Back in the 1950s, theoretical physicists postulated that the kinds of particles we actually see in nature are just the tip of the iceberg. Many other types of particles with weird properties, which they termed paraparticles, were popping out of the math as theoretical possibilities. But as physicists discovered more about the fundamental particles…

While browsing the web, you might not realize that the security of your online transactions is guaranteed by a hard-to-crack math problem called factoring. But this security could evaporate in an instant—if a big enough quantum computer is built. Computers that store information in quantum hardware—like individual ions, atoms or photons—would make …

In this episode, we look back at the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, when impending lab closures were threatening scientific progress and graduate student careers. We sit down with Laird Egan, then a graduate student in physics at JQI, and hear about how he and his lab mates managed to turn their ion-based quantum computer into a remote-contro…

We all know that diamonds can hold great sentimental (and monetary) value. As luck may have it, diamonds—particularly defective ones, with little errors in their crystal structure—also hold great scientific value. The defects have properties that can only be described by quantum mechanics, and researchers are working on harnessing these properties …

In this episode of Relatively Certain, JQI Adjunct Fellow Marianna Safronova and JQI Fellow Charles Clark return to discuss the limits of our understanding of gravity, and how new experiments with atom interferometers may be the key to not only a higher-precision understanding of gravity but also possible new physics.…

In this episode of Relatively Certain, Dina Genkina sits down with JQI Adjunct Fellow Marianna Safronova, a physics professor at the University of Delaware, and JQI Fellow Charles Clark, an adjunct professor of physics at UMD and a fellow of the National Institute of Standards and Technology, to talk about how precision measurements with atoms migh…

In this episode of Relatively Certain, Dina Genkina sits down with JQI Fellow Jay Sau, an associate professor of physics at UMD, and Johnpierre Paglione, a professor of physics at UMD and the director of the Quantum Materials Center.By jqi-comm@umd.edu (JQI Podcast Editor)

Software just might be the unsung hero of physics labs. In this episode of Relatively Certain, Dina sits down with JQI postdoctoral researcher and programming aficionado Chris Billington to talk about his passion project—a piece of experimental control software that’s gaining popularity in labs here at the University of Maryland and around the worl…

Chaos. Time travel. Quantum entanglement. Each may play a role in figuring out whether black holes are the universe’s ultimate information scramblers.In this episode of Relatively Certain, Chris sits down with Brian Swingle, a QuICS Fellow and assistant professor of physics at UMD, to learn about some of the latest theoretical research on black hol…

What's it like living and working in Antarctica? Upon returning from a five-week trip to the Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station, UMD graduate student Liz Friedman sat down with Chris and Emily to chat about her experience. In this episode, Friedman shares some of her memories of station life and explains how plans at the pole don't always pan out.Th…

Deep within the ice covering the South Pole, thousands of sensitive cameras strain their digital eyes in search of a faint blue glow—light that betrays the presence of high-energy neutrinos.For this episode, Chris sat down with UMD graduate student Liz Friedman and physics professor Kara Hoffman to learn more about IceCube, the massive underground …

Trey Porto, a NIST physicist and Fellow of the Joint Quantum Institute, spends his days using atoms and lasers to study quantum physics. But even outside of the lab, he views the world as one great physics problem to tackle. So one morning when he spotted some sunlight dancing across his wall, he couldn’t help but dive in and calculate its movement…

A little more than a hundred years ago, Albert Einstein worked out a consequence of his new theory of gravity: Much like waves traveling through water, ripples can undulate through space and time, distorting the fabric of the universe itself. Today, Rainer Weiss, Barry C. Barish and Kip S. Thorne were awarded the 2017 Nobel Prize in Physics for dec…

More than 300 feet underground, looping underneath both France and Switzerland on the outskirts of Geneva, a 16-mile-long ring called the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) smashes protons together at nearly the speed of light. Sifting through the wreckage, scientists have made some profound discoveries about the fundamental nature of our universe.But wha…

What makes a university physics lab tick? Sean Kelley grabs a mic and heads to a lab that's trying to build an early quantum computer out of atomic ions. Marko Cetina and Kai Hudek, two research scientists at the University of Maryland who run the lab, explain what it takes to keep things from burning down and muse about the future of quantum compu…

Modern computers, which dwarf their forebears in speed and efficiency, still can't conquer some of the hardest computational problems. Making them even faster probably won't change that.Computer scientists working in the field of computational complexity theory explore the ultimate limits of computers, cataloguing and classifying a universe of comp…

In our own galaxy and beyond, violent collisions fling a never-ending stream of stuff at the earth, and astrophysicists are eager to learn more about the processes that produce this cosmic barrage.By jqi-comm@umd.edu (JQI Podcast Editor)

In many situations, chaos makes it nearly impossible to predict what will happen next. Nowhere is this more apparent than in weather forecasts, which are notorious for their unreliability. But the clever application of artificial intelligence can help reign in some chaotic systems, making them more predictable than ever before.In this episode of Re…

This past March, NIST Fellows Joseph Reader and Charles Clark co-authored an article in Physics Today: "1932, a watershed year in nuclear physics."In a small detour from our typical quantum conversation, Charles sat down with Phil to recount some remarkable nuclear physics discoveries made that year. This podcast details the search for an isotope o…

Phil Schewe discusses quantized energy levels with Steve Rolston (JQI) and Wes Campbell (former JQI postdoc and current UCLA professor). The concept of electronic energy levels in an atom has applications everywhere, from sodium lamps to brake lights to quantum information and atomic clocks.By jqi-comm@umd.edu (JQI Podcast Editor)

Can you see a single photon? Does it weigh anything? Emily Edwards talks to Alan Migdall, an expert on single photon technology. Part 2 of three installments on photons.By jqi-comm@umd.edu (JQI Podcast Editor)

Emily Edwards and guests Steve Rolston and Alan Migdall talk about the history of the photon. Photons sometimes behave both like particles and waves. The nature of light has intrigued scientists for centuries. Quantum physics provides clarity in the early twentieth century.By jqi-comm@umd.edu (JQI Podcast Editor)

Phil Schewe discusses how matter, such as atoms and electrons, can display wave-like properties. Steve Rolston describes early scattering experiments. Gretchen Campbell talks about matter waves in the context of modern Bose-Einstein condensate experiments.By jqi-comm@umd.edu (JQI Podcast Editor)

Fifty years ago, Theodore Maiman invented the laser. Steve Rolston and two guest experts describe how the device has utterly transformed quantum information science.By jqi-comm@umd.edu (JQI Podcast Editor)

Modern timekeeping, and the ongoing effort to slice time into ever-thinner pieces, now depend critically on techniques of quantum information science.By jqi-comm@umd.edu (JQI Podcast Editor)

TQW looks at recent research in the weird world of "ultracold" chemistry, where scientists have just discovered that chemical reactions can occur at only a few billionths of a degree above absolute zero.By jqi-comm@umd.edu (JQI Podcast Editor)

A discussion of one of the most eerie aspects of quantum mechanics -- the utter randomness of measurements -- with guest Dr. Chris Monroe of JQI. Topics include the weird state called "entanglement," and the uses of quantum-mechanical systems for generating random numbers for data encryption and other purposes.…

A primer on the fundamental terms and concepts of quantum information science, with guest Dr. Carl Williams, Chief of the Atomic Physics Division at the National Institute of Standards and Technology. Topics include the bizarre condition called superposition, the nature of quantum bits ("qubits") and more.…