Waterloo’s innovation continuum

Waterloo is a pretty awesome place: a mid-sized Canadian community that has both deep Mennonite roots — it’s common to see people getting around by horse and buggy just a few minutes away from the Institute for Quantum Computing — and a leading high-tech sector.  It’s a place where scientists pursue revolutionary new ideas at research centres like IQC and Perimeter Institute, where more than 1,000 high-tech companies bring innovative new technologies to the market, and where a vibrant entrepreneurial ecosystem helps those companies compete on the global stage (the local company Sortable created a great infographic illustrating this path).

We here at IQC recently produced a video that explains how revolutionary quantum technologies are beginning to emerge from our labs, and how the organizations like the Accelerator Centre and Communitech provide invaluable resources that will help Waterloo become the world’s “Quantum Valley.”  Have a look:

How the Hippies Saved Physics

Important scientific progress is achieved through mathematical precision, rigorous experimentation and a no-nonsense dedication to strict methodology, right?  Well, sometimes.  Other times — like in the early-1970s in northern California, for instance — important scientific progress has been achieved through naked hot-tubbing, recreational drug use and a free-spirited dedication to Eastern philosophy and parapsychology.

We here at the Quantum Factory recently sat down with David Kaiser, a professor of History of Science at MIT and author of the 2011 book How the Hippies Saved Physics.

It turns out that cutting-edge research institutions such as the Institute for Quantum Computing are more closely related to the hippie counterculture than one might initially imagine. Unfettered curiosity about the universe and a thirst for discovery are common threads that link quantum research over the decades.

Check out the interview!

A Quantum “Are We There Yet?”

IQC postdoctoral researcher Anne Broadbent (photo credit: Simon Wilson)

By Anne Broadbent, IQC Postdoctoral Fellow

When Christopher Columbus set out to discover a route to the orient, he conjectured that by sailing due West, he would find a more efficient route to the much-coveted treasures of the East. Conventional wisdom cautioned that, in the process, he would fall off the edge of the Earth.

Quantum information scientists are sailing in uncharted waters. How do we know we are going in the right direction? Akin to using a sextant to shoot the sun, we have developed a toolbox to help us evaluate progress and adjust our course when required.

This week, a group of scientists from around the world met for the 2012  “Quantum Characterization, Verification and Validation Workshop” in Bethesda, Maryland. Typical questions being discussed and debated were: “How do we know if we correctly built a quantum device?”, “Can we establish standard benchmarks for quantum technologies?” and “Could a small quantum device be used to verify a larger one?”

Breakthroughs occasionally require bold actions that defy conventional thinking. In the case of quantum characterization, verification and validation, this involves questioning some of the established techniques — such as the ubiquitous yet ill-motivated use of a technique called “maximum likelihood estimation.” The consensus at this workshop is that our common goal should be to somehow master a quantum system’s entropy (a technical term referring to uncertainty), thereby enabling smooth sailing towards our final destination of full-scale quantum computers.

En route toward the elusive quantum computers, however, we will unavoidably reach the point where computational intractability limits our ability to make predictions on quantum experiments (indeed, there is strong evidence that this day is fast approaching). One of the themes in this workshop is how techniques from complexity and cryptography can help circumvent these limitations.

Given the attendees’ varied backgrounds, conflict is unavoidable and even desirable. One memorable debate on verifying quantum devices in the presence of systematic errors ended in an exclamation from one experimentalist that “Numbers are only correct in theory!” A welcome addition to the workshop is the online collaborative site — a feature that has allowed participants to focus on key questions ahead of time, as some discussions were launched a week before the workshop.

Christopher Columbus did not, of course, fall off the edge of the Earth, but instead discovered a wonderful New World. This week’s workshop has aided our navigation toward the new quantum world.

Watch the Quantum Symphony

Mozart, meet Schrödinger.  He’d like to borrow your cat.

Last month, after more than a year of preparations, the Institute for Quantum Computing and the Kitchener-Waterloo Symphony did something very different — a mind-bending mash-up of music and science.

The concert, called “Quantum: Music at the Frontier of Science,” was more than a year in the making, created with input from IQC researchers and symphony music director Edwin Outwater.

Through music, narration and some cool “sound experiments,” the concert explained the parallel histories of music and physics over the past century.

