Most people get a kind of glazed look in their eyes, and they start looking at their cellphones,if there is mention of anything to do with high science, especially such stuff as relativity, quantum mechanics, etc.
Returning from Kolkata after attending a quantum conference, conversations went like this:
Oh, hi! Whereve you been?
I was in Kolkata covering a conference on quantum entanglement. It was..
[with glazed look] Wow!
.being attended by big dads like Penrose, Legget, Aspect, Bennett, Ekert and
Great! How was the weather? Delhi has been rotten.
So, here are some interesting non-scientific things about some of the big dads.
One of the most colorful personalities in the conference was Artur Ekert, professor at both Oxford and Singapore, and considered one of the inventors of quantum cryptography (thats encoding information like credit card numbers for communication using quantum properties). While not working on computers, Ekert indulges in his passion for water sports, and wine.
Ekert has written an astonishing article (here) called On Ignorance and Laziness. He argues that both these bad traits can actually lead to more creativity. Sometimes just lazing around you can get a flash of an insight. And, if you dont know about something that everybody else knows about, dont mind you may have a fresh point of view!
Then there was Charles H.Bennet, another father of quantum information processing. He is with IBM Research. He gave a hilarious talk about how information is never lost, about how much information the earth loses to the surrounding space each year and what all this means for us. Some of the scientists didnt like what he said. Too general and playing to the galleries, they said. But for us commoners, it was great.
Bennett has written a paper called A Quantum Love Story (here) where he exp! lores ho w two lovers Alice and Bob who are separated by hostile families, can reach each other only through a hole in the wall that is one atom in width. He has also written about How to flirt with Someone who has Fallen into a Blackhole (here). The answer in both cases is: through quantum entanglement. He has also written on English Phrases with No Meaning, and Infinitely Many Meanings (here). An example: if a toll house cookie is a type of cookie served at toll houses, a toll house cookie delivery truck toll house cookie is a more specialized type of cookie served at toll houses where tolls are collected from trucks delivering ordinary toll house cookies.
Alain Aspect the French physicist is a legend in his own right. Way back in 1982 he devised a superb experiment to prove once for all that quantum entanglement exists. [Quantum entanglement means that two particles continue to share some properties even after separation, and changing such properties in one brings changes in the other even over large distances. Einstein called it spooky action at a distance] With lush graying moustaches that he keeps sharply curled up at the ends, he looks like a military man. Till he gives his radiant smile. Everybody there said that he is probably the best experimental quantum physicist around. Example: he has devised ways by which you can allow only one photon to be emitted and then trapped for studying. A photon is a massless packet of energy that makes up light and other electromagnetic waves. In the conference he was all over the place, asking questions, chasing down latecomers. I asked him how come there are still people who dont accept entanglement. He gave a characteristic French shrug and said, They should devise an experiment which shows that it is not true.
Then, there were professors Sam Braunstein and Tony Sudbery from York University who kept up a patter! of talk , Braunstein delivering straight-faced wisecracks, Sudbery guffawing with bare restraint. Professor Korepin from State University, New York too was a restless soul and a natural comic, though deadly serious during sessions.
All in all, the quantum physicists were a highly entertaining, varied lot, their minds abuzz with curiosity and completely at ease in Kolkata.
[Those interested may read an interview with the legendary cosmologist Roger Penrose online at the TOI-Crest site here]
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