The Quantum List Project

As a science journalist, I’ve had the opportunity to speak with some of the world’s foremost quantum physicists, and to try to translate their work for non-scientific audiences. It isn’t always easy.

I’ve experimented with many ways of building bridges between quantum research and everyday life. (One of my favorites was a T-shirt campaign I worked on from which I’ve drawn the images below.)

Here’s part of why it’s so hard to talk about quantum physics:

Consider a classical physics scenario: a pitcher throws a baseball, a batter whacks it high and hard to left field, where an outfielder catches it for an out. This entire transaction (not the right word, I know, but I’m no sports expert) can be explained in terms of mass, velocity, gravity, air resistance, density, momentum, etc.

But it doesn’t have to be explained that way. In fact, that’s likely not how the players understand it – pitcher isn’t thinking about force vectors when he sends the ball on a complex parabolic trajectory into the strike zone. The batter does no math, but still calculates the motion of the ball and guides the bat to connect. Even if the outfielder has never taken a calculus course, she can predict the arc of the ball and run to the right spot to make the play.

In short, classical physics is intuitive to people who know nothing about physics.

Quantum physics – the physics of the subatomic world – is the opposite of intuitive. It’s as though we developed brain architecture and sensory organs to deal with the physical world exclusively at the human scale, and any phenomenon of radically smaller size just blows a mental fuse.

I’ve asked many quantum researchers, “Do you understand quantum physics intuitively the way the rest of us understand classical physics, or do you just trust the math?”

They trust the math (though they understand the math on such a deep level that it’s basically as intuitive to them as throwing a baseball is for your average person). That’s great for them, but not so useful to the rest of us.

Most public outreach from quantum world relies on the same old examples of weird and interesting subatomic phenomena:

1. A quantum particle can be in more than one place (or state) at a time. (Superposition)
2. Particles can move from one place to another without existing in between. (Quantum Teleportation)
3. The very act of looking at a quantum particle changes the nature of that particle. (The Observer Effect)
4. You can measure a quantum particle’s position or its velocity, but you can’t know both at the same time. (Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle)
5. Quantum particles behave both like particles and like waves. (Wave-Particle Duality)
6. The one particle can instantaneously affect another, even if the two particles are physically distant (Quantum Entanglement)

These things are indeed weird and interesting.

Up to a point, and for a limited audience.

This brings me to The Quantum List Project.

I am seeking another way to look at quantum physics that speaks much more directly to everyday life. I am compiling a list of real-life questions that can only be answered via quantum research. The Quantum List Project is a list of those questions. Here’s the start:

• Why is the sky blue?
• Why do we burn coal and make wire out of copper rather than the other way around? (I first heard this question posed by the brilliant Daniel Gottesman.)
• Why can we see through air and water, but not through clouds and milk?
• Why does the sun make black things hotter than white things?
• How does light become electricity? Or heat? Or fuel for a living organism?
• Why can you make a magnet out of iron but you can’t do the same with lead?
• Why do titanium and steel conduct electricity while rubber and wood do not?
• Why can we move through water, but not through earth?

These are some initial questions to get the ball rolling. I’m going to approach some of those quantum physicists I keep mentioning and see what they will add to this list. Your contributions are, of course, most welcome.