It was beautiful, vexing, daring and weird — everything an exploration of quantum science should be.

In case you couldn’t make it in person, we filmed it.  Check out an abridged version of the concert below, and a “making of” mini-documentary below that.  Enjoy!

IQC on AAASignment in Vancouver

The IQC Booth at the AAAS Annual Meeting. Isn't it a beaut?

Representatives from the Institute for Quantum Computing have gone coastal, taking up temporary residence in drizzly Vancouver for the Annual Meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS).

The AAAS conference is the largest scientific gathering in the world, and it’s happening in Canada for the first time since 1981, so it’s a perfect place to showcase all things quantummy.

IQC Executive Director Raymond Laflamme delivered a public lecture in downtown Vancouver last night as part of a “CFI Dialogues at UBC Robson Square” series. Minds were boggled, awe was inspired, and conversations were sparked. Mission accomplished. IQC professor David Cory also spoke yesterday as part of a special summit that brought together all the Canada Excellence Research Chairs from across the country.  The format only allowed each speaker five minutes onstage — the so-called “pecha kucha” style of presentation — and Cory deftly provided an overview of his research into quantum devices (and he even had a few seconds to spare).

Over the course of this weekend, Laflamme and IQC faculty member Thomas Jennewein will participate in a pair of AAAS symposia, in which they’ll explore how quantum information research is transforming computing and communications.

On a less glamorous front, there’s been some manual labour too.  After several hours of grunting, groaning and a few minor scrapes and bruises, we successfully assembled the IQC booth in the AAAS Exhibition Hall, and it’s ready for when the doors open tomorrow.  There’s a hands-on demo of quantum cryptography, a video slideshow and oodles of reading material all about IQC.  There are even a few IQC yo-yos to give away, but you have to ask really, really nicely to get one.

Keep an eye on IQC’s website and Twitter feed for updates through the whole weekend.

 

The Dancing Poet of Quantum Physics

Question: What do poetry, quantum physics and swing dancing have in common?

Answer: Krister Shalm.

Without those seemingly disparate influences, Krister would not be Krister. In a fascinating talk he delivered during TEDxUW (a University of Waterloo-based offshoot of the popular TED Talks phenomenon), the IQC postdoc described the “three epiphanies” that forever changed his life.

If you think physics, poetry and dance are mutually exclusive passions, think again. And watch this video. By the end of it, you might just be writing sonnets to Schrodinger’s Cat while dancing the Lindy Hop.

Now that you’ve heard Krister talk about dancing, you probably want to see him in action.  You’re in luck! Here’s some footage of him teaching a young pal, six-year-old Indigo, a few moves at the Lancaster Jazz Club in Kitchener, Ontario.  We wouldn’t be surprised if Krister taught Indigo some fundamental quantum mechanics, too.

IQC gives back

Researchers, students at staff of the Institute for Quantum Computing donated more than 680 items to the Food Bank of Waterloo Region bank  year.

We’re all lucky to live and work in this region, and IQC members wanted to give back to the community this holiday season.

The donations were collected over a period of weeks, but for your viewing pleasure we’ve sped up the process in the video below.

Breakthrough of the Year!

Krister Shalm in an IQC optics lab (Photo by Peter Lee, courtesy of the Waterloo Region Record)

Congratulations to IQC postdoc Krister Shalm and his colleagues at the University of Toronto, whose recent research has been named “Breakthrough of the Year” by Physics World!

The discovery, described in a Science paper published by the research team this past summer, provides an unprecedented peek behind the curtain of the famous “double-slit” experiment — a classic demonstration of quantum mechanics.

The research “stood out because it challenges the widely held notion that quantum mechanics forbids us any knowledge of the paths taken by individual photons (in the double-slit experiment),” explained the Physics World article.

Shalm (whom regular QuantumFactory readers may remember from this awesome thing or this awesome thing or this awesome thing), now has another awesome thing under his belt.  So big props to Krister and the entire U of T team for taking us deeper into the quantum world!

What the Higgs is Going On — Live at PI

Researchers Philip Schuster, Natalia Toro, Andy Haas and Damian Pope discuss the Higgs Boson results from CERN

So what, exactly, did researchers at CERN discover — or almost discover — by smashing particles together in a 27km-long tunnel in France and Switzerland? And what are the implications for our understanding of the universe?

