum light can make tiny tractor-beams to move and wiggle things.

Halina is widely recognised for her substantial achievements in moving things with light. "Optical tweezers" are tiny tractor beams that can move and wiggle small particles (larger objects are "safe" because they'd probably burn up before being lifted off a planet into alien spaceships for example). This technique has an enormous number of applications such as wiggling the balance system of zebra fish to study how signals move through brain neurons, and heating gold nanoparticles to burn cancer cells from the inside. Halina was the first female full professor of physics in Australia, and we applaud her active (and ongoing) work to promote and achieve diversity in science.

Whether you're still just trying out physics or have already chosen to like it, subscribe and share with your friends. We'd love to hear your quantum questions - send them to [email protected] and we'll try to answer them in future episodes!

Kirk McKenzie talks about quantum "noise" and some of the most impressively precise measurements ever made.

Kirk brings quantum precision to some of the biggest questions about our planet and universe. He works on laser instruments that have to face up to (and "squeeze") the fluctuations of quantum noise in order to detect gravitational waves - tiny movements of a mirror by a billionth of a millionth of a millimetre! Similar instruments are now in space to measure droughts, floods, and melting polar ice caps (all from low-earth orbit). We are blown away by both the giant size of these experiments and the the minuscule movements they can measure, and Kirk talks about giant speaker horns and hungry Nobel laureates.

Did quantum take you to space, or space lead you to quantum? In either case, subscribe and share with your friends. We'd love to hear your quantum questions - send them to [email protected] and we'll try to answer them in future episodes!

Jacq Romero reveals that "ignorance" can be a quantum superpower.

Jacq has won numerous awards for her research into the shape of photons, and has brought this work into mainstream quantum information. Information is usually encoded in 0s and 1s, but qudits (beyond qubits) could open a more interesting way to encode quantum information across more levels. It's like Schrödinger's cat that's both dead and alive - but you have the whole zoo! No matter how many levels are used, often the interesting and useful states are built by throwing away some information (engineering a kind of ignorance). We touch on the interesting philosophical implications as well as the mundane experimental requirements, and Jacq shares both inspiration and nightmare.

No matter how many letters are in your favourite quantum "alphabet", subscribe and share with your friends. We'd love to hear your quantum questions - send them to [email protected] and we'll try to answer them in future episodes!

Glen Harris discusses whirlpools and the famously quantum property of "spin".

Glen's love of hard challenges has led him to study quantum optomechanics, the art of using light to measure (or cause) extremely tiny mechanical movements. His current projects include measuring the position of a mirror to less than the diameter of an atom, developing inertial sensors for defence applications, and stirring up the worlds smallest whirlpools. It turns out that quantum spin is not the same thing as a whirlpool, but is critical to the commercial storage and transport of liquid hydrogen fuel!

Are you enticed by quantum leaps? Subscribe and share with your friends. We'd love to hear your quantum questions - send them to [email protected] and we'll try to answer them in future episodes!

Mike Tobar explains how quantum "duality" limits ultra-precise measurements.

Mike breaks this standard quantum limit of measurement precision in order to explore things as diverse as dark matter, gravity waves, and radar. Duality is the fact that everything (photons, particles, ..., people, planets) are best described as both particles and waves at the same time - but that's not the only mind-bending idea in this episode. The search for dark matter means looking for a subatomic particle that has cosmic size, and  Mike describes experiments using giant ultra-cold tuning forks that can ring for days! 

Have you ever wondered whether Doctor Who is a quantum particle? Subscribe and share with your friends. We'd love to hear your quantum questions - send them to [email protected] and we'll try to answer them in future episodes!