A panel of expert researchers at Waterloo’s Perimeter Institute are deciphering and explaining today’s announcement from CERN.

Has the so-called “God Particle” been found? The results are exciting, but there is plenty more science to be done, say the experts.

“The Higgs Boson is the last undiscovered building block of our current model of the universe,” said Damien Pope, moderator of the discussion titled “What the Higgs is Going On?”

“It’s been an exciting day for particle physics,” said panelist Andy Haas of New York University, an expert in research conducted at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC).

Haas explained how the LHC uses large magnetic fields to accelerate particles around the 27-km underground tunnel to “99.9999 per cent” the speed of light. The bunches of 100 billion protons are made to collide at the centre of the experiments, “out of which thousands of particles come flying out.”

There are 20 million collisions each second, however, which makes this research a little “tricky,” Haas said.

The resulting data is crunched by thousands of computers around the world, to determine the make-up of the collisions.  The big question lately is whether the Higgs Boson particle is present in these collisions.

What is the significance of what CERN has uncovered in recent experiments?

The standard model of physics explains the inner workings of the universe, but there have been “missing ingredients” at the subatomic level, explained PI researcher Natalia Toro.  If we don’t include those ingredients, our calculations about the universe don’t quite add up.  Research at the LHC is aimed at finding those ingredients — most notably, the Higgs Boson.

The Higgs Boson is the particle that gives mass to all other fundamental particles, explained Philip Schuster. So the discovery of the Higgs Boson would cement much of our understanding of the universe.

As Haas put it: “The holy grail of particle physics is to find the Higgs Boson.”

Haas explained the complex physics behind the particle collisions, and how they are measured by researchers at CERN.  The measurements seemed to indicate the presence of the Higgs Boson, though it’s too early to say with certainty.

Natalia Toro said “we’re all trying to piece together the results, and ask how consistent the results are. It’s only been a few hours since we saw these results, so we’re still trying to process and internalize these results.”

What’s next is to figure out whether the numbers produced in the experiment are consistent with theoretical predictions, Toro said.

In a sense, she added, “this is the beginning of the end of the beginning.” The next question: “If this is real, if this really is a Higgs Boson, what is its structure?”

What’s certain about the discovery, the experts said, is that nothing is quite certain yet. Plenty more research lies ahead at CERN and around the world to determine the significance of today’s announced results.

“It’s a fundamental idea in science that you never trust a result until it’s repeated,” said Haas.

Schuster insisted there will be no “conclusion” to this kind of research, because it will pose ever-deeper questions to be probed: “We want to turn the Higgs into a tool for studying even higher energy phenomena.”

Toro agreed that researchers are still in for “a long, difficult and really exciting search.”

During an audience Q&A session, one online viewer asked: “What will you do if this is not the Higgs Boson?”

“That would be fantastic,” answered Schuster, explaining that it would indicate something missing from the standard model of physics. For physicists probing these deep questions, it’s always more exciting when results don’t quite match predictions.

“Our degree of confidence (in the new results) is high, but it’s not infinite,” said Toro. “That’s why we need to keep investigating.”

So, one audience member asked, when will we know for sure about the Higgs Boson?

As with most questions in quantum physics, it turns out, there’s a lot of uncertainty about that — but plenty of ambition and optimism.

IQC code-breaker appears in BBC documentary

A new BBC documentary about the brilliant minds who cracked secret Nazi codes, thus significantly hastening the end of World War 2, features interviews with several University of Waterloo scientists including IQC Deputy Director Michele Mosca.

Mosca jumped at the opportunity to be part of Code Breakers: Bletchley Park’s Lost Heroes, because it allowed him to highlight an unsung hero, former uWaterloo professor and cryptography pioneer William Tutte. Because Tutte’s contributions to the war effort were kept a secret by order of British security until 1993, his intellectual heroism has been relatively unknown. Tutte died in 2002 without ever having been truly recognized for his achievements.

“I was very happy to speak about Tutte for the documentary,” Mosca said. “In many ways, IQC grew out of the legacy he created at the University of Waterloo.”

You can watch the entire entire fascinating documentary here (and you can see clips of Mosca and other University of Waterloo faculty starting after about the 50-minute mark).